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.

Gym again this morning for Phil and I. I then had some physio therapy from our USOC physio, Scott Weiss. We put the boat in around 1230 and left the dock at 1300.

A very strange day on the water. The wind was the most erratic of the month that we have been here. There were “helicopter” puffs touching down randomly and wind shifts of up to 50 degrees prior to 1600 today. This made for untestable conditions.

We had been training with Torben Grael (BRA) but he went in and we were following shortly behind. We had gone to the 470 course to get Skip Whyte to take a few photos of our rig tune. On our way in, a nice seabreeze filled in suddenly from 165 and we tuned with Freddy Loof (SWE) and Alex Hagen (GER) for about 1 hour in 8-10 knots…very nice sailing.

Tomorrow we are expecting two new masts to arrive from Italy. I want to rig up one of these asap and sail with it as it will be our back up for the games. Hopefully the truck comes early and we can get out on the water with it tomorrow. We are told that the truck will come between 0900 and 1700 and that we have to be there to receive them.

My family is coming down here on Thursday and we are taking off for about 5 days.

Short and sweet today. Phil took Austin to the airport at 0600. Then Phil and I went to the gym at 0900-11:00. The wind was light in the am through 1400 so we did some chores. I went to a Travel agent to try to figure out what Island to go to to rest for a few days and the store to restock after the weekend. Phil is moving into his apartment.

We sailed from 1430-1700 with Freddy Loof, Torben Grael (BRA) and Alex Hagen (GER). No racing, just some line ups. We had our old mast in and some older sails on. We were going ok but I want to make some adjustments for tomorrow. Our new rigs should arrive Wednesday or Thursday and we will have to get one of them on line asap as our back up for the Games.

Meg Gaillard our Europe sailor, our men’s 470 Paul Forester and Kevin Burnham were also out sailing today. The tornado guys were gluing their boat together…apparently they epoxy the cross beams to the hulls for important regattas. Our 49er guys Tim Wadlow and Pete Spaulding rigged up their boat. Kevin Hall, our Finn sailor just dropped his boat and coach boat off. Tomorrow they draw for the Lasers whish is the only class where the boats are supplied by the organizing authority. Mark Mendleblatt is our Laser sailor and he finished second that this years world championship. He is a good golfer too as you know from what I wrote yesterday.

It is so nice to be sailing out of the venue. We literally walked across the street to get back to the apartment.; 10 minutes max.

Phil and Chrissy came over and we Que-d up some yard bird and made some Fusili Napolitana and a salad.

Tomorrow will be a bigger day sailing and probably some racing.