Packing, Painting, Praying for Bled

We have been doing solid work on Lake Carnegie here in Princeton. Launching from the house of Margery Mark, our Filippi double has gone to the Princeton Boathouse and back, to the finish of the 2km course and back... and back.

As the final things start coming together for Bled, I see it like a juxtaposition of a white canvas to white blades. Our canvas is being prepared and painted, step my step. Some things being stripped away to reveal the red, white and blue underneath. I feel so fortunate to be part of such a colourful journey. And filled with unbelievable challenges.

We found out yesterday after all the painting we did, we can't even take these S4 Crokers with us to Bled, because the plane from Frankfurt to Ljubljana is too small to accommodate the length. So we have been pounding the phones and emails and skype for any Europe contacts to see if we can get the S4 soft ultralight blades in Bled for this USA LW2x. So far, unsuccessful. So we might end up racing with the regular S2's. Now if you can imagine a tightrope walker, training all the time with a bar and it has a weight and a balance point, this is what we face. We will have heavier shafts a week before racing that we will have to adapt to. And well, that's it.

Some links of interest for the racing to set the scene:
World Rowing Website >
Here is the list of entries for the LW2x > click on LW2x
Provisional Schedule here >

We have 3 boats from China. The Greek stroke is doubling up and rowing the LW1x as well. Tere whom I raced with last year in my first world cup will also be racing. Looks like we start the heats on Friday at 11:42am. My South African family will be happy because Bled is on the same time zone!

As an extra fun image, the last time I painted blades was for Rika racing in a world cup. Painting the SA blades ended up giving me good practice for the simplified but similar USA design! All things are connected.

As a final note before we leave Princeton, I want to thank our generous hosts, Tom and Peggy. And then we also got the opportunity to stay with Jan and Harold. Thank you so much! And also thank you once again to the Dwyer family and to Sherri, for providing wonderful food to keep us all going.

I have also come to realize how much fund-raising we will need to do in the future to make all this sustainable. Looks like we will need to buy blades in Bled!

Yes, I will blatantly put a donate paypal button here if you can help us! Baie Dankie! (Thank you in Afrikaans)