Day 5 Races

We finally got race 3 in today. We got out there at 10:00 for an 11:00 start. The wind was light and so we did not get started until about 15:00. We had a nice breeze at the start; 15 knots from 130 but that quickly dissipated. We did not have a great start but got clear air quickly and were looking very strong on the right about half way up. The wind went a bit left and 15 boats got us from that side. Then in the last 500 meter of the beat I got in the middle and their, with all the shopped up air, we dropped another ten boats.

Down the run I think we just held our own. Up the second windward leg, the fleet split as there was not clearly advantageous side. Half way up that leg, it looked like Peter Bromby was winning the race easily and that we had past 10 boats. But that breeze; a left shift, disappeared and the righters came out ok. We round the top mark still about 20th and went very well down the last run and finished 15th.

Mark Neelman (NED) won the race, his second and had a nice lead on the world Championship. However, he was OCS as were a number of others. There was another OCS in front of us so we moved up to 13th. Torben Grael, had a good race 3rd, I think and Bromby was up there as well. Freddy Loof was about 8th and is probably still leading the Championship. Ian Percy finished in the top four as well.

I have not gone to look at the scores so I can’t tell you how we are doing but it wont look decent until we get 5 races in and get to discard that last place we got for breaking the mast on Sunday.

We are still one race behind schedule and I am sure they will try to get two in tomorrow so we will have an early start.if there is any wind. The forecast is not for wind. The pasta is good though.

Paul Cayard

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Day 4

Well, it didn’t get any better today. After a 2-hour delay waiting for the wind to settle down, we got under way around 16:00 in 6 knots of wind from 230. We had a very good start in the right hand side of the line and about three minutes into the race we tacked and went off to the right. The right was good and we ended up 7th at the first mark.

A lot of good people were in the back of the pack. We battled around the race course in the diminishing wind, in the top ten. at one mark 5th. Finally, up the last windward leg, the wind continued to die to the point were we started thinking that we were not going to make the time limit. Sure enough, the first boat, George Szabo USA) was about 2 minutes from the finish line when the 3.5 hours time limit ran out.

It is not easy to sail in a huge fleet in under 5 knots of wind so it was good for our training.

Since there isn’t much racing going on here, my mind drifted onto some other things. I was looking at the list of competitors and noticed that there were only 4 boats form the USA here. That must be a record low. Then I noticed that there were 8 teams from the old Russia.4 from Russia, 3 from

Ukraine, 1 from Latvia. So there are twice as many teams from Russia than the USA in the Star World Championship. That is a record high. What does this mean?

I figure that it means that the real winners from the ending of the cold war and the falling of the “wall” are the Russians; not the USA.

I then met an old friend of mine. His name is Alexander Musichecko and I first met him in Marstrand Sweden in 1979. Alexander came to Sweden for the Star Worlds back then in a blue van with his skipper Valentine Mankin. They had no money so they camped behind the van and cooked their meals inside it. I can remember them getting out of the van and then 2 guys in back leather jackets getting out of the back of the van. They were KGB who were there to make sure Alexander did not defect.

Here in Italy, 25 years later, Alexander is driving a brand new Land Rover and staying in a nice hotel. The moral of this story must be that the Mafia is better for Russian prosperity than the KGB.

Those are my sarcastic observations after a broken mast, a wasted day, and a light air training session. Hopefully we will get back to racing tomorrow! The schedule is for two races starting at 11:00. The forecast is for 15 knots of wind from the SE.

Paul Cayard

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Day 3

Well, no race today. If I were to go into the details and tell you everything, I would have to compress the file in order to be able to get it to you.

The bottom line is that there was a big bruha over the weigh in procedure yesterday and the committee lost the day today.

It was a picture perfect day; 12

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Day 3

Well, no race today. If I were to go into the details and tell you everything, I would have to compress the file in order to be able to get it to you.

The bottom line is that there was a big bruha over the weigh in procedure yesterday and the committee lost the day today.

It was a picture perfect day; 12 – 14 knots from the West, clear blue sky. The best day we have seen. We went out for a two our training session. Can

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Day 2

Well, it didn’t get any better today. After a 2-hour delay waiting for the wind to settle down, we got under way around 16:00 in 6 knots of wind from 230. We had a very good start in the right hand side of the line and about three minutes into the race we tacked and went off to the right. The right was good and we ended up 7th at the first mark.

A lot of good people were in the back of the pack. We battled around the race course in the diminishing wind, in the top ten. at one mark 5th. Finally, up the last windward leg, the wind continued to die to the point were we started thinking that we were not going to make the time limit. Sure enough, the first boat, George Szabo USA) was about 2 minutes from the finish line when the 3.5 hours time limit ran out.

It is not easy to sail in a huge fleet in under 5 knots of wind so it was good for our training.

Since there isn’t much racing going on here, my mind drifted onto some other things. I was looking at the list of competitors and noticed that there were only 4 boats form the USA here. That must be a record low. Then I noticed that there were 8 teams from the old Russia.4 from Russia, 3 from

Ukraine, 1 from Latvia. So there are twice as many teams from Russia than the USA in the Star World Championship. That is a record high. What does this mean?

