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After that we had some cocktails and beer from the sponsor 'Staro Brno', followed by a boat trip across the beautiful Lake Brno to the host club Lodni Sporty Brno, with ice cream on the boat and more beer upon arrival! Some of the teams had an early night to prepare for the racing the next day, but many enjoyed meeting their fellow competitors and organisers and the hospitality of our hosts.

The teams have been divided into two leagues for the Round Robin part of the event. 81 races will be completed in the Round Robin part of the event. If those races are completed the teams will be divided accordingly into a Championship League and a Silver League, with those in the Championship League having the opportunity to go through to quarter finals (top 8), onto the semi finals and then the finals.

The Leagues are as follows:

League A

NZL Derry Godbert, Karen Lambert, Josh Gailbraith, Andrew Arden, Andrew Murdoch, Hamish Murdoch, Jeffery Clark.

AUS 1 Dan Corlett, Katie Spithill, Dave Stevens, Nick Garland, Julian Plante, Emma Bullough

USA 1 Chris Mc Dowell, Mike Zani, Karl Ziegler, Brandon Prior, Mike Huang, Cecily Ziegler

GBR 2 Owen Modral, Tom Hebbert, Rob Sherringham, Susie Short, Helen Mayhew, Richard Guy

IRL 2 David Copithorne, Garry 'O Callaghan, Clinton Copithorne, Garry Jennings, Oisin 'O Driscoll, Joanna Nelson

JPN 1 Nobuhiro Masuda, Akinori Yamashita, Yuki Furumaki, Masaomi Adachi, Yukio Tani, Shizuho Shinwaki

CZE 2 Martin Janacek, Jan Kittler, Radim Vasik, Aneta Cermakova, Petr Novak, Katerina Chmelarova

YUG Rade Plavsic, Mirko Milicevic, Milos Plasvic, Zoran Stojanovic, Sladjana Vasilijevic, Dejan Vasilijevic

ESP Marto Montelongo, Elena Barambio, Jose Antonio Medina, Raman del Castillo, Ignacio Zalvide, Andres Velez

League B

USA 2 Timothy Fallon, Timothy Wadlow, Graeme Woodworth, Karen Renzulli, Erin Largay, Leigh Woodworth

GBR 1 Stuart Hudson, Steve Tylecote, Dominic Johnston, Amy Smith, Sally Cuthbert, Debs Kershaw

AUS 2 Lucas Down, Katie Spithill, Dave Stevens, Nick Garland, Julian Plante, Emma Bullough

IRL 1 John Sheeny, Gerbil Owens, Nicky Smyth, Rebecca Killian, Melanie Morris, Eavan Cannon

NED Jelle Roos, Frans Hin, Jurjen Feitsma, Truus Vissia, Annet Metz, Jeroen de Boer

JPN 2 Masura Noguchi, Aki Arai, Akihiko Kusangi, Jun Ebihara, Yoshiko Miura, Daisuke Makino, Mikio Shishido

CZE 1 Tomas Musil, Lukas Neumann, Jakub Kozelsky, Jana Landkamerova, David Krizek, Marketa Kozelska

IND HD Motivala, NK Yadav, S Chauhan, A Patanakar, Dhanya Pillo, RS Dhulaji

SVK Igor Karvas, Milan Puchon, Matrin Cibulka, Jaroslav Ferianec, Katka Sadikova, Sona Sadikova

POL Rafal Sawicki, Dominik Ostrowski, Katarzyna Tylinska, Pawel Nowakowski, Tomasz Debecki, Marta Kaszalowicz

For the time being the teams are waiting on the beach for the wind to increase enough to allow the start of racing.

Team New Zealand Interview

I took the opportunity to talk to Andrew Murdoch, captain of team New Zealand the defending champions from Ireland in 1999. Andrew was racing recently at the Laser Worlds in Cork, Ireland where he finshed 40th.

Were you in Ireland?
Yes I was.

Is it the same team as Ireland?
It's similar, not all the same.

How was your team selected?
We have a squad of 12 in New Zealand, and then 6 people are chosen by the coach manager. It's the same system as we used to pick the team for Ireland.

How have you prepared for this event?
We've been practicing for 3 or 4 months in New Zealand. We practice against the guys that weren't selected who make up another team. We also had 9 team regattas that we went to.

So is team racing popular in New Zealand?
Yeah, it's pretty popular. Especially for secondary school age, up to 18 years old.

How are you finding the Czech Republic?
It's nice and warm here. I mean it's winter back home, so it feels hot! We've had a few language problems, but they've been very helpful with translators.

What do you think of the venue?
It's hard to say without having actually raced yet! It looks pretty light. It looks good for spectators.

What do you like about team racing?
I think it's bigger and better than normal fleet racing because it's not over right up until the finish, because you can go back to help your team.

Who are the favourites here?
The teams that have won before. Great Britain, the USA. Then AUS are pretty strong, and the home teams have a history of doing well so CZE could do well here.

Are you going to defend your title?
Yeah we are! We wouldn't be here otherwise!