The weather this morning was a bit different than the past few mornings, with the skies heavily overcast and the breeze much lighter (relatively).  The wind was still in the low teens, but not the high teens that we had been seeing.  Against Anna K, we had two great starts where we lead the race from start to finish.  The last race, we were behind but close and just squeezed by her on the last downwind leg to take the series 3-0.  Then we sat around for at least an hour before we started racing again.  

For the semis, we were up against the Dutch team.  We had been watching them sail and knew that they were fast.  At the first two starts we controlled them off the line and around the race course, up until the last downwind leg, where we got slightly out-boathandled.  Unfortunately, we lost both of these races so it was a bit frustrating.  The next race, we again controlled them off the start line, and drew a penalty on them at the top mark when they tacked into us when we faked a tack.  We took the lead and came back to win the third race in the series.  The last race was again, very frustrating for us.  We were even off the line, but speed-wise, were slightly slower.  They got ahead of us and led us around the racetrack.  We had been behind by about 2 boat lengths, but by the finish we caught up to lose the race by about four feet.  The semis round was a tough loss  especially since we had been leading the first two races.  But we are happy with how we raced and appreciate that we need to spend more time getting familiar with the boats.   

Tomorrow will be the battle for the Bronze medal.  I’m looking forward to racing against Claire.  I know that whatever the outcome, we will have some good racing.  We are hungry for a good result so we will give it our best.  Results may be checked at Sail for Gold website.

I would like to thank Carmeuse for their continued support of my campaign for the 2012 Olympics in London, England.  I would also like to thank USSTAG for their support. 

Sail hard,

Anna