I figure that it means that the real winners from the ending of the cold war and the falling of the “wall” are the Russians; not the USA.

I then met an old friend of mine. His name is Alexander Musichecko and I first met him in Marstrand Sweden in 1979. Alexander came to Sweden for the

Star Worlds back then in a blue van with his skipper Valentine Mankin. They

had no money so they camped behind the van and cooked their meals inside it.

I can remember them getting out of the van and then 2 guys in back leather

jackets getting out of the back of the van. They were KGB who were there to

make sure Alexander did not defect.

Here in Italy, 25 years later, Alexander is driving a brand new Land Rover

and staying in a nice hotel. The moral of this story must be that the Mafia

is better for Russian prosperity than the KGB.

Those are my sarcastic observations after a broken mast, a wasted day, and a

light air training session. Hopefully we will get back to racing tomorrow!

The schedule is for two races starting at 11:00. The forecast is for 15

knots of wind from the SE.

Paul Cayard

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Race Day 2

Well the first good thing is that today didn’t cost $5K. The next decent thing is that we finished 8th in a race that was not straightforward.

The wind was from the northeast again today (that is from the land) and so it was very shifty and puffy. Leaving the harbor we had a gust of 25 knots but it then began to moderate quickly. We had to change mainsails just before the start as we had our heavy air main on.

We had a bad start.gun shy as yesterday we were actually OCS at the start, and then we broke our rig.so we had to do a lot of shucking and jiving to get an open lane. Finally we did and again our speed was very good.

We rounded the first mark 17th and made some small gains on the next couple of legs. On the final run we passed 5 boats by going offshore and getting more breeze. Then up the last beat, the wind went crazy. First it dropped from 10 knots to 6 knots. Then it shifted 50 degrees right and it looked

like we were going to be 40th as we had worked the left up until then. Then we saw some wind on the left filling back out form shore so we tacked back to the left. It finally filled from there and we ended up 8th.

It was a tough leg. Ian Percy (GBR) went from 5th to 23rd on the last leg. Bromby (BER) went from 15th to 3rd. I am sure there were more horror stories than that.

Freddy Loof is sailing very well and got second today to go with his third of yesterday. So he is leading and I think Max Tracy (IRL) has two 5ths so he may be in second place. Torben Grael got 4th today and I am not sure what he finished yesterday but he must be near third place. Mark Neelman (NED) won the race today.

This morning we had a little surprise in that the committee decided to weigh everyone between 09:30 and 11:30. Problem was that they posted this notice on the board at 2100 last night and no one knew of it. So most people ate breakfast before coming down to the harbor and some did not even make it to

the harbor by 11:30 as the start is not until 14:00. So there was a big hurang about that. George Szabo (USA) did not make the weight and neither did class president Ricardo Simonechi. So they had there rule books out and were waiting for the jury when we got back to the dock.

Tomorrow’s forecast is for less of this north easterly gradient so it should give way to a nice sea breeze in the afternoon..hopefully. Then we have the “Rest Day” on Wednesday. This is a pretty casual schedule.1 race a day for three days, then a rest day, then 1 race a day for 3 more days.

Time-consuming!

Paul Cayard

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Race Day 1

The day started badly and ended up costing $5K. I woke up to the uncomfortable feeling of stomach flu. That was at 03:00 so the rest of my night wasn’t any good. I layed around in bed until 11:00 then headed down to the boats.

Phil had gotten everything ready so we left the dock at 12:00 after I did an interview for local TV that I had promised to do.

We got out to the race-course pretty early and tuned a bit with George Szabo. We were going well in the 8-10 knots of wind. The forecast was for the wind to come up to 20 knots from the north east by late afternoon. The north east is a tough wind direction as it is coming off the land.

A large rain squall came through the race course around 14:00 which is start time. Then the wind went real light and shifted 70 degrees right. The bottom line is that we sailed around out there until 1600 before we got a start off.

When we did finally start, the wind was 15 knots from 040. We did not have a great start and had to tack a few times to get a clear lane. When we did we found ourselves with Bromby and Grael. We went up the windward leg near them and got around the top mark about 8th.

Not far after rounding we gybed onto port. The wind was increasing and a bit gusty. We got hit by a gust and were not in the right positions with our bodies. The boat rolled over to wind ward, the pole dug into the water, and our favorite rig snapped in half. We also destroyed the main and jib.

We got back to the dock, put “old faithful” together.that is the rig we used most of the trials as we were saving the rig that broke today.and put it back in the boat and got the boat back to its mooring. All the boats stay in the water here during the regatta.

I am not sure what the results were but it looked like Freddy Loof (SWE), Mark Mansfield (IRL) and Ian Percy (GBR) were up in the top. Mark Reynolds and Steve Erickson got around the top mark about 5th so they looks in good shape. Poor George Szabo lost his crew overboard and had to reitre.

I am back at the hotel, feeling a little better, physically. I will try to eat some dinner and go to bed right after. It is already 20:00.

I tried to send some more photos last night but at connection speed of 52K it was going to take 20 minutes.

Obviously, it will be hard for us to win this won with our throw out already used. But we will give it all we have and see where the chips fall next Sunday.

