Olympic Games Race Day

We had a very good day today. We wont the first race of the Olympics in the Star class. Then we got a 6th and we lead the fleet. That’s just the first day…long way to go.

The day started off slowly. We were postponed ashore so that the Ynglings and Finns, who race on our course, could finish off their series. We left the harbor at 13:30 and did not start the first race until 14:45. The wind was light all day today 6-9 knots. It was a condition where you needed to power the boat up as much as possible which we did.

We had very good speed today and we sailed well to go with it. The first race we led at every mark. At times we stretched a bit and at times the fleet closed on us. Never really threatened to loose the lead. The Danish were in second most of the race but on the last windward leg the wind shifted 25 degrees to the left and they got passed by the Spanish and British.

In the second race, we had a bad start…gun shy… So we tacked shortly after. The left had been the way to go and everyone was fighting for that. We one the first race by going left. But we did not have a lane to go left so we just sailed out until we did find a nice clear spot and tacked onto starboard and we were in decent shape. In fact, the right was good on this windward leg, the only time all day. Freddy Loof (SWE) led at the first mark after struggling in the first race with a 15th. We got up to the mark in about 5th but approaching on port there was no hole for us to tack onto starboard. We bore away and almost ran downwind on port ducking 7 boats!!. We rounded 13th.

Freddy got flagged for a rule 42 violation (rocking or pumping) on the first run, and had to do a 720 degree penalty turn. So the Greeks took over the lead at that point. Meanwhile we had clawed back to 10th. Up the second beat we went left and gained and continued to pick off a boat per leg to finish 6th. The Swiss won the second race.

Quickly the results which are pretty meaningless at this point: 1) USA 7, 2) BRA 9, 3) SUI 11, 4) GBR 11, 5) FRA 12, 6) ESP 15 7)DEN 16 8) AUS 16 . That’s all I have. You can check the results on the ISAF web page www.sailing.org.

We were selected for a random check by the measurement committee after racing so we had to go into a special area for that which delayed us a bit. We got done at 2000 and went to the medal ceremony for our 470 men, Paul Forester and Kevin Burnham who won gold today. That was fantastic.

We had a quick dinner and are trying to hit the sack. It has been a very long but good day.