King's Cup practice day: a day for practising surfing...

Surfing action on Kata beach

Down on the beach at 09:00 for practice and practice race, to find the results of last night's storm, big swells and a fine day for surfers.  We sat at the south end at the Starbar, watching the swells and surfers out having fun.  No day for the Longtails to take us out and a bit of a challenge for our dinghy.... Practice race cancelled at 10:00.
Still, we managed to get out around noon in our dinghy, half of us, to try out the new sails: Bicky, G, Strompfy, TC, Noel, Oscar and me.
The new 3Di Main and 3DL J1 jib looking fine and a testament to the Norths' boys, who managed to build it, in the US and NZ, and deliver it, to Langkawi and thence here to Phuket, ready to go, in just a few weeks. Brill!
Not much breeze out there, 5-6 knots, and swells.  Like nothing we've seen before in Thailand, in five times of coming, and for others in many more years of coming.  Talk of global warming....
We've a depleted fleet this year, only half of last year's, but all the main competitors are here and give us the job ahead: Titania of Cowes, Baby Tonga and the new X-55, our sister boat, Pine Pacific will all make it a real competition.
Off to the Skippers' briefing....
Day fine now.  Hopefully less of a swell in the morning, means the Longtail boats can come to shore to take us out and we have some fine racing tomorrow.