A day that left me with the right feeling for tomorrow. We had the practice race today and we found out when we got to the windward mark that we had been OCS with a couple of others. But that did not bother me as we had just sailed one of our best light air windward legs ever. The left was favored because of a 20 degree shift that way but we managed to come out of the middle-right and round second.

It was blowing 3-4 knots when the committee gave us the start. The crews were hiking to leeward. We had done a complete rig check this morning and I made a couple of subtle adjustments there that I felt good about. Then out on the water, I made another change for the extremely light air which seemed to work well. It wasn’t a new discovery as we had done it before, but it was nice to make the adjustment with confidence and then see it work.

So when we got to the windward make in second place I was very happy with the big picture.

As it was so light about a third of the fleet quit the race at that point anyway and most quit after the second windward leg opting for getting out of the heat before the battle starts. It did make me think about how bad an OCS would feel in a real race, so it was a good reminder.

We got a tow from the Canadian Coach, a great Star sailor in his own right, Mark Pickle of Germany. Good sportsmanship is still a hallmark of the Star Class. Once ashore, I fulfilled a few press requests, (good to get out of the way early), and then went to see Scott Weiss, USOC trainer, for a bit of therapy on my elbow and now home making my notes and resting.

My thoughts on the eve of my first Olympics; I am honored to be representing my country, I am personally very happy to have the opportunity to race for a gold medal, and it has been a fantastic journey back to my roots…where I developed the talent that has given me a great career in the sport of sailing. Some of us have well known names in the sport of sailing but that doesn’t mean were are still the best sailors. I am checking in to find out where I rank amongst the best. Could be humbling, could be exhilarating. No matter what, the journey has been fantastic.

Thanks for your interest in what Phil and I are doing.

Got an early start today; no gym and 0900 at the venue. Got the boat on the hoist before anyone else was around and got some final sanding done on the keel. Looks pretty good now.

Then we put the stickers on our second mainsail. That is a 2.5 hours job for both Phil and I. We had lunch and went sailing around 1400 with Loof, Bruni and Leo and George, the Greek team. The wind was about 10-12 knots today from 160-165. Pretty normal seabreeze conditions. Tony Rey, the Yngling coach came by after the Yngling race had finished and got some photos of our rig for us. It is very helpful to be able to check the rig laterally, with printed pictures. We had a good session and came in at 1700 and took the rig down to check everything. Everything was were it was supposed to be so we put it back up.

I am on my way to the NBC studio right now to do some comentary with Gary Jobson on today’s racing which you will see in a few hours on Bravo…0:00 EDT and 2100 PDT.

Tomorrow we are not going to the gym, just some stretching and getting down to the boat early again. We need to get our spares all organized and put our spare rig away. Other than that, we are ready to roll.

Today the US Yngling had awesome speed in the light air of the first race and won. We watched them on TV from the dining hall and it was beautiful the way they just cruised out in the front of the fleet on the first windward leg. Unfortunately, they did not fair so well in the second race. In both races, the left was very good.

I think the best performers on team USA at the moment are the men’s 470, Paul Forester and Kevin Burnham. They had a good day and are solidly in second and close to the leaders which are the Brit’s. I think Mark Mendleblatt, (Laser USA) is in 5th over all and our 49er sailors were in 5th overall beofre the last race when they had an OCS (0ver the start line early). That is unfortuante.

Finally, I did bring a batch of the “gold medal” brownies down to the venue to day and gave them to our team mates after the racing.

We hit the gym at 0900-1030. We are shortening up the workouts now in the last week. Higher reps and lower weights..more aerobic.

No sailing today. We had a 20-30 knots Meltemi today and all the Stars decided to protect the assets. We finished up some measurement tasks. One of them was putting the decals on our mainsail. It takes two hours per main!

We have the letters “USA” up top, a US flag that is 6′ x 9 feet in the middle, and the names “Cayard” and “Trinter” on each side of the main near the clew. You should be able to tell which boat we are when you see Star sailing on TV.

We also put our race mast up and dock tuned it. We wet sanded the keel (USA Team Boatright, Carl Eichenlob, had to add 2 mm to our trailing edge yesterday to make it measure in) and put away some of the practice sails.

Hopefully the Meltemi will drop a bit tomorrow and we can get out there and get a workout.

The only classes that raced today were the Yngling and the Finn so tomorrow, which was supposed to be a rest day for the 470 will now be a race day. This place requires patience, on the day and throughout the series.

We hit the gym at 0900-1030. We are shortening up the workouts now in the last week. Higher reps and lower weights..more aerobic.

Icka, Danny and Allie are leaving me tomorrow and heading home. I think they have had a good taste of the Olympics and Greece. I will miss them but it is probably just as well that they are leaving as I wont be much company over the next 12 days. Now it is time for me to get into my zone and focus.

Paros was a great place to rest. The beach were we went windsurfing over there is called “Golden Beach”. We met a guy named Theo who is a legendary Greek boarder. He is my age and has spent years on Maui windsurfing. He gave us a board to use for a few days and both Danny and Allie got into it.

As we came back into Parieus, Athens Port city, we saw the Queen Mary 2 which had just docked in front of us. Traffic has been a bit tough the last few days as the Olympic flame has been going through the various local towns. You really get the feeling of what a big organization it takes to put on the Olympics. Things like traffic control, security..things that have nothing to do directly with the events…take a lot of work and organization. Then of course you have the events themselves.

Back from Paros and back to work. Yesterday we hit the gym and then were out sailing by 13:00. We sailed with the Spanish, Irish, Bermuda, Brazil. Still working up our spare mast and looking at a sail we may measure in. It was 8-10 knots of seabreeze.

The forecast is for seabreeze again today and tomorrow but then a Meltemi to return to Athens sometime between Sunday/Monday through at least next Thursday.

Today we will have a short sail, early, because we have to go up to the Olympic village to meet up with the rest of TEAM USA and go to the Opening Ceremony. Icka and the kids are going there with Phil’s wife Chrissy by public transportation. They are asking the public to get there three hours early. It should be a spectacular show.

I don’t think we will get back to our apartment before 0200. I am looking forward to being with the US team and going through what will be a very memorable event.

Tomorrow we will probably go for another short sail and Sunday our boat is getting measured in the afternoon.

A good day today. We got out of the harbor at 1230 and did some light air gybing practice on the way down to our race course area, course “D”. It was 5-6 knots and there is a very different technique for gybing a star in under 6 knots compared to the technique in 10 knots. So that was useful while we waited for Freddy to get out there.

Once Freddy got there, we did some upwind speed tests. We were going about the same today which was a slight improvement over yesterday. We used a different mainsail and made a change to how we trim the jib as well. Seems like it worked.

In the racing Freddy Loof (SWE) won two and we won one. We had good speed up and downwind. Torben Grael (BRA) and Alex Hagen (GER) were also out there.

We had to come in early…1600..as I had a commitment to NBC to do some radio interviews live in the USA.

We received two new masts at 1830 and rigged one up and stuck it in the boat at 2100. We will sail with that tomorrow as I want to have two new masts ready for the games. The mast we had been using this week is the old warhorse…rig number one. The rig we put in is rig number 6.

Tomorrow my family arrives so that will be nice for me. Tomorrow will be our last sailing day until next Thursday…6 days off. I am looking forward to a break of that length and getting out of town for 5 days. I think we are ready to go so now it is about getting the mid set. We have put a lot of time in on the water in the month since we arrived…probably more than any other team. While we needed it, we have to watch out for burn out.