Hi Tim,
I am aware that the the gift of a rule book was a tongue in cheek gesture and I took it as such,(I did actually need one!) but if you were there at the time (and had been in my shoes)you would maybe thought it not the very best of humour. I was far from being the only one in the room with that sentiment.
My main concern has always been not so much the loss of the worlds, but of the picture that has somehow been painted of us as a bunch of hoons on the water and perpetuated in the history section of this site and by Jim's comments above. I just don't get it.
A little history, due to personal reasons I was not able to get to the regatta until the evening before the first heat, having not stepped on the boat for quite some time and being a bit out of sorts after the trip from Australia, the first race was predictably shabby, the toe straps even came undone and I went overboard, you name it, it happened, maybe we got in someones way when we were upside down, I don't know, but we came in 19th and I can't recall any bad vibes against us, we were hardly a threat at that stage.
After that it was more settled, the boat was magic, we just started and sailed away, we had two firsts, two seconds and two thirds for the rest of the regatta (losing one of the thirds to the protest)
What I am trying to say is, that except for the race where we had to come from behind we really had little contact with many boats after maybe 1 min after the start, so I am still at loss over Jim's comments about issues in other races!
Anyway, yes we lost the regatta, lack of preparation (causing the 19th place at the start of a regatta, all we would have needed was a 16th and the protest wouldn't have changed the result) and allowing ourselves to be drawn into a position to be vulnerable to protest was our downfall.
The Kiwis put in the preparation and managed to stay out of trouble, and that's the lesson team.
Think we'll put this one to bed now and talk about more constructive things.
Catch you all later,
Phil