It was a late day on the water with the final race of the day ending at 7:30. After waiting for wind all morning racing finally got started at 2:30 in the afternoon. The wind built slowly throughout the day and each group got in one race with double trapeezing conditions at the end of the day. Each team sailed two races today with four races total.

Defending champions from Mexico Armando Noriega and Roderigo Achach are off to a good start and lead the series. Americans Kieth Christensen, a three time past champion, and Kristen King are in second.

The favored team from Puerto Rico, Enrique and Carla Figueroa jumped the gun at the first start but managed to salvage a 15 after re-starting. They were second in their second race.

There are lots of young teams at the top of the field this year. Juani Maegli and Christina Guirola from Guatemala came to California directly from the ISAF Youth Worlds and are presently in seventh place.

The Youth and Women’s Hobie 16 North Americans concluded on Friday with a third day of good racing and winds of about ten knots.

Although the racing in the Youth fleet was tight at times the Guatemalans always came out on top. Jason and Alexander Hess ended the series with a perfect score of all first place finishes. Last years champions, Michael Siau and Trey James finished second. Canadians Andrew Robins and Trent Freeman were third.

In the Women’s fleet the win went to former World Champion Annie Nelson and Kathy Kulkowski. Worrell 1000 veteran Sandra Tartaglino and Eileen Haubl came on strong in the end to finish the series in second. Mary Lindsay and Barbara Roettger were third.

Racing for the Open Championship starts on Monday. The winds over the weekend have been unseasonably light making it hard to get through the surf. When the wind does come up it tends to be late in the day and could make for some late afternoons on the water.

The second day of the Hobie 16 Youth and Womens North Americans had some welcomed breeze. After a light wind first day, with only one race completed, the fleets had a building breeze that peaked at close to twenty knots late in the afternoon.

With one day remaining Jason and Charles Hess from Guatemala are dominating the Youth fleet with five bullets in the first five races of the series. These young guys are the top team from a competitive fleet and are likely to be right up there in the Open Championship next week. Last years Youth Champions, Mike Siau and Trey James (NY), are in second place going into the last day.

After a slow start Annie Nelson (CA) and Kathy Kulkoski (NJ) have taken the lead in the Women's fleet. It appears that the increased wind was a bit more to their liking. The pair won race four and five today.

The Hobie 16 Youth and Women's North Americans got off to a slow start today with an onshore postponement due to a lack of breeze. After a morning of frisbee on the beach the racing finally started at about three in the afternoon. One race was completed in a five to ten knot Westerly.

In the youth division Jason and Charles Hess from Guatemala have won the first race and take the early lead. Judy Nasmith and Vicki Ulibarri won the first women's race.

Account of this years "Tornado Camp" held in Stockholm, Sweden in conjunction with a mixed fleet multihull regatta known as "Liding Rundt". Story by Rolf Nilson, pictures by Stefan Boman

Eight Tornados attended, 5 from Sweden, list member Heine Foss from Denmark, two times (?) Tornado Olympian Hannu Jarvela from Finland and one boat from Norway (us). The plan was to do some training on friday, participate on the major regatta "Liding Rundt" on saturday, and another training session on saturday. Monday was a holiday in Norway, and this suited us nicely as we had 900km to drive home from Stockholm.

Friday started with a briefing and intro session held by Martin Strandberg (sailed T's both in Sydney and Athens, I think he also participated earlier with Mats Nyberg..). He shared quite a bit of information in compressed form, so all were listening with ears perked. Then we went on the water, and the weather gods blessed us with sun and around 8m/s of wind. Launching at "Ranangen" boatclub was 'interesting' as the ramp was framed by all kinds of obstacles (buyous, rocks, weed, piers etc). But everybody handled the advanced launching routines without to much drama. My crew fell between the bows, and hit the bowsprit full on with his forehead. Thank god the bowsprit wasn't damaged, but he sailed the rest of the day with a blistering headache. We did some initial speed training, with Martin trying to keep up with the T's in a coach boat, before we did some start procedures and one lap races. Obviously, Hannu knew how to make a T fly under those conditions.