Hyeres, France
April 25, 2008

We closed out the 40th Semaine Olympique Françoise by winning the double points Medal race and taking the Silver Medal for the series. The best way to describe this regatta was "extremely challenging". It started out with strong Mistral winds and massive rough seas, we lost a day of racing due to too much wind and almost missed another because of no wind, and we finished up in fickle breezes that replicated "Qingdao-like" condition we all expect to find at the Olympics.

Photo by Linda Wright

The Medal race started in a dying Northerly wind that switched to a light seas breeze. The Committee was eager to get the race off even if the conditions were barely acceptable because of the pressure to end the series with the tightly schedule short Medal races.

Hyeres, France
April 24, 2008

If you read our report yesterday you know we had one of those days where it seemed everything we did was wrong. It's easy to start questioning yourselves and you know it was a restless uneasy night of sleep for us. The best thing we could do today was to put as much distance between yesterday and today by going out and uncorking some great finishes. And that's what we did!

Photo: Gilles Martin-Raget / FFV © 2008

Even though the Committee postponed the race until 3pm, we headed out in the morning to get as much sailing in as we could. We changed our rig set up which proved to be a good move and we were much faster today.

Hyeres, France
April 23, 2008

After the unplanned day off yesterday due to the wild 40-knot Mistral winds, today dawned sunny and mild. None the less it was a tough day on the water for Team 7 with finishes of 12, 12, 8 that has dropped us to 8th place overall. We woke up to a weather forecast that had the wind arrows pointing in opposite directions, literally. This felt sort of like the summation of Team 7's day.

Photo by Linda Wright

For Race one we anticipated a dying 10-knot Westerly gradient breeze. We were not able to hold our lane at the start but we were able to quickly get clear. With the unstable and variable conditions, the only option in this race was to take some risks and not play it safe. On the first beat we leveraged out to the left side port layline and rounded in the top eight. The wind was up and down with patchy pressure causing many place changes throughout the fleet. At one point the fleet inverted and no position was ever safe until crossing the finish line. The only safe place this race was in the coach boat. The final spin of the roulette wheel meant we finished close behind a tightly packed group in 12th place. Not too fun!

Hyeres France
April 21

The first day of any regatta is always filled with anticipation. The goal is to start the regatta strong and don't make any big mistakes. With the dozens of critical decisions we have to make each day on the racecourse, the odds are always against us. It is with quiet satisfaction when the first day goes according to plan.

Photo: Gilles Martin-Raget / FFV © 2008

On any day the conditions play a big part in scoring well as do the interaction with other competitors and even the committee work. Yesterday's conditions provided rough and physical sailing in the consistent easterly onshore winds. Today in the Mistral conditions meant we were in for fast and furious wind shifts and lots of fluctuations in strength and smooth water in the offshore wind meant everyone would be fairly even in speed.