Dear Friends,

We had another good day today. We sailed three races: the last qualifying race, and the first two races for Gold Fleet. We finished 2nd in the qualifying race, moving up to 3rd overall in the standings. In the Gold Fleet racing this afternoon, we finished 8th and 3rd, and remain 3rd overall. Nice! We are only 6 points out of 1st place, but the top boats are starting to stretch out from the fleet. For complete scores please visit the regatta website:

http://www.yachting.org.au/site/yachting/event/11221/overall_2_3.html

For photos, please visit this website:

http://470.org/fotos/worlds08/

We launched at 10 a.m. for the last race of qualifying. It was overcast this morning, and the forecast was calling for a cold front passing through that would FINALLY bring the breeze into the upper teens, but not for the first race which was sailed in 6-8 knots. During the starting sequence there was a large left shift, so we started at the pin, left, end of the line with most of the other good boats in our group. Our whole group tacked immediately and crossed the right side of the line. We continued to work the left side on the upwind, finding a little more shift and pressure. We rounded the first windward mark in 4th place. The breeze continued to shift left, and we moved into 3rd on the next downwind by going faster than the boats around us and knowing where the next mark was. We held onto 3rd for another lap, and moved into 2nd on the last downwind by staying in better pressure and hitting a large 30 degree shift. A good start for a long day!

We sailed into shore so that the Gold and Silver Fleets could be split, and were pleased to see that we had moved into 3rd overall! The top three teams at this regatta get a big dot to put on their sails. We had earned our first dot ever! The red looks good, but we are itching to trade it in for a blue or yellow!

We re-launched at 2 p.m. in breeze that was still soft. At this point we were starting to wonder if the high teens were ever going to materialize! We did not have a great start to the first race of Gold, and bailed out early, heading towards the right. We came back in a right shift and were looking surprisingly good on the other boats. As we crossed towards the left, the boats that dug further right than us did well. We caught a little left shift at the end to put us in the thick of the pack at the windward mark. We rounded in about 12th and lost a couple of boats going downwind. By the time we got downwind to the leeward mark, the wind had built dramatically to 18 knots. Everyone was caught off-guard and had to struggle with boats that were set up for 8 knots. We survived as well as anyone did, and caught a lot of distance on the second lap. Coming into the last leeward mark, we were just behind a pack of boats. Despite the fact that it was very windy, there had also been a big left shift which would make the finish reach easier. As windy tight reaching is one of our strengths, we were confident that we could hold to the finish. Of the pack of seven boats that rounded in front of us, only two others also held their spinnakers. We made it through underneath all of the boats that only had jibs, and rolled one boat with a spinnaker as they almost capsized. In the span of 200 yards, we had gone from approximately 14th to 8th.

In between races, we were happy to see the wind continue to build to approximately 22 knots. We got our boat set up for the breeze, and won the boat, right, end of the line. We were going very fast in the puffs, played the shifts well, and got to the windward mark in 3rd behind the Dutch and the French. The three of us set our spinnakers early on the top reach, and went tearing away from the rest of the fleet. We held even for the rest of the race, and crossed the finish line 3rd.

One of the hardest parts of the day was making it back on shore. We launch from a nice beach with a long, shallow grade, which is good when there are no waves. Coming in at the end of the day in breaking waves was a lot hairier! We almost capsized twice, but made it on shore intact.

Keep your fingers crossed for us — it has been working so far! The forecast for the next two days should be windier, and we are looking forward to making the most of it.

Best,

Erin and Isabelle

470 Team USA

www.470TeamUSA.com

erin@470TeamUSA.com

isabelle@470TeamUSA.com