Racing started today. The first start was at 2:00 p.m., so it was a slow morning. Since it took awhile for the wind to fill in, the late start was a good thing. When the wind did come in, we had a nice 10-knot breeze out of the south.
Race 1
Trapezoid outer course.
We won the pin and were looking good until the wind shifted right. We were lifted on starboard with the fleet wound up inside us. It looked like there would be good wind on the left, so we waited it out until we got a shift to tack on. By the time we tacked, we were almost on the lay line. The shift wasn't as big as it could have been, but we came out okay and rounded the weather mark in third. The Finns and the French were in first and second
The Russians behind us gained a little on the reach, then passed us on the beginning of the run. We were right behind the Russians at the bottom of the run.
On the next beat, we got a bit out of phase, and the Russians gained some more. We were able to gain a lot back by catching some good waves on the last run. At the leeward mark, we were right behind them, but we had to jibe. We did a "rodeo jibe." This is what we call it when we jibe for a short amount of time without jibing the pole. The Russians had a bad rounding, and we passed them right away to finish in third place.
Race 2
We started at the pin again, with one boat to leeward. The wind was
in a right shift, so we didn't want to tack. Halfway up the beat, we
got a lefty to tack on, but it was short lived. When the wind went
back right, it looked like we were in last place. We had to tack back
to starboard and, luckily, had some distance to the lay line, so we
could wait for another shift. By the time we reached the lay line,
we had enough of a shift back left to tack and round the top mark in
about tenth.
We got it going on the run and passed some more boats. On the next beat, we started out on port getting lifted. By three quarters of the way up the next beat, we again found ourselves hoping that the wind would shift back before the lay line and, luckily, it did just in time, and we passed a few more boats to start the last run in sixth.
We held our position on the last run, and then passed one boat on the last reach to finish fifth. The Finns and French were numbers one and two again.
Race 3
At about four minutes before the last race, we got T-boned by a port
tack boat. This put a big hole in the rail of our poor boat. After
scrambling to try and tape it up, we started about ten seconds late.
It wasn't long before we found a good lane and there was a right shift, so we were on starboard heading left. Most of the fleet was heading right, but we stuck to our guns and waited for a shift. The shift came in big, and we tacked onto a nice port angle. Not to our surprise, our tape job was coming undone and the bow was slowly getting lower and lower. We managed to get around the mark in sixth place.
On the reach, we were feeling slow, but were holding off the boats behind us. When we got to the run, we undid did the tape that was stopping the water from going into the bow tank, and the water from our bow came shooting out. By the end of the run, we had lost about five boats. We decided that we'd better not try and go upwind again, so we sailed in to fix our boat.
On Shore
We filed for redress and got our average points for the day, 4. A guy
named Mad Vlad, his real name is Vladimir, from Belarus (editor's
note - former Belorussia), is going to fix our boat for tomorrow.
Vladimir is the assistant to the Australian coach who is Ukrainian.
Hopefully, we'll be back on the water tomorrow.
Paul and Bob
Team 2000
Hello again from Barcelona Olympic Week.
There are 37 men's 470s here from 18 countries. Other fleets also are racing: 470 women, Laser, 49er, Tornado, Europe men and women, , Laser radial, 420, Mistral men and women.
It was another beautiful, sunny day today, though still a bit cold, with an air temperature high of 60 degrees and water temp also in the 60s. We were lying second overall going into today's races, with Finland winning and the French ( Gildas) right behind us. Mad Vlad had our boat ready to go at 11:30 a.m., so we were safe from sinking.
Racing was a little earlier today, with a 1:00 p.m. start. The weather forecast was for a little more wind today than yesterday.
Race 1
Wind 8-12 out of 210 degrees, a little more right than yesterday. Current was running at
1 knot down wind.
We decided to start at the boat and go right, hopefully getting out of the current. We had good wind going right, but tried to go for a little too much leverage on the right. We looked to be way ahead, but the wind shifted back left, and we ended up sixth at the first mark.
