Dear Friends,

We finally had three days of racing in a row! We had six races in silver fleet and ended up 2nd in Silver, 26th overall our of 48 teams. Silver fleet had many good teams in it — the top Danish team, Canadian team, and Ukrainian team (with a gold medal under their belts). The entire regatta was in light air — we only pinned down 1/2 pin for one race. We made significant strides in light air and choppy water, experimenting with different, faster settings. Most importantly, we continued getting better, honing our boathandling as well as tactics at the front of the fleet.

For complete scores, please visit the regatta website: http://www.ncth.gr/470//

Our next regatta is the World Championships in Cascais, Portugal, from July 7 – 13th. We will arrive in Cascais to begin training on June 20th.

For details of the racing, please read on!

The first day in silver fleet, June 8th, we had three races. Before these three races all 150 boats launched, sailed out to their racecourses, and then were chased back to the harbor by a very dark thunderstorm with big lightning bolts that was moving in our direction. After the storm cleared, we re-launched. The first race was a shifty southeasterly. We played the shifts well throughout the race, ending up 4th. The second race of the day was cancelled due to a 45 degree wind shift when we had just moved into first — bummer! We sailed one more races in a southwesterly, finishing 5th. At the end of racing we had moved up to 4th in our fleet.

Saturday, June 9th, was the best day of racing at the regatta. We again had three races in a shifty southwesterly. By now we had understood that the left was the place to be in the racing, and used that to our advantage. We finished 8th, 5th, and 1st! In the first race of the day we had a perfect rodeo gybe (where you turn the boat downwind without changing the spinnaker pole), passing a boat at the last mark to the finish. For the bullet, we hit the shifts up the first beat perfectly, extended downwind, and then covered on the second lap to maintain our lead. At the end of the day we had moved up to 2nd in Silver, only three points behind ISR in first.

Yesterday, Sunday, June 10th, we sailed one race. We knew that in order to win the Silver fleet we would have to put three boats between us and the ISR team that was beating us. We rounded the first windward mark in 4th with the ISR team right behind us. We extended downwind, but ran into a roadblock of slow boats in front of us. ISR passed us on the second upwind, and we crossed the line in 5th, securing 2nd place in Silver.

Best,

Erin and Isabelle

www.470TeamUSA.com

erin@470TeamUSA.com isabelle@470TeamUSA.com