Well, I guess my last e-mail was from the European Championship Regatta, Croatia, or just a little after. Lots has happened since then.
Kitty Hawk flew both our boats back to Dallas from Europe, then Bob flew to Dallas and drove them to St. Petersburg, Florida. That's where the Olympic Trials will be held October 14 - 24.
SPECIAL THANKS TO JEFF AND CLAUDIA PROGELHOF FOR LENDING US THEIR SUBURBAN TO TOW THE BOATS TO FLORIDA. GLAD MADDIE (THE DOG) ENJOYED MY GRAY TRUCK IN THE MEANTIME.
Bob did some coaching down in Florida, and I went to work for a week. Then I went to Florida and met Bob to practice. We invited a team from Israel to come practice with us.
THANKS TO STEVEN CRAIG FOR DONATING AIR MILES TO FLY THE ISRAELIS TO THE U.S.
We had a great training session with them for a week. Then we sent our good boat on another airplane, THANKS TO KITTY HAWK, to Sydney, Australia.
I drove Bob to the airport so he could go home for a few days, then I drove the Israelis to Orlando so they could go to see Mickey Mouse, then I drove back to Dallas to deliver Prog's truck to him. A couple of days later, Bob and I flew to meet our boat in Sydney.
We practiced a few days, then went through measurement to satisfy the officials that we were sailing an Olympic 470. That involved getting 13 pages of measurement forms signed off. No major problems, though. Just had to glass in the lead on our rudder..
Well, that leads us to today. We start the Sydney Pre-Olympic regatta tomorrow. We will be sailing in Sydney Harbor on the exact same courses that they will use during the Olympics, with the exact same race committee and judges. The Aussies call it a Test Event.
Well, we've got to get some sleep. Early day tomorrow.
Paul and Bob
Team 2000
First day of racing. We got out very early today. Left the dock at 10:00. a.m. for a noon start. Forecast for the day was for 10-20 knot winds out of the southwest.
We are on course D today. There a total of six courses:
A = match race course
B = course farthest out in the harbor
C = course in the channel
D = course at the mouth of the harbor
E = course outside to the north
F = course outside in the ocean to the south
Race 1
On our racecourse, the wind was coming right from a large, 100 ft.
high point, and was shifting 40 degrees
and very puffy. We got a lot of practice before the start and noticed
some good rightys. There are 29 boats
in our fleet, and most are very good--the cream of the crop.
Postponement just before the start, due to a big righty. We are sailing double outer loops.
Next start was good. We had a second row start at the boat and bailed right. Tacked back in a righty and were leading our side. We played the right and did pretty good, rounding fifth. A Turkish boat was winning by a lot. They had gone hard left.
We went low on the first reach, away from the cliff, and stayed in the breeze and moved into second.
We jibed to port on the run and took a big puff down the lay line, with the 1996 gold medalist on our tail. We stayed in second at the bottom mark and cut the distance to the Turkish boat in half.
The next beat, we got in phase and moved into first. The Ukrainian got stuck right and fell to seventh.
We played a conservative next beat and run and finished first on the reach just ahead of an Australian boat that had come back from 14th.
Race 2
Coach Skip here.
The boys started near the boat once again and tacked right. They started very aggressively and rolled Tom King from Australia. They went right with King, who was forced right, and arrived at the weather mark in second with Leskinen of Finland, who had worked a more middle route up the course. Tom King sailed well to round a close third, with the British close behind. The rest of the fleet was far astern.
At the end of the run, the boys arrived at the leeward mark overlapped outside of Leskinen, but made a much better rounding.
Moments later, Leskinen got a great shift to regain the lead, while King got leverage to the left to challenge for the lead. At the top, all three arrived together. Team 2000 arrived overlapped with Leskinen again.
With one more lap to go, King took a short tack to port and got a great left shift. The three sprinted right, with Leskinen footing to leeward and Team 2000 working the middle. In the end, all three arrived within a few boat lengths of one another and sprinted downwind towards the finish. King slipped back, while Team 2000 and Leskinen headed for their third leeward mark overlap. Unfortunately, Finland was inside and held on for the win. Team 2000 was second.
A one/two opener had the coach smiling big time.
Race 3
Race 3 was not so great.
We started at the boat and tacked right immediately. We hit a good shift and came back across on starboard, but then we took a header across to the left. We got out of phase because of this and rounded the first mark in 15th.
On the first reach, we tried going low and lost some, then hung it out right on the run and lost some more. According to the mark rounding chart, we were in 23rd at the first bottom mark.
We had a little trouble getting the chute down, and the halyard was a little twisted, so we got off on a bad note for the second beat and did not pass any boats.
We lost one on the second run after going the wrong way again , but on the next beat we got hooked up and moved into 19th.
