One race today and we treaded water. Actually we did close in quite a bit on the guys in front of us, finishing 4 points out of 6th but not enough to pass them.

The race got started in 7 knots of wind from 290 at 1430. We had a bad start in that a couple of boats just to windward of us were over the top of us. They must have had a better line sight that we did because I was afraid to go with them and be OCS (over early). We battled to get a clear lane out to the left and survived to round the first mark about 18th.

The whole rest of the race we slowly chewed people up and finished 10th. Interestingly, Ian Percy who was on fire in the 18 knots breeze had trouble again today. He was ahead of us at the first mark but finished 23rd. Both guys who were within a point of us in the standings, Bruni (ITA) and Tracy (IRL), were deep. Bromby (BER) and Neeleman (NED) were also deep and for a while we had the points on them to pass them in the standings. But they were able to pick off some people too and we missed them by 2 and 4 points respectively.

Final standings are:

1-Rohart (FRA),

2-Loof (SWE),

3-Percy (GBR),

4-Presti (FRA),

5-Mansfield (IRL),

6-Bromby (BER),

7-Neeleman (NED),

8-Cayard (USA),

9-Spitzauer(AUT),

10-Kaats (NED).

In hind sight, where we lost a lot of points was two days ago with an OCS when we finished 5th and a 13th when we had been 2nd all race long. We ate about 17 points that day. This was my second worst finish in nine Star World Championships. My worst was a 10th in 1989. Some other notables had a hard time too. Torben Grael (BRA), who won the gold in Athens in August and the European Championship in early September, finished 32nd. He never beat us in one race in Cadiz. Mark Pickle (GER) who got Bronze in Athens finished 19th in Cadiz.

Yet, we are the top Americans again this year. Second American was Mark Reynolds in 18th. Last year we were top Americans, finished 4th at the worlds and qualified the country for the Olympics.

So looking at the big picture, which is getting ourselves prepared for the US Olympic Trials next year and then onto a medal in Athens, we have built a good foundation. We have some long-term projects under well way; like me gaining 20 pounds for the weight rule and being happy that we have our new boat sorted out and on its way to Miami. We have to work hard between now and March 18th to keep making gains.

We have already mapped out our training sessions in Miami this winter

We had a terrible day. But somehow, we are still in fourth place,,, 9 points out of first.

It started by me having the stomach flew. We all know what that entails so I wont go into the gory details. Needless to say, I wasn’t feeling my best. Next, we realize that the mainsail is torn, at the spreader, on the way out to the starting line. The coaches, Luther and Chris Bedford (Meteorologist), had to run back to the harbor, in our tender, and get some “stick back” to repair the sail. Got that done. Then we had a horrible start to race one and we are 15 th to the 1 st mark. There are only 18 boats so that was ugly. On the run, Phil slides off the bow and into the water. I did not have to go back to get him, but dragging him along for a few seconds was slow.

As the race progresses, we are not making much headway on improving our lie. But the wind died on the last lap and there was a chance we could have been saved by the time limit and the race having to be re-sailed. But nope, the first boat drifted across the line, 2 minutes inside the time limit.

OK Race 1 is over. Now, Race 2. IT is blowing 6 knots, max. We are over early at the start of race 2. This means we jumped the gun and crossed the line too soon. Phil is sure of it so we go back. So we are last off the line. But we go left, again Phil’s suggestion and we round mark 1 in 7 th place. Nice comeback! The wind is dying so the committee keeps shortening the length of the legs at every mark. We fight the whole race with Percy (GBR) and the Danish team for 7 th only to fall into a hole on the last leg and have Beshal (AUS) and Pickle (GER) pass us. At one point I thought the whole fleet might pass us as we were truly “parked”. A few boats in front of us were disqualified for also being over the starting line early and not going back to we got a few points back there.

We managed to get back to the harbor, put the boat on the trailer and get back to the “Palace” without any further damage.

Tomorrow, they have scheduled us for one race only. We now have a new element to the racing here which has been shifty and tricky to this point. Today we added “no wind” as a new factor and we had this element at some point during each race. This is another level of “tricky and shifty” as “no wind” is usually followed by “some wind” from “somewhere”. That is the tricky part. Hopefully we will figure it out better tomorrow. There is a lot of potential for movement up and down in the standings. We are 9 points out of first and 13 points ahead of 6 th . With the winds as fickle as they are here, anything is possible.

