Festival of Sails : Ready...Steady...FLAG-OFF...Go!

SUNDAY, April 13th, 2008 - the day when the Vasco-Da-Gama Rally enters its last leg and the day when the first race of the Rally - THE ORBIT FESTIVAL OF SAILS takes off!

BAGS PACKED

After a send-off brunch at the Royal Bombay Yacht Club, all the participants headed to Pier 5 of the Gateway of India, into their tenders and onboard their sailboats for last minute preparations and making sure that they were all set to sail.

The brunch at the RBYC was a classy affair where all the people were in the best of spirits and all excited about going to Goa.

For most of them, it was their first time to Jaigarh and then unto Goa...and everybody else who had been to Goa were exchanging stories with them to keep them even more excited.

Hopefully, with all the excitement set in their hearts, they would be sailing faster and the race is a super-thriller.

GATEWAY - JAIGARH - GOA - ?????

Team GIIRA quizzed many of the sailors as to their next plan of action after the race - where would they be heading. Since it is the last leg of the rally and then they have all the seas to explore, we were always curious!

But to our surprise, most of them did not know where they would be going on from Goa.

That's when we got to know that most sailors of their sort, do not plan much - and every day is a new day for them and they just take things as they come.

THE FLAG-OFF

Event : The Orbit Festival of Sails Flag-Off

Venue : Sunk Rock Lighthouse, Mumbai Harbour.

Time : 03:30 PM IST

...and we have a flag-off...with a Ferretti 460 acting as a Pace Car and other Sea-Rays and Mercurys doing service as Press Vehicles...we got a flag-off to the race.

On a relatively choppy day, there were what seemed like 100s of sails in all directions...with crews of all ages and many classes of sailboats to chose from.

Captain Lo waved his last good-bye to Mumbai (not the final goodbye for sure)...and thanked the sponsors and the Marine Solutions team on board the Ferretti.

Rest...we let the exclusive pics taken by us do all the talking...