We went the wrong way at the beginning of the run; we should have jibe set. But we caught back up and actually passed one boat. We finished 18th.
A crummy race. Well, lots of racing to go.
We have a day off tomorrow.
They rotate who races each day because there are not enough courses.
The other U.S. teams are doing okay:
470 Women = Second
Soling = First
Men's sailboard = Fifth
Women's sailboard = 12th
Europe dinghy = 17th
Laser = 12th
Tornado = Eighth
Paul and Bob
Team 2000
We had a day off yesterday. Today we were out in the ocean on Course E. (There are six courses, four in Sydney Harbor, A through D, and two outside, E and F).
Very large rolling waves were coming in from the southern ocean. Wind was out of 150 degrees and about 8-14 knots, with a line of thunderstorms that hung off shore all day. The Sydney coast runs north and south, so starboard tack was out to sea, and port tack was along the coast.
We were the second start, so we did double inner loops.
It took about an hour to sail out, so we got to the course at about 11:00 am for a noon start. We were trying to get our sea legs for the rolling ocean.
Race 1
We had an okay start near the boat but were in a hole and got rolled,
so we tacked out right.
We rounded the weather mark about ninth but had a good run and did some good jibes, then hit the last one to the leeward mark to move up to seventh.
We went right initially and lost some distance, but we got a great lefty on the last tack to the mark and rounded fifth. Had another good run and caught up to round just behind the leaders in fifth place.
We tacked immediately left but got lifted all the way to the lay line. We thought we were going to be looking bad, but we came out okay. I think we had good breeze. We rounded sixth but were able to roll a Swedish boat on the reach.
We went down the run but got stuck a little high and missed a big puff to leeward. The Swedes passed us back, and at the bottom mark were 200 yards ahead. We had passed a Polish boat that was ahead of us, and we just rounded ahead of an eight-boat pack. We got passed on the last reach by a French boat (Gildas Philippe) so we ended up seventh, with a Japanese boat winning and a Portuguese boat in second.
Race 2
We had a great start just down from the boat and pinched off all the
guys above us and rolled some guys to leeward, but the guys at the
pin crossed us. We seemed to be slow and out of phase the rest of
the beat and must have rounded the first mark about 20th.
We had an okay run, though, and rounded just behind a pack at the leeward mark.
The second beat was good, and we caught up a bunch. Must have been in about 15th but were close to a lot of boats.
We jibe set, and that turned in to a disaster. The wind went left, and we were back in the 20s again.
We wrung it out right the last beat and just lost more. No chance to get it back.
We finished 22nd. Bummer.
Portugal is winning.
Tracy Haley and Louise VanVoorhiss are winning the 470 women's fleet.
The Soling guys, Jeff Madrigaldi and company, have qualified for match racing.
49ers are in fifth overall; we are in fifth overall.
Laser guy, Mark Mendelblat, is in 14th.
Tornado sailors John Lovell and Charlie Ogeltree are in fifth.
We race on course C tomorrow. That is inside in the channel.
Lots of shifts and maybe some current with flat water.
Hammer down.
Paul and Bob
Team 2000
We were racing inside the harbor again today, on C course. The wind was out of the northeast at about 10-15 knots.
Race 1
The course was an O3, which means we sail an outer loop with three
beats on the outside.
We had a good start toward the boat end and good speed off the line. A few boats started to tack away right after the start. Our original plan was to get right because we saw a nice puff on the right shore. Eventually, we tacked to get out right, but it was too late. The boats that had gotten right of us got the puff first and were ahead. To make matters worse, soon after we tacked the boats on the left got a puff as well. We were 25th at the weather mark. There are only 29 boats in the fleet.
Our reach mark was set close to the left-hand shore and was a short reach. On the run we jibed out, got some good wind and passed about two boats. The next beat was spent looking for good lanes. We were looking for some geographic shift that didn't seem to be as reliable as we had hoped. On that beat, we passed only about one boat. We got a few more on the next run.
On beat number two, we finally got in phase and made a big move up to 11th, just behind the front pack. On the next run, we stayed in 11th but gained some distance on the Germans in front of us. We worked the shifts to the left on the next beat, while the Germans went right, but we ended up still just behind them at the weather mark. On the last run we were really close to them coming into the starboard lay line to the leeward mark. They jibed right in front of us and we were able to head up and roll them just before the mark to finish 10th. Not a great race, but it could have been a lot worse.
Race 2
We started at the pin this time, a little behind. There was a pack of
boats to windward of us, so we couldn't tack right away. After a
little while in bad air, the pack to windward cleared out and we
were able to tack away. We sailed on an okay port angle for awhile
but were not quite crossing the pack out of the right, so we led them
back left.
