US Nationals - Day 2

Wow, I'm tuckered out. Tough day at the office, but also some really fun and challenging racing. We started a bit late as there seemed to be trouble with the windward mark; that kind of thing is pretty commonplace in racing, but at the St. Francis, it's notable, if only because it pretty much never happens. These guys have running races down to a science, and after that little glitch, everything was back to the usual precision. The delay gave the breeze some more time to fill in, so by the time heat 1 got under way, I was glad I was on my 9.1.

I had another good port start; a bit further down the line than I would have liked, but the starboard starters were charging down the line and really pushing it, so I looked for a gap near the boat, found one, got clean air, and was off. Being low didn't bother me, as the ebb was stronger outside. Then the gun sounded again and the general recall flag went up -or so I thought. Instead, that was the flag for the individual recall, and as I was slowly tacking and getting ready to head back, I realized that everyone else was still charging. Oops - that probably cost me something like a dozen places, as now I got stuck in the dirty air of the guys who had done their homework and knew their flags. Oh well, another lesson.

As I was making my way to the windward mark, I was slowly working my way back up through the fleet. At the mark, I was coming in pretty hot just as MacRae was pinching up to it after having called a pretty tight layline. As I was going by him, I thought I had enough space, but then I got hit with a puff as I was passing him, my fin lifted me out of the water, and I got launched over the bars, taking MacRae out in the process. What a bummer - taking anyone out is because of a stupid mistake is bad enough, but doing that to a friend and teammate is even worse. Luckily, nobody got hurt, no gear was broken, so we got back on our boards and went on. He was definitely extremely gracious and forgiving about the whole thing. The picture below shows the moment just as I'm about to go over the bars, with the clew of my booms then getting tangled up in MacRae's rig. Bummer. With all that, race 1 ended up with in 20th place. Not really what I had in mind, but better than a DNF (which could have easily happened given that incident at the mark).

That picture, by the way, is another one of Shawn Davis' shots. The guy does great work, and he spends hours on the boat to get these pictures of us (I'm getting seasick watching the boats bob around like that, plus it's *cold* out there). So if you're racing this event, or you're sailing at Crissy Field, be sure to check Shawn's site and be extra sure to buy any shots you really like - support your local sports photographer!

Race 2 saw a bit more breeze, and while overall the ebb was decreasing, there was a lot of lumpy water around - classic Crissy Field voodoo chop. After a general recall (for real this time) I got another good port start with clean air and made it to the windward mark in the top 10 - needless to say, I was stoked. On the way down, Steve Sylvester was chasing me, and at some point we came up on a ferry boat. He went low, I went high - and then realized what he was doing - while I was bouncing around on the steep side of the wake, he got the smooth side and left me in the dust. Yep, experience is not a disadvantage in this sport. I reeled in a couple of people on the second upwind, then was forced to foot off at the leeward mark due to traffic at the rounding, leaving the door open for a couple others to get me. In the end, it was 12th, with a reversal of yesterday's photo finish with Eric (he got me then, I got him today). This was more like it.

Then came a long break, as the RC had to wait for two large container ships to come through the eastern shipping lane on their way to Oakland. Man, those things are big! The breeze had picked up another notch, but now it was starting to flood at the start line and over much of the course. I ended up starting on port and having to duck almost the whole fleet, but got clean air again. I made a decent layline call, overstanding just enough to be comfortable that I would avoid having to double tack in the flood and came into the mark hot. I passed Fernando Martinez at the mark, as he had under-stood the mark and was struggling around it. Accelerating down the course, I did a quick tally and found that I was definitely in the top 10 - yeah. And then I got a huge puff just as I hit some steep/short chop and went over the handlebars - hard. David Well, who was following, reported feet pointing straight up, and just before I hit the water I heard the sickening crunching sound of carbon getting smashed by a hard object - my mast split the nose of my board open (the impact actually knocked one of the cams off the mast - never had that happen before). No injuries, though, so that was lucky; I retired from the race and hustled back to shore for a quick combat repair, but the RC called racing for the day after that heat - good thing, because I had only applied the first layer of super-glue and glass when it would have been time to get back out.

Tomorrow we'll most likely run long distance to Treasure Island and back, followed by another course race or possibly slalom (wouldn't that be cool...). Off to bed now - I'm pretty much wiped out. Instead of moving up from 14th (results here - Waterhound should have a report up soon, too), I've now slipped down to 16th. Tomorrow should bring three scores and another throwout - we'll see where that goes. I'm pretty happy with my speed, and my tactics on the course seem to be reasonably effective as well. Just have to cut down on the mishaps a bit ;)

US Nationals - Day 1

Nationals got off to a good start yesterday. Conditions were cold, foggy, and a bit gusty. Nice big fleet, including a great group of juniors. David Wells has excellent coverage at Waterhound (if you haven't checked out that site, you really should!), and Shawn Davis not only has his usual professional-grade pictures up for viewing and purchase, but also graciously makes them available for embedding (that's where that picture above came from).

