The last you heard from us was in January after we placed 7th at US Sailing’s Rolex Miami Olympic Classes Regatta. We are now in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, at the Princess Sofia Regatta. We are happy to have coach Skip Whyte here with us. The last time we raced here was in 2007 when we placed 3rd! We are trying to make it back onto the podium. We have eleven races scheduled in between today and the medal race on Friday, so stay tuned! Today’s two races were terrible … and great! We had a 35th in the first race, and a 3rd in the second race. Overall we are in 20th out of 41 teams, but it is still a very long regatta. For details from today’s racing, please read on.

Today was a light sea breeze: in the first race Isabelle was marginal trapezing in about 7 knots, but the wind died steadily, and by the end of the day we were ghosting along in approximately 4 knots. In the first race of the regatta we wanted to minimize risk on the starting line, so we started below the pack at the boat and a little too far back off of the line. While we pinched off the boat above us, and rolled the boat below us, we were not able to hang with the bigger pack. A right shift put the boats to the right well ahead, and we were battling in the back of the pack for most of the race. At the last leeward mark onto the finish reach a couple of boats took room on us and made a bad race even worse. After we crossed the line in 35th, we immediately started putting that race behind us. We had sailed our drop race of the regatta in the first race, and it was time to do a lot better!

In the second race we had a great start at the boat, and were able to hit the first couple of shifts! We played the shifts well on the right side of the course, and were about 8th place at the first windward mark because boats on the left generally had better pressure. The top reach was not a reach. The race committee had set the course so that we could not even set our spinnakers, and were essentially still sailing upwind. After losing to boats on the left in the first upwind, we were determined to play the pressure on the left side of the course. We gained many boats on the second upwind, and rounded the second windward mark 4th! See below for a photo of a light air roll-tack from this upwind. On the last downwind we had great speed despite the fact that the wind had dropped substantially. As we approached the last leeward mark, we were almost in first! The Italians were leading, and fellow Americans Clark & Chin were in second ahead of us. About 6 boatlengths from the mark were were all on port, and each of us had to gybe twice before the mark. We gybed away early, hoping to go faster by splitting. We gybe back too early, just short of layline to the mark. Clark & Chin gybed onto port just above us, paralleling our course, and the Italians gybe above them. At this point we were all overlapped, all within three boatlengths of the mark. We all gybed onto starboard, but we were on the outside of the pinwheel. We held our positions to the finish line. We were very happy with our 3rd.

For complete scores, please visit the regatta website: http://www.trofeoprincesasofia.org/result.php?miclase=470%20Women

Thank you our larger team! To the many individuals who give generously to support our olympic sailing campaign, and to our sponsors who support our effort. The US Sailing Team AlphaGraphics sponsors: AlphaGraphics, Rolex, Atlantis, Sperry Topsiders, and Harken. And, our personal sponsors: Kaenon and Sampson Ropes.

All donations to our campaign are greatly appreciated and tax deductible. Please mail checks to: Sailing Foundation of New York, c/o Isabelle Farrar, 326 East 82nd Street, Apartment 5C, New York, NY 10028-4362. Or, donate directly through our website: www.470TeamUSA.com

Best,

Erin and Isabelle

US Sailing Team Alphagraphics

Campaign for 2012 Olympic Games
www.470TeamUSA.com

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