Athens Training

Great day today. Six hours on the water today looking at sails and racing with Bruni (ITA) and Neeleman (NED). Mark Reynolds showed up last night and he is here for 10 days to look at our sails and coach us a bit. Mark is the current Gold Medallist in the Star class so it is great to have him here.

Andy and Austin took out one boat and Phil and I in ours. We got off the dock at 11:00 and started with some new sails because it is important to practice as you race. All your settings and how and when you shift gears depends on the shape of the sails so if you are going to use new sails in the Olympics, then you should practice with new ones as well. Expensive, but it is the right way to do it.

Over the next two weeks we will get another new mast on line and tuned and look at all our race sails. Also we will train to perfect our boat handling, starting, etc. Sailing here for a couple of weeks will hopefully make us more confident in understanding the winds here.

No gym today and not tomorrow either. I want to get some good days on the water right now as the Meltemi is in for four days with no transition…dead time. Gym on Monday morning. With the gym not opening until 0900, it is hard to get off the dock by 12:00. We are getting pretty good work outs being on the water for 6 hours.

Big Bar-B-Q again tonight and now we are reviewing the pictures of the day and making the plan for tomorrow.

Paul Cayard