Big day today. Hit the gym for two hours..chest and back today. Breakfast and down to the boats by 12:00. We took the masts down to check the rigging because with all new rigs the rigging stretches after the first few sessions. Checked everything and reset everything on both masts.

Then we went out at about 1430 to check most of the sails for the Olympics; two mains and 8 jibs. Checked them all…jib up, number it,check it, make notes about it..put it away carefully. This process took about 2 hours. Then we put some older jibs on and tested for about an hour and a half.

Back to the dock and hauled out by 1800. Home for a shower, notes, pictures and dinner out at an Italian Place in Glyfada. Glyfada is the town where we live a bout 15 km’s southeast of Athens. That is where the sailing venue is.

Tomorrow we will probably do some racing again with the other teams. More teams are showing up again. Swiss, Austrian, and Spanish just got back. Us, the Swedes and the English never left after the Greek Nationals.

We are going to sail until the end of next week then take a day off on Friday because I have to go to Europe for the day. Then Saturday we have the US team “processing”. That is when we get credentials and our official US Olympic team gear. Sunday and Monday we will move into the Olympic venue and get situated there. I want to be all installed and sail a few times out of the venue before my family comes on the 5th so I can spend some time with them with the peace of mind that everything is in order.

Paul Cayard

One month to the first race of the Olympics for the Star Class. Took the day off the gym and got down to the boat a bit earlier. Mark and Andy had to go to the airport to get some of our sails which have been impounded by customs for 6 days. We had to get a letter from US Sailing saying that we were here for the Olympics and we were using the sails ourselves. So we finally got the letter and they went and got the sails. Still they got hassled even with the letter.

We left the dock with both boats at 1230 and sailed downwind for an hour plus. The Meltemi was still blowing although not as hard as yesterday. We did a lot of testing for about three hours and then joined up with Percy, the spanish, Percy’s training partner- Max Tracy. So we had a five boat race. Andy got the the first mark first and we were second. We had been the beneficiaries of a large shift to the right. It was 1700, so we broke off from the others there and continued testing back to the barn.

Did a few more little jobs on the boat and left the harbor at 1900. Got home, started the bar-b-q and got the steaks marinating. Hit the shower, cleaned the food cooler and washed the water bottles, got the laundry going, peeled the potatoes, etc. The total takes was; 10 steaks(small .5 pounders), two pork tenderloins and 5 chicken breasts. We also had sauted mushrooms, potatoes and a large salad. It took an hour to make it all and 15 minutes and it was gone.

Gym tomorrow at the crack of dawn…0900. The Meltemi should be getting lighter. We are looking for a 7-10 knot day where we can go through all our mains and jibs to figure out which ones we will use in the Oly’s.

Paul Cayard

No sailing for the red, white and blue today. There was a fairly strong Meltemi(25-30 knots) blowing at 12:00 when we got down to the boat so we turned it into a work day.

Reynolds went to the sail loft and did a few things, Phil, Austin and Andy worked on little projects on our boat and I went to the realestate agent to settle up and a few chores in town.

We had a big leg workout this morning at the gym and then ate the rest of the food in the house. We did not get done at the boat until 2030 so we are taking ourselves out for dinner tonight.

Tomorrow should be lighter wind which is good. We need to look at all our Olympic sails and check them in moderate breeze so we don’t put any abuse on them.

Paul Cayard

Another very good day. Big workout in the gym this morning. Big work out in the kitchen after that. We got down to the boat around 12:00 did a few chores and headed out around 13:00. The Meltemi is still blowing nicely.

We had a good session last night reviewing video of the downwind sailing and I picked up a few things that Andy was doing better than me. So we started out downwind for an hour….(the Meltemi blows offshore). The waves are short and it is a lot of work for the helmsman to carve a bit of extra speed out of them. Pumping the main, steering 25 degrees up to power up and then 25 degrees down to go by the lee and milk the wave for all you can. Time in the boat, in this wind, in these waves, is invaluable.

Then we sailed back upwind testing our speed. We had our new mast in today and it is sweet. Just like the rig we had for the trials that went over the bow in Italy in the first race of the worlds. So we felt like we were going pretty well.

Then we joined the other boats for three races. Percy (BGR), Pelekanakis (GRE), Tracy (IRL training partner for Percy), Bruni (ITA), Loof (SWE), and the two of us. So a pretty big group today. We won the first and the third races. In the second race we fouled Percy down near the leward mark and did not round. We felt very good about our speed and about how we sailed.

Then we tested for another hour upwind back to the harbor. We hauled the boats out at 1730 and washed everything up well. It is so hot here the salt builds up on the boat and rigging very quickly so you really have to wash things out.

We have some really nice guys at the local Marine store who help us out with little projects. This morning I went in there with our UHF radios and the chargers which are for US power. We stopped by at 1830 and they had new power converters and inverters for us all for 20 EU. These guys are great.

Now we are home, it is 20:00, Phil and Austin went to the store to buy more meat and I got the grill going. I am writing up the sail log..wwe log the hours on every sail everyday, notes on the weather, email feedback to our meteorologist Chris Bedford, and review video of our technique and still photos of the rig. Someone is going to cook dinner.

Bed by 23:00 and start over again at 0800. These are long days in the sun and heat with a lot of physical out put. Both Phil and I feel good thanks to all the hours in the gym and running on Mt. Tam.

Paul Cayard

No gym today…the gym doesn’t open until 12:00 on sundays. We headed down to the boat at 0900 and rigged up our new mast. Mark and I measured everything carefully. It was a nice strong Meltemi today so we sailed with the old rig and left the dock at 11:00 with both boats and the tender. We sailed downwind away from land for about 1.5 hours. That was good as we have to work on my downwind technique. Andy Lovell was a very good laser sailor, 2nd in the 1996 US Olympic Trials, and he is fast down wind.

Then it took us 2.5 hours to sail back from there. We were very near the island that is out in front of Athens. Can’t remember the name but it is big. So we tested upwind all the way, swapping sides, windward to leward positions every ten minutes to equalize for any anomalies. That was a workout but very good testing. The wind is steadier out I the middle of the gulf on a Meltemi day. Near the land it is very shifty. As we got back towards Athens, Freddy, the dutch and Italians were out racing but we decided to come in, save the sails we were testing and swap to the new rig.

Austin hoisted up the tender and scrubbed the bottom and drained our all the water. Reynolds, Andy and I did a final check of the rig and Phil put some new running backstays on. We are slowly replacing everything on the boat during this period so everything will be new and dependable for the Games.

We have a good team here, a good set up with the two boats and the tender. We are putting in long days but it will pay off.