We stayed pretty even on the reach and run, then made a good gain on the first part of the second beat by going right. Unfortunately, we got out of phase at the end of the beat and lost our previous gains, so we just cruised to the finish for a sixth. Finland and the French ( Gildas) were behind us.
Race 2
Wind was the same.
The boat end was pretty crowded, so we opted for a mid-line start. It was very had to judge the line from the middle with this much current, but we had a good line site.
We had a good start and were going pretty well. We were leading the left side. Up at the weather mark, we were just barely ahead, and we overstood the weather mark. A British team sneaked around ahead of us. We set our spin first and blasted through their lee and never looked back.
The Finnish team came up to finish behind us for a second.
Race 3
The wind was a couple of knots lighter than Race 2.
The pin was favored at the start, and we were third up from the pin--not so great a start, but we hung tough.
We battled up the beat and rounded the top mark in seventh. Bob went to set the spin pole, and as he was pushing it out, the pole broke in half. Whoops! We tried to fly the chute on the reach, but quickly got rolled by everyone, so we headed for home. Finland went on to win that race.
We just can't seem to sail all three races.
We are still in second (one throw out), with 20.5 points. Finland has 7 points, France (Gildas) 23, Spain 25, Argentina 29 and Britain 31.
Well, hopefully we can sail all three races tomorrow.
Paul and Bob
Team 2000
Well, we sailed only two races again today, but at least that was all they had! We were postponed in the morning due to high wind. The committee decided that they wanted to run only two courses, so the Tornados went out and sailed a race, and then we went out for two. When we got out there, the wind was only about 20 knots. By race two, it had died to around ten.
Race 1
It was hard to tell what side was favored, and the wind wasn't shifting much. We got an
okay start, but had to tack for a good lane and just continued on until we thought we
might be close to the lay line. It was hard to see the marks. With no significant shifts,
it was a drag race to the weather mark, and we rounded fourth. On the reach, we rolled a
boat right away. We were going a little slow on the run and lost two boats. Most of the
leaders headed out right on the next beat, and we went with them. We passed the one boat
that went left, and finished the race in fourth.
Race 2
The wind made a ten degree right shift, but after two general recalls it went back to the
original direction. We started at the boat and headed out right. The wind had shifted a
little more left, and we had to tack because we thought that we might be near the lay
line. We didn't look very good when we tacked, but as we continued on starboard, the wind
came back right and we started looking better. We had overstood a little bit, but at
least we were avoiding the bad air on lay line. We rounded somewhere in the top ten.
We got it going a little better on the run to hold even. At the leeward mark, the wind had shifted right, so we tacked onto the lifted starboard tack, but this took us through a big lull. We finally got some wind and a left shift and didn't loose any boats, but the Australians had gained a bunch on us. We felt like we were gaining on the boats in front on the run, but the Australians passed us from behind and we finished seventh.
The Finnish are still winning with 18 points. The French moved into second with 28, and we fell to third with 31.5. The Spanish and Australians are close behind at 35 and 40. We can't have a race after 3:30 tomorrow so we probably only have two races left.
Paul and Bob
Team 2000
Hello folks,
Last day of racing here in Barcelona. We came into today in third place with 31.5 points, France was second with 28, Finland was winning with 18, Spain was in fourth with 35.
Forecast for today was rain and lighter wind than yesterday. Well, the first part was wrong; we did not have any rain. Unfortunately, we did not have any wind either, so we had no races today.
You would think that the standings would remain the same. Unfortunately, the jury decided to change our redress points. They gave us average points for all races, including our 40 point DNF. This was per the Sailing Instructions. It gave us 9.57 points for Race 3 instead of 4.5 points, which gave us a total of 36.57 points and fourth place.
Paul tried to point out that the Sailing Instructions were wrong, but that did no good, especially since it put a Spanish boat in third.
We drive to Le Sablette, France, tomorrow. It is a small town on the Mediterranean Sea in the south of France. Last year that place was extremely windy. Looking at the weather map, there is a monster front coming with lots of rain. Wow--fun, fun, fun!
We need the practice in the breeze, though. Hopefully, we can polish up our racing a little.
Thanks for everyone's support.
Paul and Bob
Team 2000