Sunday, January 16, 2011

Jan. 16th - NA's Day 3

Today was the third and final day of racing for 470 North Americans. There was no wind when we arrived at the boat park this morning but by 9.30 it was starting to fill in. It has finally warmed up so we were able to discard our wetsuits and sail in summer gear today! The women had the first start today but we still had several general recalls. The first start we had an amazing start with tons of room to leeward; unfortunately this one was called back and so was the next one. The third start wasn't recalled but was terrible for us; we immediately tacked out to clear our air and got forced further and further right by other boats which was not what we wanted as the wind was in a left phase. We rounded in last and remained there for the rest of the race. It just wasn't our race, we were making stupid mistakes and not focusing. After the finish and some water and food and removing some layers of clothing we were feeling a bit better. The second race the wind shifted left 10 seconds before the start and there was a lot of confusion on the line as some boats double tacked and some were too far forward and some too far back. We managed to make it work for us and got off cleanly. Then someone tacked right in front of us, so we tacked out and tacked back right in front of someone else... it was a bit of a messy upwind leg with the normal order of boats out of sorts. The breeze stayed in a left phase for the entire upwind and there was some shouting from the top teams on the lay-line coming into the first mark. Some teams who were black flagged off the start bailed out at the top mark and a few more on the downwind. We couldn't seem to get up to speed on the first downwind, it was looking good until we came back into the mark and had to give 3 boats room. The second upwind we were in line with the world champions and pacing them for speed (they weren't having a great race but it made us feel good). The wind was in a left phase again and I couldn't decide if we should stay right and count on it shifting back or consolidate towards the middle/left of the course. We tacked in and it turned out to be the wrong call; we lost about 12 boat lengths on the boats that stayed out right. The last downwind and reach were agonizingly slow as the breeze had dropped to 3 or 4 knots.

We sat around intending to watch the medal race but they were taking so long to set it up we got bored and sailed in. Our German friends Sanni and Tina had pulled out of the last race due to frustration; but they managed to get it together and won the medal race!

Overall it was a really good regatta for us. We know how to start now and have the boat speed upwind. We sometimes have the boat speed downwind and our boat handling is not brilliant but functional and repeatable. Our teamwork and communication has improved immensely and we have settled into our roles in the boat and trust each other's decisions now! We are looking forward to a day off tomorrow and then we will continue training for the Miami Olympic Classes Regatta which begins on the 24th.

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