ride home.  Since the airlines would not accept their sails in Tampa on the way down, they had to drive to and from Miami.
  The plague of the sickness and illness lives on as not Robbie is returning with a cold and Jacques probably close behind but they feel a lot better just being home.  We all feel like Dorothy in the Wizzard of Oz....there is no place like home.
  After the races ended, everyone quickly saw the boat park, containing almost 80 boats, quickly transformed to a boat parts park, as the boats were quickly disassembled and the containers emptied for the purpose of packing.  Over the next 2 days, the park resembled a bunch of ants as all the sailors got everything tightly packed away as some of the containers had as many as 11 boats inside.
  Now the big wait comes in waiting and hoping that our boats get out of Brazil with out major problems or even more bills. 
  We had helped 3 Canadian Teams, 1 Swiss and 1 Virgin Island team in securing a shipping sponsor to pay for the shipping to and from Brazil, unfortunately, in after getting them there, the company unexpectedly stopped their service to Brazil and the team was stranded for their return trip and at the mercy of up to $6000 in charges for the return.  CGM, the shippnig company that had to pull out was great in helping us make contacts with anothe shipping line.
  Fortunately a line called Alianca Shipping came to the rescue and is sponsoring the return trip home!  Thank you Alianca.
  With regards to the result, 4 countries qualified for the Olympics from this regatta in addition to the Host country, Australia...Germany, Spain, France, Austria.  The next opportunity for the countries to qualified will be at 1999 World Championships in Copenhagen Denmark.  Although the US team of Johnny Lovel and Charley Olgletree had a great regatta, finishing 10th, it was not good enough to make the first Olympic cut.
  The Suncoast Sailing Campaign is trying to plan to be in Europe early enough to get more big fleet, heavy air practice in.  They also plan to speak with the sail manufacture and get a sail that does measure in after having to deal with the turmoil of having an illegal sail and not being able to sail with the sail they had trained with for the worlds.
  Robbie and Jacques finished 24th with a total of 219 points.  The point spread in the Worlds ranged from 21 points for Darren Bundock and John Forbes from Australia to 676 points for the final finisher.  Although Robbie and Jacques were looking forward to a better finish, they were please to be able to nail some really good starts, something hard to do in the big fleets. It is a challenge to be in the top 40 with so many world class sailors going head to head. 
  The next journey for the team is to finish selling their candy for one of their fund raisers as they prepare for the return of their boats, hopefully, from Brazil and the Miami Olympic Classes regatta in January, followed by the proposed North American Championships in Florida in February in Miami and the Southeast regionals in Tampa in March, then the pre-Olympic trails in California then off to Europe.