The current was a factor now, going against us on the beat, and we got out of it before the other boats by going to the left shore. We were able to cross the pack and rounded the weather mark in third. By the leeward mark, we were in second behind the Israelis. Everyone was working the left side now to stay out of the current. The Australians were just behind us.
On the next run, things stayed the same. Then, on the next beat, the Australians gained a bit on us. We were falling out of phase a little bit. The following run, the Australians passed us, but the Israelis had a boat handling mishap and we passed them.
We started the last beat in second. Working the left side again, we got a bit too close to shore and fell out of the breeze for awhile. The The Spanish passed us by staying a bit more right, but still mostly out of the current. The Portuguese gained on us the same way. We rounded the last weather mark in third, just ahead of the Portuguese, who got us on the last run. We finished fourth.
After seven races and with one throw-out:
1 Portugal 15
2 France 25
3 Australia 36
4 Paul and Bob USA 42
5 Spain 42.
Paul and Bob
Team 2000
Note: The 470 fleet had no races on Wednesday.
We were sailing outside the harbor today. Wind was out of the northeast at about 15 knots, increasing to around 20 for the second race. Our course for both races was an I2 (Beanard note--not sure what that means; may be a typo), which is an inner loop trapezoid with two laps on the inside loop.
Race 1
Outside the harbor, the current runs from north to south, so before
the race we thought that we should head left toward the shore to get
out of the current. We had a great start toward the boat end, and
great speed as well, so we sailed all the way to the left corner and
tacked. We overstood the weather mark by a little bit, and so we
were footing for the last hundred yards of the beat. As it turned out,
the right wasn't so bad, but we did manage to just cross all the
boats from the right and round the weather mark in first.
We jibe set and had a good run with some nice, big waves to ride, and rounded the leeward mark still ahead. On the next beat, we played the left again and stayed ahead. Then we again jibe set and led around the leeward mark.
The right still had worked out okay on the last beat, so we ventured a bit more right on the final beat and found that there was a bit more wind. We rounded the last weather mark still in the lead. We extended our lead on the reach and ran into the women's course. On the run, we passed a few of the girls and extended on the fleet to win the race.
Race 2
We had another great start and headed out left because we were
lifted on starboard. After a shift back left, we tacked and were
close to the lay line. The shift went back right a bit. We tacked back
onto starboard and then tacked on lay line. Sailing in on the port lay
line, we were looking okay in about 10th, but there was a big traffic
jam on the starboard lay line. Trying to find a nonexistent hole in the
line of boats on starboard, we ended up tacking short of the lay line.
After struggling to try to make something happen, we had to jibe out
and lost a bunch of boats. We did a bear away set and rode some good
waves on starboard and gained. When we jibed back, the wave angle
was not as good, so we lost a little and then got stuck in traffic
again at the leeward mark and rounded outside the pinwheel of boats.
We footed through the bad air and worked the right side for a small gain. On the run, we gained a few more boats. For the last beat, most of the fleet headed right, but we played the shifts and ended up too far left and out of the velocity. At the end of the beat, we got a little right and gained two boats. After the reach, we passed one more boat on the final run by riding the waves a little better to finish 13th.
The Spanish gained a point on us today, so we are now in fifth. There are two more races left. One and two, the Portuguese and the French, are way ahead, but we will have a battle with about four other teams for third.
Paul and Bob
Team 2000
Race number 10 (fifth day of racing, seventh day of the regatta; two reserve days so far)
We were on course C today, but the wind was out of the southeast, so they set up the course from one side of the channel to the other, and we actually were starting from inside a cove. There was a kind of strange breeze direction and not much wind (5-12 knots), so the race committee postponed us for a little while.
The course was 140 degrees, and it was an 04 for us, which meant four outer loop windward legs in addition to the first one we sailed. The weather mark was to the right of a small island, and the reach mark was on the other side of the island. We had to sail leeward of the island to get to the reach mark.
We had two general recalls, then finally got off at about 1:00 p.m..
This was the first race that the kinetics flag was not up. They put it up when the wind is blowing over 11 knots, and you can go crazy pumping and rocking, etc.; so the judges were anxious to catch someone. They actually got six guys in this one race and made them do 720's, but not us--we were clean.
The right side had been looking okay, so we started up near the boat. We had a great start and hung onto starboard for about a minute. The individual recall flag went up, and we were hoping it was not for us. Wouldn't find out till we finished.
The guys on our hip had tacked right. We got a little header and went right, too. We went quite a ways in good breeze and were getting lifted. The guys that initially went right had come back just ahead, and we had to duck them; then we got to be the rightmost boat and made the most of it. The guys in the middle got caught in a lull behind the island, and we got a good puff on the right. We rounded in first, followed by the Portuguese then the Irish, then Germany.
