Well that got quite messy in the end. The final day arrived with a good breeze from the North making sure that everyone started out in C rigs on a course at the near end of the dock.

23A kicked the day off and we soon rolled out another six races before time was finally called on the inaugural DF95 Global Championship.

The Skippers were all mentally and physically tired after six hard days of racing and it was time to let them relax at the closing dinner. The presentation was then held with each and every skipper getting a small gift.

In the end it was JT who took the win by 30 some points from Mark Golison and Peter ‘Aqua Bunny’ Allen. Mark Dicks took 4th from Swede Jonas Samson. Derek, Peter and Buzz were also counted in the top ten.

Next up for GBR was Tim in 18th spot after a tough week. Wayne came home 28th, Nigel 31st and Jim 34th.

Once over we went back to the organisers hospitality suite where another red wine fuelled evening kicked off. Buzz and Nigel wisely got off early with other Team GBR crew leaving at around 2am.

Just the journey home to sort out now which will be just as tiring.

Day 5 and the breeze looked ok, far end of the dock, A rig up, nice breeze, infernal washing machine chop and a smattering of rain to boot.

After an hour of sailing we had a lightning storm which put a stop to racing until around 1pm when we cracked on once more.

The wind died quite a bit and went well left meaning the course needed to be re laid at the near end of the dock and the light stuff meant that the chop calmed down a fair bit too. Racing ended pretty much in the dark with a B fleet race.

Debrief and dinner at Texas Land & Cattle before an early night. No real position changes, Tush still leads and is starting to look like the champion.

The final day promises a good blow from the North which should see the fleet in lower rigs and sailing in some waves.

So Day four of the DF95GC and at last we had some decent breeze which didn’t change direction or drop out all day. This gave us a great opportunity to get some proper racing in and rack up some points on the board.

B rigs all day which meant fast and fun racing for most. Winners and losers for the day were Mark Dicks who gained ten spots on the board by sailing some really consistent races. Loser of the day was Snackers who lost ten places on the board and even managed a DFL in C fleet. He drank some Tequila and felt much better about the job.

Tush still leads the racing with team GBR showing well in the top ten with Derek, Mark and Peter Baldwin all sailing really well.

Day five today and it looks like a breezy day, maybe we’ll see C rigs out on the water. It’s a long week of racing that’s for sure!

Sooooo we are at the end of day three and we are up to race 11B which is slow but steady progress.

Yesterday ended early due to a lack of breeze which meant it was early to the bar which caused some of team GBR a bit of an issue. As Ron manager had been repairing boats all day the good people were repaying his kindness with beer. This was fine until he hit the wall during last nights darts competition. Bless him!

The racing started this morning and the conditions looked challenging but manageable for the race team and the competitors.

There was a good bobble on the water which resembled putting your boat in a washing machine and tested your light wind tacking skills as well as your ability to overstand the weather mark just enough to allow for the bobble but not so much that you had skippers trying to squeeze in on port.

The racing hit its rhythm and we racked up a couple of rounds before the course needed a rethink. Once sorted we carried on and got through another couple before the wind “crapped out” on us at around 1430 during race 11B.

AP flag up and we had an hour of useful skipper led discussion about how to get an ICA off the ground and running. AP flag down, plug pulled on the day as the wind had died to absolutely nothing at all.

Team GBR took a walk across to the Bass Pro ship and had a shooting gallery competition where we found out Wayne is really quite a good shot. Good to know if ever we need anyone knocking off.

There should be more wind tomorrow but there certainly won’t be any less!

Much like the last round of our UK TT series at Eastbourne it seems that someone forgot to put the preorder in for any breeze. After the race briefing we completed just two full races today in some really tough conditions for both the race team and the skippers.

Team GBR are looking healthy enough with four skippers in the top ten.

Results posted below. More breeze promised for tomorrow.

So, along flight plus three hours driving up to Dallas and the event hotel in a proper Secret Service Chevy Suburban with Snackers at the helm and we’d all earned a beer or two, maybe even three.

Saturday morning saw skippers getting sails measured in, building and tweaking their charter boats and generally getting prepped.

There was some sailing too however it wasn’t really much about tuning, more survival. Whilst the wind was C rig, the waves were around 3 feet high as the day went on and you needed a D rig to get the boat through the tacks. Some people had forgotten to bring D rigs so they were hastily purchased and built which almost guarantees we won’t need them again this week!

The opening ceremony was a fun affair which brought the twelve competing nations skippers together for a drink or two and a couple of great speeches from Chuck and AMYA president Ray Seta along with a couple of words from Tushy.

So racing starts today, will there be any wind, will there be residual swell from yesterday, who knows, but it will be a good days racing that’s for sure.