Athens Training

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.