At the beginning of May we had a week off which was a great way to charge our batteries for the most challenging month of the spring season. We were to compete in the 470 World Championships May 10-19, then go on a US Sailing Team retreat in Lanzarote, Spain, and then head right to Portland, UK to train and race in our last event before the Olympics, Sail For the Gold.

While the conditions in Barcelona were not likely to be similar to those in Weymouth for the Olympics, we had been working on our starts and some technique of boat speed and we needed to have an honest assessment of where we were. The regatta started portentously: the wind was very light at 20 seconds before the start and a wave came through that bounced us off another boat. It was our foul and we spun a penalty turn. In that kind of wind, a 720 turn takes about 30 seconds and then trying to accelerate in the bad breeze of the fleet is even worse! The regatta started poorly. We almost got our feet back under us by battling back to the top 10 after the first gold fleet race, but then we began a spiral downwards. We wrote off the result of the regatta, but kept working on our starts and technique so that we would be stronger next time. Read the rest of this entry →