The reach was to the lee of the island, so it was a little scary, but we made it through no problem. The Portuguese caught right up to us at the reach mark and carried a puff low on us. We thought we got a lift, and just then a ferry wake came through, so we jibed to port and crossed right behind the Portuguese. The third place Irish team came with us, but the rest of the fleet kept going.
We had an okay angle, but not too much breeze. There was some wind coming, but it took a long time to reach us; we got to ride some ferry waves, which helped. We finally got some of our puff and took it to the mark. We just got an overlap on the Portuguese and rounded the bottom mark first, with him right behind.
Portugal tacked out first, and we went on his hip, both going left. This was a totally different beat than the first, since we had reached to what would be our new weather mark. This weather mark was on the left side of the island.
On the left side of this beat, there was a point of land that a lot of puffs seemed to be coming off of. We had a better lane going left and gained and got the left puff first, then led back to the weather mark on starboard. We rounded about six boat lengths ahead and got a good puff on the run to extend. The only thing that happened that run was that the Irish boat rounded just ahead of Portugal at the bottom mark.
The next beat, we again played the left, and Portugal passed Ireland.
We led again on the run by about ten boat lengths now. The Irish got flagged by the jury for pumping and fell to fifth. We held our lead around a couple of more laps, playing the shifts pretty good.
Up the last beat, we got sideswiped by a Singapore boat that was going down with the spin up. They raked their spin across Bob and the mast, but we came out clean.
We cruised to a win, with the Portuguese in second and Britain in third pretty far back. We got the gun. Whew! That meant we were not over early.
Only one race today, and the last one will be Sunday.
The Portuguese have won the regatta without having to sail the last race. The French are in second with 28 points. We are third with 39 points. Britain is fourth, five points behind us, and Australia and Spain are pretty close behind him.
Tough last race coming.
In the other classes:
Our Soling team went five wins and no losses in today's match
racing.
Women's Europe is in 16th.
Men's Finn is in 18th.
Men's sailboard is in eighth.
Women's sailboard is in eighth.
Women's 470 is in second, six points out of first and ten ahead of third.
Star keelboat is in second, five points out of first.
49er is in fifth, 20 points out of third.
Tornado is in fifth.
Laser is in eighth.
Paul and Bob
Team 2000
Late day today; lots of packing and cleaning up to do. We had one race left, scheduled to start at noon.
The Portuguese team had already won the regatta without having to sail the last race. The French were 11 points ahead of us, and we were the only ones that could beat them. The problem was that there were three other guys that could beat us.
We were on course D, just inside the mouth of the harbor. We got to the start area, and the RC postponed, trying to let the wind settle in. Our course was to be a triple windward/leeward.
At about 1:30, they started a women's race but quickly abandoned. They moved the course and tried again at 2:30. After one general recall, the women took off on a double outer loop.
The wind was 5-10 knots, but seemed to be building, and we had a small swell coming in from the ocean.
We were not sure what the French would do, but we found out at about two minutes left till the start. They were trying to tail us and mess up our start. We did a little jockeying near the middle of the line, then got them into a bad position, and they almost fouled us. They had to break away and ended up one boat above us.
We had just a little time to find the line and move up to get a decent start. We timed it just right and shot through. We had great speed and rolled the Brazilian boat below us and pinched off the two boats above us, including the French. There was an individual recall flag, and we had to just hope it was not us.
We went a little left and could see a big puff coming. Two boats below us had it, and the Spanish boat was the first to tack and cross the fleet. We went a little further and tacked abeam of the British boat. It was a 15-knot puff and 10 degree shift.
We drag raced on port and were looking good. Spain rounded first, Britain second, and we rounded third, followed by Australia and Finland. France was nowhere to be seen.
We took off down the run, with the judge boat right with us (no yellow flag this race, so no pumping). We had good speed, though, and caught up to the two boats ahead. There was some frantic positioning going on at the bottom gate, but we wound up inside and first around the correct gate, with the others following.
We protected the left and extended our lead. Britain was second at the next mark, about five lengths back. It looked like France was deep. If we were to win, they would have to finish 11th or better.
We covered the rest of the race and headed to the finish hoping to get a gun.
BANG, YES! ANOTHER WIN!
Britain came in second, 30 seconds later, and Spain third. France was close to coming back, but could only manage a 14th, so that moved us into second overall. WOW, WHAT A FINISH!
The U.S. team did pretty well today. The 49er team got two second places, which moved them from fifth to third. The women's 470 hung onto second. The Soling team moved to second in the match racing. The Star team got a third.
We fly home tomorrow for a rest, then down to St. Pete for the Olympic Trials.
Thanks for everyone's support, especially KITTY HAWK's for flying our boat to the regatta and home for the Olympic Trials.
See you at home.
Paul and Bob
Team 2000