Bacardi Cup-Race 3

The forecast for today was not good… A weak NW gradient giving way to a weak sea breeze. That happened and it was a tricky day.

The wind finally filled in around 1300 from 130 at 7-8 knots. It looked promising. In this wind direction the left side is usually favored. We

started near the middle of the line and headed left. Unfortunately as we got towards the port layline, the wind kept lifting us. Our port tack heading was terrible and the boats in the middle of the course had a great shift.

We rounded the first mark about 80th. There were not many people behind us. I did notice that Mark Reynolds sailed off the course so the “black flag” must have caught him today. We managed to pass a few boats on the next few legs including Freddy Loof the regatta leader going into todays race.

For the final run to the finish the race committee changed the course with code flag “C” and indicated a heading of 310. However they actually positioned the finish line at 280… off by 30 degrees. That caught a few people by surprise like Vince Brun and Rick Merriman who had expected the finish line to be where it was indicated and headed down the right side of the run only to over stand and come back to the “downwind” finish with pole down and on a tight reach. Freddy Loof got so fed up with the race he just quit.

We hung in there, eating our humble pie, and finished 55th. To add to the pain, I hit my head in the barney post in one tack and got a pretty nasty gash that Sam our trainer taped back together after the race.

Alfonso Bermudez of Portugal won the race and I think Howie Sheibler had another good race in the top five. I honestly did not look at the scores.

Tomorrow will be our last day of training for this week. I am going home to San Francisco to visit my family and Phil is going to New York to see his wife. We are back next week for a couple days of practice before the Olympic Trials start on Saturday the 20th.

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Bacardi Cup-Race 2

The Black Flag was back today and we got caught. We sailed up to the windward mark, not in particularly good shape and saw our bow number posted so we retired.

The day was supposed to be w windy one from the NW. We put our heavy air main on for the trials to give it a look. It was fine but by the time the start came along there was only 10 knots of wind so we shifted to our light air main. As we sailed the first beat the wind even dropped further to 6 knots.

The report from the guys who raced the whole race was that the committee moved the windward mark right but the wind stayed left and most of the race was a parade.

Peter Bromby BER won the race, Freddy Loof was third, Howie Sheibler was 5th. Loof is now leading the regatta and we have dropped to 43rd. There is a throw out in this series but I am planning on leaving on Wednesday night.

We towed in, washed the boat and pulled our rig out. This is our new rig, the one we bought to replace the rig we broke last Tuesday. It is very good and I want to keep it that way. So we will sail tomorrow and Wednesday with our spare rig to make sure we are happy with its tune and not risk anything with the number one rig.

I went to the gym for an hour and a half with my trainer Sam and Phil finished up a few projects on the boat.

We are feeling pretty good because everything on our work list is done. John Craig our coach has our coach boat very organized complete with spare mast onboard.

We went to dinner with Augie Diaz and his crew Hal Haenel. Hal crewed for me in the Star Worlds in Marina Del Rey in 2002 where we finished 4th and qualified the USA for Athens.

The forecast for tomorrow is not stellar but hope fully the land will heat up and pull a light sea breeze in.

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Bacardi Cup-Race 1

Today started off slowly. The forecast was for 5-10 knots from the SSW. Eventually the wind was supposed to go all the way to the WSW. There is a cold front expected tonight and WNW winds 10-15 for tomorrow.

However, the gradient was weak today and it was very hot. For 2 hours, from 1200-1400, there was virtually no wind. The competitors just drifted around and waited.

Finally at 1430 6 knots of wind filled in from 155. The race committee laid a perfect line

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March 6, 2004 Training Day on Biscayne Bay

Yesterday we had a day ashore, working on our masts, and getting items on our work list checked off. It was nice to be off the water for a day. I went to the gym late in the afternoon with our Sam and had a good high energy workout. Sam has changed our workout routine now for the last 2 weeks prior to the trials.

Today was another beautiful day on Biscayne Bay

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March 4, 2004 Training Day on Biscayne Bay

Winds were 130 at 10-14 knots today. The water a bit smoother than yesterday.

The day started out at 0645 with a run to the gym and then an hour and a half work out with our trainer Sammy. Shower and breakfast and down to the club by 0945.

We went out with the

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March 3, 2004 Training Day on Biscayne Bay

We had a better day today. Still blowing 14-18 form the ESE today. Today activities were; gym 0645, breakfast 0830, shower 0900, West Marine 0930, arrival at the club 0945, rig up and tuning, dock out 11:30. The water schedule was three races today.

Freddy Loof of SWE dominated the first two races. Xavier Rohart of FRA, the current world champion was up there as well as our tuning partner of these past few weeks, Andy Lovell and Magnus Liljedahl. We battled around somewhere in the top five or six.

In the third race, Perter Bromby BER got tangled up with someone at the start and shredded his main, Eric Doyle and Brian Sharp USA dropped their rig just like we did yesterday. Mark Reynolds and Steve Erickson were leading half way through this race but the wind went right quite a bit and we nearly caught them by the second weather mark. Rohart and Geroge Szabo USA had gotten by both of us and Rohart went on to win Freddy Loof had packed it in after the 2nd race.