I had an interesting day. Usually in big events, I get myself buried at the starts until I find a way to pick my way through the chaos later on. Yesterday, I had four excellent starts (all on port), but then had a bit of difficulty carrying that through the heat. Race 1 was an unmitigated disaster - after rounding the top mark in the top 10 (I was stoked!), I gambled on the Southerly coming off the shore for the downwind and then got stuck in a hole on the inside that was hard to see coming with the confused water state there; then I way overstood the windward mark on the second lap, ending up in 28th.

Race 2 got a little better; not quite so good out of the gates, having to dive under a bunch of guys pointing higher than me, and generally not really putting it together on the course, but moving up to 18th. Race 3 saw me in the top 10/12 until the first downwind mark. Then I made a bad call, trying to squeeze inside of Bodner. Not sure what possessed me, since he tends to point a bunch higher than me, so he probably would have climbed up and pinched me off anyway, so I should have just taken the wider lane and passed him. Instead, trying to squeeze by on the inside, he closed the door and the nose of my board made contact with his clew, and I had to do my spins to exonerate myself from fouling him. That dropped my back into 15th, but at least things seemed to be getting better.

In race 4, I changed down to my 9.1, and that made a huge difference. All of a sudden, things felt right, and my angle got a little better (I had been footing and going fast compared to the guys around me all day; now I was still going fast, but not losing quite as much angle anymore). I got another great start (helped partially by the easier handling of the smaller sail) and managed to just not make any real mistakes all race long. I was pretty stoked to finish 8th in this pretty heavily stacked fleet (that one actually came down to almost a photo finish; I was reeling in Eric Christiansen on the way to the line, and when we pushed into the finish, neither he nor I knew who'd taken it).

At this point, Paolo dos Reis, who came in second at the Worlds, is leading the event ahead of Phil McGain, who's looking lean and strong and seems unaffected by sailing a 5 year old board and not having done any formula racing or training for several years - quite an impressive performance. Wilhelm Schurman (reigning lightweight world champ) is rounding out the top 3. Seth Besse is putting in an impressive showing as well, placing fifth, right between visiting formula rock stars Aurelien and Fernando.

Our Gorge juniors are doing really well with the challenging conditions; their racing is just as competitive with each other as what's going on at the front of the fleet. Great group of kids, for sure. They sure have reason to be proud of themselves.

I'm sitting in 14th right now (4th Masters). Today's plan is looking for two more course races early, then a long distance race counting for two heats in the standings (it wouldn't be SF Bay without long distance). The RC has been doing an awesome job running the heats, keeping us out of the shipping traffic, and setting the course to be fair despite the serious shifts in wind direction. And the St. Francis Yacht Club has once again rolled out the red carpet (nothing quite like a sauna after a day on the bay...).

Wonder what the guy at the rental counter would have said...

You know it's regatta time when heavily overloaded rental cars start showing up at Crissy Field. Roof racks? We don't need no steeenkin' roof racks!

Got to SF yesterday, met up with the rest of the Gorge Cup fleet today. Good showing - five juniors (Fiona, Alyson, Ben, Jay, Alex), MacRae, Tavis. Bunch of Gorge freestylers down here for the Nationals as well; some of them might even do slalom. Went out today for a few runs with MacRae, Fiona and Alyson to shake out the legs. The girls were doing great despite the gusty/flukey conditions (the fog was well inside the bay today).

The fleet is pretty stacked with visiting rock stars and hot local sailors. Looks like at least 50 sailors. Racing starts tomorrow; Waterhound should be the best bet for good coverage.

USWA Nationals - Day 2

More typical Gorge slalom conditions than yesterday's wild ride. The Men/Masters and Grand Masters fleet were split into Gold and Silver fleets, so finally all the top sailors got to compete against each other. Bruce Peterson dominated Gold Fleet racing - straight bullets, except one OCS (he and James Dinnis were both called over early in Heat 10), and a 3rd in Heat 11 where he got buried at the start and clawed his way past a bunch of pretty fierce competitors to challenge the leaders. James Dinnis was charging hard and giving Bruce some keen competition. MacRae Wylde and Chris Prior pushed hard as well and were always mixing it up there. From the Bay Area contingent, David Wells and Steve Bodner were contending with the leaders; Steve took the bullet when both Bruce and James were over early.

