Race Day 3

We had our best and worst today. In fact 4 out of the top 5 had their worst race today.

The wind was 8 knots in the first race from 125 and 6 knots in the second race from 120.

In the first race, we won the pin end and were able to tack and cross the fleet. It is nice to be able to look at the whole fleet in the window of your mainsail. However by the time we got to the windward mark, we were third and despite a few ups and downs we stayed there. On the last run of that race, the leaders, Marazzi of Switzerland got whistled for a rule 42 (kinetics) violation, and had to do a 720 penalty turn. That gave the win to Beashal/Giles (AUS), Marazzi finished second, us third, Sheibler 4th. Howie and his crew Will were 6th in the second race and had the best score for the day. They are now in 10th overall.

The second race we were determined to go right off the line. We had a bad start but were able to get clear air fairly shortly. But the real problem was that the wind went 10 degrees left and there was a bit more pressure over there too. So we rounded the windward mark about 50th. We passed a few and ended up 37th.

The committee wanted to go for a third race but in the end sent us in as the wind was getting very light and unstable. So we all towed in and did a few things on the boat. Then I went to the gym with my trainer Sam. That felt good.

So after six races the positions are: 1) Reynolds/Erickson (USA) 37, 2) Beashal/Giles (AUS) 44, 3) Loof/Eckstrom (SWE) 51, 4) Domingos/Santos (POR) 51, 5) Cayard/Trinter (USA) 52, 6) Holm/Olsen (DEN) 53, 7) Koch/Koy (GER) 55, 8) Neeleman/Van Niekerk (NED) 58. As you can see, it is very close and a lot can happened tomorrow.

The forecast for tomorrow is very light wind. So it will be shifty, fluky and difficult.

You can check on the complete results at :www.ussailing.org/olympics/RolexMiamiOCR/index.htm