Miami, Florida
February 1, 2008

Hello Everyone,

We wrapped up the fleet racing in light airs today at US Sailing’s 2008 Rolex Olympic Classes Regatta on Biscayne Bay, still stuck in eighth place in this strong international fleet.

Mandy Mulder and her Dutch crew are out in front with a big lead over the rest of us, but just four points ahead of Ekaterina Skudina, skippering the Russian boat. They will fight it out to decide Gold and Silver Medals tomorrow when the top ten boats sail in the double-points Medal Race. The battle for the Bronze Medal will be interesting with the next six boats, including us, all with a chance of finishing third.

In the light southeasterly today, the committee set a very short weather leg, about half a mile, and we were all prepared for quick action college-style racing. However we jumped the gun in the first race and had to make a slow rounding of a big 50-foot committee boat. We were embarrassingly late in starting but climbed back through the bottom half of the fleet to finish 13th.

In the second race we had a decent midline start and made some good tactical calls to reach the top mark with the first ten boats. We continued gaining places and were nipping at the tail of the Ekaterina’s boat at the gun.

Remember, our Team 7 site is at http://www.team7sailing.com. Please come visit. We have an exciting and eventful four weeks ahead of us.

Carrie Howe