Dear Friends,

Today was a day of hurry-up-and-wait-for-wind, with an exclamation point of excitement at the end of the day where we had to race a squall into shore!  We were lucky to emerge from the day unscathed — our sails hardly luffed — while two teams bent or broke masts, and many teams ruined equipment.  See the attached photos of broken masts.  We didn’t have any racing today, and we have three races scheduled tomorrow with the first race starting at 11 am European time.  We will be carrying GPS units on our boat, so you can follow racing — live — online!  Follow the links from the Worlds website:www.470Worlds2010.com

We knew today’s forecast did not bode well when we the range in wind speed was calling for anything from six knots all the way up to fifteen knots.  The race committee postponed us this morning at about 9:45 a.m. because of thunderstorms.  Our races were quickly postponed until 4 p.m., so we settled in for the wait, and had lunch on the covered terrace of an Italian restaurant where we could keep an eye on the wind.  We saw it swing through 360 degrees — twice — in about one and a half hours.

We launched at 3 pm hoping to get some races in after the thunderstorms.  There was almost no wind, and we could not make any headway against the two knot current: we were getting swept backwards at the rate of one boatlength every five seconds!  With looming dark clouds on the horizon, the race committee sent us into shore at about 4:30 p.m.  They made this decision about ten minutes too late.  We knew we were racing a bad thunderstorm.  Coach Skip Whyte and Jonathan Farrar (who had come down from coaching Skuds in Medemblik to watch a day of racing) got us to the boat ramp just in time.  We had rolled our mainsail on the way in, and sprinted up the launching ramp dragging our 470.  We were able to drop our jib just five seconds before a squall with 40+ knots hit us.  Some other teams were not as lucky as we were.  Boats capsized in and outside the harbor, washed up on the beach, and ruined equipment and broke masts.  We felt like the day had been a stunning success.

Thank you to 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 check donations are 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.  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