It's All Over

The closing ceremony at Wrigley Field was a great finale. It was short, entertaining and Cindy Lauper was wonderful. She came out dressed as a rainbow Statue of Liberty and sang True Colours and Shine. Wrigley Firld is an iconic baseball field in Chicago so many of the US athletes were calling thier friends and family and saying "I'm on first base.." etc. Here we all are at the closing, plus us with Robert from the Belmont Sailing Club and Kim our excellent team manager.

More Pictures

Here are some shots of us being towed out for the final race. Stay tuned for more adventures and our Twenty 10 sailing friends. And support ACON!!

Team Australia

While waiting for the decision to start or not to start a final race we took the opportunity to photograph all the teams together. Nic Bailey, David Ford and Dale Collings are the Southerly Busters, the 3 Cheese Fagotinis are Julie Owens, Julia Pitcher and Meredith Campbell and their ground support is Megan. Plus us of course.

Then today we went for a cruise up the Chicago River to look at the architecture and the harbour. Afterwards we found a building that has bits of stone, carvings etc from all over the world. A bunch of kleptomanics obviously built it. Julie and Dayna are standing under the Sydney Opera House.

We made the final!

The last heat on Wednesday was cancelled because of a predicted thunderstorm and so we weren't to know til eleven on Thursday if we had made the cut. The storm finally arrived early Thursday. After a tense morning waiting for the lightening to clear and the wind to pick up Chuck, the PRO, sent the fleet out at 1pm. Dayna and Anni answered the call for race boat assistance. 2 hours later, still with no wind, the fleet was towed back to shore.Chuck was very keen to get at least one race in so at about 5pm he cancelled the heat and based the finals selection on the first heat only. That meant we were in for sure. We got out on the course by 6 and the race started at aboiut 6.20, 10 minutes before racing had to be cancelled for the day. The breeze was about 4 to 5 knots - just enough. It was a sudden death final, one race only. We finally did a good start and eventually finished sixth and were very happy.

The 3 Cheese Fagotinis won a close fought battle for gold and the Southerly Busters came third in the spinnaker race.

Check back later for photos.

Not such a good day

Yesterday was bit disappointing with a 4 a 3 and a 3. Gear breakage put paid to our good start in the third race when the jib car track pulled off the deck. Dayna did a fabulous job of lashing it down but we lost time and our second placing. Unfortunately in spite of the suggestion at the skipper's meeting that redress might be available for gear failure the fact that there was no mention of it in the race instructions meant our request to the jury was disallowed.

A predicted thunderstorm forced the cancellation of the final heat yesterday so until that is completed this moring - if it is, as the thunderstorm is happening now instead of yesterday - we don't know if we have made the finals.

But we have been getting to know some of the other teams. Those that weren't in Sydney for the Gay Games all say they want to come to visit. We have been encouraging them all to come for the ASCC Annual Regatta next year.

Third, Second and Second!

Chicago has earned it's windy city name tag. Another day with 20 knots on the lake. We set off being towed out because the outboards were taken off the boats. And brand new sails put on. The breeze was building and we were very glad we were close to the weight limit. The starts were a bit odd to begin with but the race committee got the hang of it after one general recall for their mistake not ours and one start we are sure was a six minute sequence instead of five.

As the waves got up to three feet and more, rather large in a small boat, we sailed three races, the last one of only two legs instead of four as we had run out of time. And we scored a thrid and two seconds so we are in second place in our heat so far. Tomorrow we sail the second half of the heat with another three races. The wind is predicted to be simmilar and rain is expected. Just as well we brought our wet weather gear.

Onwards and upwards.

Here are a picture of the harbour before the wind started, and Julie, Karina and one of our excellent hosts, Kim, at the Bean in Millenium Park. Also a shot of the fountain with the faces of Chicago on it.

Another great training session! 20Knot winds and a broken mainsheet shackle made it quite exciting, but we learned a lot and are looking forward to our 9am start tomorrow morning - not.

For those of you who can get NBC Channel 5 they are broadcasting the Games live.
http://www.nbc5.com/gaygames/index.html

Gay Games Begins

The opening ceremony was held on a hot and sweaty night. With the other 12,000 athletes we queued up and walked onto Solier Field, an iconioc venue to many Chicago citizens. Dayna carried the Team Sydney banner onto the field, what a star! There are two other Australian sailing teams here with us - and about 300 other Aussies. There was a magical moment when the lights were turned out and we were all holding different coloured lights so the whole field looked like a shining rainbow flag. (Photos later)

Today we had our first training session on the lake. It isn't so different but less wind interference since there are no islands, headlands etc to get in the way. The heat is still really something with many apologies from the locals who say "you should have been here last week...!!


But we feel like superstars with so many people coming up to us to say "we love you Australians.. ". We've even been offered free drinks... but of course we are still in training. We passed the weigh in with flying colours and then went off to celebrate with a huge US breakfast.

Our hosts are fabulous, driving us around, keeping us fed and watered. Wonderful ground support.

More training tomorrow and then our first race on Tuesday at 9am.

we've arrived!

The team is all in the US now. Anni, Julie and Karina are in Chicago and Dayna gets here this afternoon. Yesterday we registered for the Gay Games and then got our first glimpse of Lake Michigan - no wind! And we saw Millenium Park with the big stainless steel bean and the foutain that screens the faces of many Chicagoans.

Trophies for the team already

Although not strictly speaking Sisterhoodlums business the team, along with sometimes co-skipper Jenni Neary, were awarded two trophies at the ASCC's Annual dinner last night. In our regular boat Cheshire Cat we came third in the Spring series and second in the Combined series.



ACON CEO Stevie Clayton, who gave a wonderful speech on the night - in part about the value of community, presented the trophies. She said another sporting team sponsored by ACON, the Convicts rugby team, won gold overseas so this could be an omen. Third and Second here and Gold in Chicago???

We have also featured in the Sydney Star Observer and Lesbians On The Loose so those of you who are Sydneysiders can see us in print.

Happy Birthday Karina!

Sunday was a big day for the team. It was Karina's birthday (Go Girl!)

Birthday girl (r) with Julie

and Dayna left for the US for some pre Games reunions with family and friends. And we are all trying to work out where to find accurate scales so we can be sure we are collectively under the maximum weight limit. Dayna tried three all next to each other at Bing Lee and there was a 5 kilo difeference between them. She's now promised not to eat too much American icecream and chocolate til after the regatta.


Bad Hair Day for Dayna

Chicago here we come!

Saturday was our last training day on Sydney Harbour and it was a perfect winter day - sunny with a light breeze between 5 and 12 knots. It was a little cool but it didn't stop us wearing our new team shirts. Several people commented on how smart we looked! In fact the guy in Sturrocks Chandlery thought we'd been racing we looked so coordinated.



We now have tuning guides coming out our ears thanks to David, Nic and Dale (another ASCC team competing in the Gay Games spinnaker division) and the joys of the internet. Julie has given us all plenty of reading material for our various plane trips. And just in case we bought a protest flag. Hopefully we won't need it.