Dear Friends,

As it stands right now, we are in 4th place overall with 16 points, only 6 points out of 1st place, with three races sailed, and six races and a medal race left. Yesterday, Thursday, was a really long day on the water: we launched at 12:45 p.m., and didn’t get back to land until 8:45 p.m. We sailed three races in shifty conditions, with wind blowing at 8-15 knots. We finished 5th, 3rd, and 8th, for a very solid day on the water.

For complete scores, please visit the regatta website:
www.deltalloydregatta.org
For details of yesterday’s racing, please read on!

All three races had similar story-lines. All of our races at this regatta will be trapezoid, inner loops. The pumping flag was up for all three races, meaning that the boats are allowed unlimited kinetics. All three races had two general recalls at the start, before the third start went off. We did not have any good starts, but were able to position ourselves well and hit a couple of shifts to be in contention — top ten — at the first windward mark. The breeze was lighter in the first two races, and out downwinds were not great, and we lost boats. We are still working on getting back the feel of the boat through the waves. We had great leeward mark roundings, and passed many boats on the second up-winds, and picked off a couple more on the tight reaches.

In the second race, we were about 5th at the windward mark, lost boats downwind to round the leeward mark in about 10th. We tacked twice right after the mark to find a clear lane upwind through the spinnakers that were still coming downwind, and positioned ourselves well relative to the fleet that had gone too far left in a big left shift and could not see the mark. We were 4th at the windward mark, rolled a Dutch team on the reach, and finished the race in 3rd — sweet!

The forecast today is for light and shifty conditions, so stay tuned!

Erin and Isabelle

470 Team USA
www.470TeamUSA.com

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