Greetings race fans,

We finished our second day of racing in the silver fleet and are proving we have what it takes to be in gold fleet. We have been sailing consistently in the front of the fleet and are currently in first place in the silver fleet. For a play by play of yesterday and today's racing read on-

Yesterday was a beautiful day of sailing. It was a clear sunny day (which seems to be rare here in China as it is hazy almost all the time), and the wind built to 18 knots by mid afternoon. We sailed 3 races. The first race we didn't get off the starting line well but played the shifts well and rounded the windward mark in fourth. Some fast downwind sailing allowed us to pass a boat and we held around the course to finish third. The second race we had an incredible start punched at the committee boat end of the starting line. We had straightened up our mast before the race because we thought the wind would be lighter this race. We were wrong!! The breeze filled in quickly and became a fun race with lots of shifts with all teams struggling to depower their sails for the unexpected build in wind strength (For those of you unfamiliar to the type of boat we race, in a 470 we are able to change the angle of our mast and depth in the sail shape by bending the mast. However, many of these changes must be done before the race starts because you must take all the tension off the wires holding the mast up to make the changes and it is too costly to do during a race. So, if you guess incorrectly about how much wind there will be in the race, you can find yourself struggling to keep the boat in control and going fast.) We were able to make adjustments to the sails better than other teams by making some of the changes on the first downwind leg. Erin flew the spinnaker briefly while Isabelle made the changes to the sail and mast. We had good speed and finished the race in second. In the third race, we correctly set our mast up for the increased wind but the wind ended up getting even windier during the race than expected. Again, we had a great start and we handled the building breeze better than other teams and were going fast. We approached the first make on port tack and were almost able to cross the starboard tack boats and be in first but decided to be conservative and duck them to avoid any chance of fouling. So we rounded the first mark in third and prepared to set onto a tight reach. Unfortunatly our spinnaker had a problem and we were unable to pull it up until we fixed it. We lost at least 10 boats while this was getting fixed, but we kept going fast. We passed the majority of the boats and were back in top 5 at the next windward mark. Again, we went to set the spinnaker and had a new problem which took a while to fix as well. We finally got the sail set half way down the leg of the race but didn't have another windward leg to pass boats again so we had to settle for a finish of 12th in the race. It was a solid finish given that we spent a good portion of our downwind with no spinnaker.

Today was a very light wind day with only one race sailed. The wind was light for the start but the forcast said, and what we have seen almost every day, is that the wind would build during the race. So we set up for light winds for the most part but erred a little thinking the wind would build. We had a good start punched in the middle of the starting line. We were one of the faster boats in the fleet but not as fast as a couple boats that were set up perfectly for the light wind. We had better tactics in the wind shifts and rounded the windward mark in second. We sailed fast downwind and rounded the leward mark right next to the lead boat. On the next windward leg we lost one boat and rounded third but were fast again on the next downwind leg and passed a boat to move into second and finish in second. Later on land we learned the boat that had beaten us, an Isreali team, will be retiring from the race because they sailed with a new sail and new mast in the race. This is illegal because each team is only allowed to use the same sails and mast that they get measured in at the beginning of the event. So, it turns out we won today's race! And we are winning the silver division at the Worlds. For complete scores, please visit the event website: http://470.rz.gov.cn/

Two more days of racing left to go and 3 races are scheduled. We plan to keep working as a team and getting faster with each race. Stay tuned!

Erin and Isabelle