We needed to pick ourselves up after some mediocre sailing over the past two days, and we did just that. Sailing in a very tricky offshore breeze at 9 AM, we put up a 9-6 in the first two races of the day. After a trip back to shore to wait for the sea breeze to fill, we posted a 3rd, which moved us up to 5th overall. It feels great to put up consistent scores in gold, especially after our last three races leading up to today’s racing.

The first two races were incredibly challenging. The wind was going through 40 degrees and from 4 to 12 knots, oftentimes at the same time on opposite sides of the racecourse. We did a good job of being patient and waiting for our area of the course to fill in. In the first race, we managed to move up from the twenties into 9th by passing a number of boats on both the second upwind and downwind legs. In the second race, we rounded the leeward gate in 2nd, only to see the boats to our left wind inside of us. In the final portion of that leg, we found a small righty to carry us across and minimize our losses. It paid in the end to be patient!

The third race was a different game altogether. The Fremantle Doctor finally made it! We won the boat, crossed the fleet, and rounded the first two marks in first. After a less than perfect leeward mark rounding and giving our opponents a split, we lost a pair of boats, but held on to finish third in the race. All in all, it was a good day.


Around Ahead! Dave Hughes photo

There are three last races in gold fleet tomorrow before the Medal Race on Sunday. With the fleet still as close as it is, we can only worry about ourselves. We will try to simply go out and put up three solid races.

Results can be seen here. Tracking, video, and other media can also all be found at the regatta website, here.

We would like to thank of our supporters and sponsors, including Sperry Top-Sider. Thanks also to the sponsors and supporters of the US Sailing Team AlphaGraphics especially our title sponsor AlphaGraphics and Gold Partners Atlantis and Rolex.

Erik

Storck Moore Sailing