Paul Cayard

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Race Day 1

The day started badly and ended up costing $5K. I woke up to the uncomfortable feeling of stomach flu. That was at 03:00 so the rest of my night wasn’t any good. I layed around in bed until 11:00 then headed down to the boats.

Phil had gotten everything ready so we left the dock at 12:00 after I did an interview for local TV that I had promised to do.

We got out to the race-course pretty early and tuned a bit with George Szabo. We were going well in the 8-10 knots of wind. The forecast was for the wind to come up to 20 knots from the north east by late afternoon. The north east is a tough wind direction as it is coming off the land.

A large rain squall came through the race course around 14:00 which is start time. Then the wind went real light and shifted 70 degrees right. The bottom line is that we sailed around out there until 1600 before we got a start off.

When we did finally start, the wind was 15 knots from 040. We did not have a great start and had to tack a few times to get a clear lane. When we did we found ourselves with Bromby and Grael. We went up the windward leg near them and got around the top mark about 8th.

Not far after rounding we gybed onto port. The wind was increasing and a bit gusty. We got hit by a gust and were not in the right positions with our bodies. The boat rolled over to wind ward, the pole dug into the water, and our favorite rig snapped in half. We also destroyed the main and jib.

We got back to the dock, put “old faithful” together.that is the rig we used most of the trials as we were saving the rig that broke today.and put it back in the boat and got the boat back to its mooring. All the boats stay in the water here during the regatta.

I am not sure what the results were but it looked like Freddy Loof (SWE), Mark Mansfield (IRL) and Ian Percy (GBR) were up in the top. Mark Reynolds and Steve Erickson got around the top mark about 5th so they looks in good shape. Poor George Szabo lost his crew overboard and had to reitre.

I am back at the hotel, feeling a little better, physically. I will try to eat some dinner and go to bed right after. It is already 20:00.

I tried to send some more photos last night but at connection speed of 52K it was going to take 20 minutes.

Obviously, it will be hard for us to win this won with our throw out already used. But we will give it all we have and see where the chips fall next

Sunday.

Paul Cayard

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The Day After

One really special moment I forget to mention last night was when we arrived at the dock and the Olympic Sailing Center. There were the top 60 Optimist Sailors(15 years old and under) in the USA standing there applauding Phil and I. It was touching and very much appreciated.

I celebrated the best I could last night, but all the rally I could muster was 2 beers and one glass of red wine with my dinner. We were supposed to meet up with the other sailors around 11 pm but we were asleep by then.

This morning I woke at 0700, took JC to the airport helped Phil with the final packing of the boat and went to the gym for an hour. I am now packed and getting ready for 24 hours of airplanes and airports.

In the gym

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Day 8

Short day at work for us. We got 5th in the first race of the day and wrapped up the victory. Step one accomplished.

The rest of the fleet stayed out there and completed the last two races. Our training partners Andy Lovell/Magnus Liljedahl finished second. This is a fantastic result in light of the fact that they broke their mast in race one and could not sail race two. George Szabo/Mark Strube were third. You can find the full results at: www.ussailing.org/olympics/Olympic Trials/2004/Star/Results.asp

I want to thank a few people: first my wife and best friend Icka. Without her support and love none of this would be possible for me. Secondly, Phil did an awesome job. Really he saved the regatta for us on day one when we laid the boat down in a huge gust and he got the pole off the mast so it did not break. We sailed a very consistent regatta and this is definitely a two man boat. Next, my physical trainer Sam Brovender. When I decided to get serious about this Olympic campaign, one year ago, I hired Sam He has gotten me into better shape than when I won the World Championship in 1988! Next, John Craig. JC has been our general operational coordinator, coach, weather man, tender drive and friend this spring. He was a key ingredient in us winning these trials and we will miss him as he goes back to his real job at St. Francis Yacht Club. I want to thank St. Francis Yacht Club for their support in my campaign and all the others through the years! Next, I need to thank the Diaz family; Gonzo and Maricel. Phil and I basically lived at their home for 5 months this winter. They were great hosts and helped us out tremendously. Thanks to Brad Dallenbaugh who helped me prepare from a rules standpoint and was on call for any protest situations this week. Fortunately none arose. Also, Bret Davis, our windward mark weatherman did a fantastic job for us this week. A big THANK YOU to all these people. This was a big challenge and required a big team and lot of organization and coordination to get it done right.

Winning this regatta means we earned the right to work extremely hard for the next five months. Now we have the honor and responsibility of representing the USA at the Olympics in the Star Class and living up to the results that have been achieved by those preceding us. That is no small task.

I am going on a business trip to Europe tomorrow so a forced respite from the gym for a week or so but I will be back at it on April 8th for even harder workouts than what I have been doing the past 12 months.

Our immediate sailing schedule is that the boat is being shipped to Italy tomorrow for the World Championship which starts April 23. It will stay over there until August and we will fly back and forth doing various regattas and training sessions in Europe and Athens.

I am off to dinner now. Maybe more latter in the week after I digest this a bit more. Thank you for all your nice emails and good thoughts. It helps us to know we have some many friends out there.

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