240 boats are brought in to remove sea-weed from the Qingdao Olympic course area. See images

According to the Australian 470 Coach, Victor Kovalenko, over 200 boats have been brought in to the 2008 Olympic sailing area to try and remove the vast amount of seaweed. The Australian team shared these photos from the current training camp in China:

“As you can see we have one more problem in Qingdao apart from light winds and strong current – it is seaweed. The local government has employed 240 fishing boats to clean Qingdao bay and they are working really hard but… Sailing is almost impossible now!”

“Other days the fog has been so thick that a GPS has been needed to find the way back to shore.”

Images are courtesy of the Australian Sailing Team, 2008 Training Camp Qingdao China, June 2008