We were going ok up wind but a bit slow downwind. Need to work on that tomorrow. The waves here are very short in length so the boats are constantly overtaking the waves. You need to find a way to snake through them without letting them slow the boat down. Sometimes you let the boat roll over to windward to the windward chine

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March 2, 2004 Training Day on Biscayne Bay

Back to the Star after a good week on the Samba Pa Ti Farr 40 where we finished second in the SORC. The SORC now is a 10 races event, all short course buoy races.

Phil and I hit the gym this morning at 0700 for a few hours then ate breakfast at our favorite coffee shop. Oatmeal, 3 egg white omelet cinnamon raisin beagle and we were down at the club by 1015 ready for battle.

Today the breeze was 15 knots from 115 and a beautiful day. We have Ed Adams coaching us again and we are partnered up with Andy Lovell and Magnus Liljedahl for this session. Today

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Race Day 4

No wind today… No races.

So the final standings are those of yesterday: 1) Reynolds/Erickson (USA) 37, 2) Beashal/Giles (AUS) 44, 3) Loof/Eckstrom (SWE) 51, 4) Domingos/Santos (POR) 51, 5) Cayard/Trinter (USA) 52, 6) Holm/Olsen (DEN) 53, 7) Koch/Koy (GER) 55, 8) Neeleman/Van Niekerk (NED) 58.

We are fairly satisfied with our result. A lot of good people were behind us. With this win, Reynolds/Erickson have risen to the top level on the radar for the US Olympic Trials. For the past year, Reynolds has been off the pace but now it appears he is back. The fleet is tightening up of the Trials regatta.

We have some improving to do to get to our best. The

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Race Day 3

We had our best and worst today. In fact 4 out of the top 5 had their worst race today.

The wind was 8 knots in the first race from 125 and 6 knots in the second race from 120.

In the first race, we won the pin end and were able to tack and cross the fleet. It is nice to be able to look at the whole fleet in the window of your mainsail. However by the time we got to the windward mark, we were third and despite a few ups and downs we stayed there. On the last run of that race, the leaders, Marazzi of Switzerland got whistled for a rule 42 (kinetics) violation, and had to do a 720 penalty turn. That gave the win to Beashal/Giles (AUS), Marazzi finished second, us third, Sheibler 4th. Howie and his crew Will were 6th in the second race and had the best score for the day. They are now in 10th overall.

The second race we were determined to go right off the line. We had a bad start but were able to get clear air fairly shortly. But the real problem was that the wind went 10 degrees left and there was a bit more pressure over there too. So we rounded the windward mark about 50th. We passed a few and ended up 37th.

The committee wanted to go for a third race but in the end sent us in as the wind was getting very light and unstable. So we all towed in and did a few things on the boat. Then I went to the gym with my trainer Sam. That felt good.

So after six races the positions are: 1) Reynolds/Erickson (USA) 37, 2) Beashal/Giles (AUS) 44, 3) Loof/Eckstrom (SWE) 51, 4) Domingos/Santos (POR) 51, 5) Cayard/Trinter (USA) 52, 6) Holm/Olsen (DEN) 53, 7) Koch/Koy (GER) 55, 8) Neeleman/Van Niekerk (NED) 58. As you can see, it is very close and a lot can happened tomorrow.

The forecast for tomorrow is very light wind. So it will be shifty, fluky and difficult.

You can check on the complete results at :www.ussailing.org/olympics/RolexMiamiOCR/index.htm

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Race Day 2

Today we had some consistency and some luck. The day started out with 16-22 knots from the Northwest. This is typically a very shifty direct as the wind comes off the shore and today was typical. Sometimes the left looks good and sometimes the right comes good. Very hard to know.

In the first two races we had decent starts and were always in the top 10 and finished up with a 9 and 8.

For race 3 the wind dropped a bit and we changed mainsails from our heavy air main to our standard. We had a bad start for race 3. I am still a bit gun-shy on the starting line having been called over early several times this winter. So I was back just a bit at the start of race three and we got rolled by just a bout everyone. We went to the right as that was the forecast as the wind dropped but the wind went left instead. So we were about 55th at the first mark. It didn’t feel or look good. But we hung in there and after rounding the leeward we tried the right again and lucky for us, it worked. We got a big shift right and passed 40 boats to finish 12th. That looked and felt GOOD.

So after 4 races, we are lying 5th with 49 points.

Mark Reynolds and Steve Erickson(USA) are in 1st with 29 points, Freddy Loof/Anders Ekstrom (SWE) 2nd, Colin Beashal/David Giles(AUS) 3rd, Peter Bromby/Martin Siese(BER) 4th. Neatherlands and Denmark are 6th and 7th to make the USA the only country with 2 teams in the top 7.

Ian Percy/Steve Mitchell(GBR) were Black Flagged in race number 2 but after six races they will get to discard that and currently their other three scores are 1,5,8 mso they wil be back in the counting by the end of tomorrow.

The forecast for tomorrow is very light winds; 4-8 knots from the Northeast so it wil be a tricky day. As if today wasn’t tricky enough.

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