Just a little update on what’s happening over here at the Pre-Olympics
Day 1
The first day of racing was suspended due to lack of wind. I will give the R/C credit they kept us on shore! The Tornado class (whom we share the same race course with, at different times) had to sit out on the water most of the day before being sent in for the afternoon.
Day 2 Race 1
Course W2 (4 legs finish downwind)
8kts, huge swells, lots of chop
Yesterday we had 2 good races. The breeze was out of a direction of 160. The tide was Ebbing to the east at about 2.5 kts. Basically you could sail past the R/C boat on port for 200 yards with a minute to go, tack back to starboard and with the current you could time a perfect boat end start. We managed to get off the line and had really good upwind speed we rounded the weather mark in 5th overlapped with Ian Percy and Bart Simpson (GBR) there was about 6 of us that had a nice jump on the fleet and it went back and fourth and we finished the race 6th. Good start to a long wacky regatta!
Race 2
Again race started in a wind direction of 160 and a decreasing breeze of about 6kts. With the left over waves and chop this was going to be an interesting race. We got an average start, Peter Bromby & Lee White of Bermuda did a nice job of shutting us out of a boat start, we were a little late but were able to tack immediately onto starboard tack. We held on a long port tack with about 4 boats going to the right and the fleet going to the left. We again have really good boat speed upwind the left side paid up the first beat but we were able to round the top mark 4th. Again not much changed up the next 2 legs, swaping tacks with Hammish Pepper & Tiny Williams (NZL) and Percy (GBR) by the 2nd upwind leg the 4 of us had a HUGE lead on the others, we must of rounded 30 seconds in front of the others.. Well this is where things get interesting.. Down the last run to the finish, the breeze went really light Percy (GBR) and US stayed on Starboard gybe, well this didn’t pay. The teams that were 700 yards behind us gybed at the top mark (BRA) Robert Schideit was so far behind I couldn’t read his sail numbers just to give you guys and idea how far ahead the top 6 boats were… Well BRA finished the race in 2nd place… USA finished 10th percy finished 12th…..
We have 16 points and today we have 2 more scheduled races. Will be interesting weather team is calling for less wind than yesterday, and 70% chance were going to get rained on out there….
All in all its been a great learning experience here in China training where the Olympics will be in 1 year and sailing with the best guys in the world….. The best part about this deal is our US Olympic Trials will be the exact format. We will be ready!
I will let you guys know what happens after todays 2 races!
Austin