The team Christen Horn-Johannesen, Kristoffer Spone and Johan Barne – No, Kristoffer is not trying to give Christen an uppercut

Today at the Santa Monica Hotel, Team Baghdad was presented by the Scadinavian Gold Cup. In front of a group of enthusiastic 5.5 metre sailors from around the World, helsman Kristoffer Spone held a speech thanking the organizers, Kristian Nergaard that gave him and us a chance to sail the Gold Cup in his absence due to business committments.

He also thank the crew (he´s smart as we would be very angry on him if he didn´t) and thought it would have been hard winning the event without us. Of course; Have anyone tried to sail a 5.5 metre alone. It is already hard as it is!

Now with Kristian on site, we also took the opportunity to do some practice racing to get him up to speed. Kristoffer returned the favour the past week by standing in as bowman. He did a great job and did not fall overboard even once. We had a mixed bag of results but now results are not important compare to being fully prepared for the coming World Championships starting on monday. Even though the conditions in Curacao are great with strong breeze and open water, the race committe will struggle hard to get good racing in as the water outside Curacao is extremely deep. The marks are laid in several hundred meter depth and not too far from the shore the bottom drops down to several thousand meters deep.

We´ll try to stay on the surface and fight hard to defend our championship title!