Before the first race a batten pocket in our mainsail tore. We had a spare mainsail out there but it was the wrong one for the conditions. So I sewed the batten pocket back together 10 minutes before the start. Put me on Martha Stewart.

The Meltemi prevailed again today, a bit stronger than yesterday. We had 10-18 knots with some shots of 20. Still every uses they light air sails as the lulls of 10 are killers if you don’t have enough power.

In the first race we were fighting for first with the German team on the first lap then a few 25-degree wind shifts came through and reshuffled things. Grael (BRA) ended up going from 10th to 1st on one beat and the German we to 6th. We managed to hang onto third. Percy (GBR) broke his rig and therefore scored two last places for the day.

Second race we did not sail that well but Beashal (AUS) who finished second was OCS and Leo the Greek who was fifth was overweight on the weigh-in after so he got disqualified. So our fifth place across the line translated into another third and we won the day.

So now we are in third place, 5 points out of 1st! Moving up.

Bromby of Bermuda is first with 15 points, Grael of Brazil is second with 17, USA is third with 20. I can’t remember who is fourth

One race today that started at 1600. The Tornados were sharing our race course today so they got to start at 12:00 and we had to wait until they were done. The wind was 16-18 knots from 125.nice big waves for surfing downwind.

We had a good start near the leeward end and going left. We were close with Percy and Bromby coming out of that but up toward the windward mark, we feel in a bit of a hole and they got lifted and rounded quite a bit ahead. In fact, we lost about 7 boats within 2 minutes of the top mark. Down the first run, those who gybe set had a lot more pressure. We lost 10 boats on that run to round the leeward mark about 20th. Up the second beat we had good speed and the left was good to us. We rounded the top mark 12th and had a fast run to pass 5 more boats and finish 7th.

That moved us up to 10th overall. We are just not consistent enough in both our speed and our tactics. It won’t take much improving to make a significant difference. But we have to do it.

Now the fleet will be divided into two groups; the top 45 and the second 45. We will stay in those groups until the end of the regatta, which is scheduled to be 5 more races.

Ian Percy (GBR) is putting on a clinic, winning again to day. He is very fast in this breeze. In the other fleet a Frenchman named Xavier Rohart is doing quite well and is just 3 points behind Percy. Percy won the Worlds last year in Marina Del Rey and Rohart was second. Freddy Loof, the 2001 World Champion from Sweden is moving up nicely into 3rd overall. Torben Grael who was second at last years worlds and first in Athens this summer, is 15th currently.

Tomorrow we start at 12:00 for two races.

Scores are at www.cadiz2003.com.

The first thing that happened today was that the organizers decided at 10:00 ( today ) that all classes could not race at the same time. There are four racecourses and 11 classes so some courses have three classes on them. So they told the Star, 49er and Tornado classes to stay in and their races would follow the finish of the others on their course. So we had to sit at the venue for four hours in sweltering heat waiting to go out. Now don’t you think they could have figured that out yesterday, if not two years ago?

We finally left the dock at 2:30 and started out first race at 4:00 . We raced in the northerly breeze called the Meltemi here in Athens . This wind comes off the land and is very hot but more importantly to sailors, very shifty. That is to say that it is neither steady in velocity nor direction. This makes race sailboats very tricky. The general strength of the wind was about 12-14 knots so that was good. The temperature here is about 100 degrees every day so you sail in a T-shirt and shorts, which is pleasant.

The races were about 8 miles in length and took about 90 minutes each to complete. In the first race we finished 10 th . This was frustrating, as halfway through, we were fourth. What happened to us is that we go out of phase with these wind shifts and when that happens, you end up sailing a much longer course to the buoys. How does one get out of phase well, partly being stupid and not reading the wind well and partly getting into traffic with other boats and having them dictate which way you go. We got tangled up with the Swiss boat on the second windward leg and missed a few shifts and next thing we knew 6 boats had passed us. OK. That was the first race.

The second race we finished third, which was much more enjoyable. We battled the whole race with Bermuda , Brazil and Great Britain , which are the strong competitors in this class. At the world championship last year the British team won, Brazil was second, we were fourth and Bermuda was 6th, so we are used to battling it out with these guys.

After two races, Great Britain is first, Bermuda is second, Germany is third, Netherlands 4 th and USA 5 th .

It will be a long regatta