Bruce and James provided very instructional sailing all day long. They both had great speed and displayed great starting acumen (they were both over early once - in slalom, if you're never OCS, you're simply not pushing hard enough). Bruce tended to own the advantaged position at the pin end of the line; that move works only if you can be confident that you have enough speed not to get rolled even by people running at a broader angle from above. And both did some beautiful jibing.

There was a bit of contrast in technique, though. James was pulling wide, g-force laydown jibes in the Anders Bringdal tradition. Bruce, on the other hand, varied his technique, but usually made his jibes a bit tighter, especially the exit, while not giving up any exit speed. In the rare instance that he's not the first going into a mark, that usually allows him to get inside the other guy and get up front. In today's racing, that played out only once between him and James, after a start that resulted in a general recall. James was ahead getting into the first mark (before they figured out that the fleet had been recalled) and did a very fast, wide, laydown jibe. Bruce went into the mark a bit higher and wider and exited right at the mark, getting by James on the inside. That's when they both sheeted out and went back to the boat, having noticed the recall, so we didn't get to see that one play out. Would have been fun to see if Bruce could have punched through. It certainly set him up well for the second jibe (as the second reach is tighter, and he had a higher line).

Those jibes were what allowed Bruce to recover from (uncharacteristically) getting buried in the last heat of the day; he made up a lot of ground against a bunch of pretty fast sailors. It's hard to pass on a reach - but Bruce was able to sneak by people on the turns. I guess the lesson is to work those transitions (yes, including tacks - the one tack on the outside in the Gorge box slalom/M-course format tends to be a great opportunity for those who have their short board tacks down solid).

In the Silver Fleet, Torsten Tabel and Jeff Fagerholm were duking it out; in all of the melee, though, one sailor truly stood out. Ben Bamer, after having sat out the first day in the wild conditions (they just don't do slalom in Berkeley...), lined up with the field on his formula board and 10.0. We've seen people do well on Formula gear in the Gorge slalom in the old days, when the upwind leg was more significant, especially on light and patchy days. Friday, however, was nothing like that - the slalom sailors got close to being able to tack right on the mark, and the breeze was pretty filled in (no one was using anything bigger than 7.1, I believe, with most sailors on 6.0-6.5). Despite the lower board speed of that setup, the wider jibes required, and the control issues when power reaching, Ben stuck with the slalom guys; I'm sure that was really good strength training...

The juniors and women's fleet showed a lot of good close racing. Jay Watermeyer is clearly leading that field with strong, consistent sailing; Aaron Cardwell and Alex Nielsen were duking it out for second. There were a lot of really tight races between those three, with Jay usually getting a bit of an advantage through tighter jibes and clean tacking.

Marion Lepert led not only the junior girls, but the women overall as well, with Alyson Fromm in second for the juniors (and still in front of some accomplished, older racers). And then let's not forget the fact that those two (ages 13 and 15), as well as Ben Grodner (age 13) raced all day on Thursday and finished their heats despite the truly crazy conditions. And the Technos came out today, too. It certainly wasn't their kind of conditions, and the kids had to work it pretty hard to get those big boards around the course in what for them were very windy conditions. They all showed some serious guts, though.

And that really gets me to the main story of these Nationals. Between the junior fleet and the Technos, there are 22 sailors age 17 and under on the water. That's out of 68 competitors so far (there are a bunch more in the wings waiting for Formula, as they don't have slalom gear or don't race slalom). These kids are energetic, enthusiastic, and they've all displayed enormously quick progress in their skills. Personally, I'm incredibly stoked to be part of a sport where an experienced guy in his mid-40's can dominate a fleet, and where a bunch of young guns are charging it this hard. Despite the bummer factor of having to sit out the rest of the regatta (and, actually, the racing season) with a cast on my leg, that makes me feel pretty good about things.

I won't be able to report on Saturday's or Sunday's racing, as I got an opportunity to hitch a ride home today (with my left foot in a cast, driving a standard and pulling a trailer for over 300 miles just didn't seem like such a good idea). The forecast for today was for Formula conditions, and despite earlier predictions of a stifling heat wave, even Sunday looks like it will have raceable conditions. Check the VMG Events site for results. The slideshow below has some shots from the junior/women's, silver, and gold fleets that I took from the bluff before I needed to get my leg elevated and iced again; there are links to more pictures at VMG Events.

US Nationals start today

Yes, the Gorge can be a windy place (nope, that flag didn't get to look like this by just gently sagging off its pole...). We've had really good luck with the wind in the last week and a half. All of last week, I got to sail slalom every day, including the blowout. Monday, all the forecasts except Temira's were blessedly wrong, and we had great Easterlies at Stevenson all day long into the late afternoon (pretty much unheard of) for the junior race camp. Tuesday, Westerlies were back, so the camp moved back to the Event Site with great conditions. Lots of enthusiasm and hard work and fun - those kids are awesome, and if we could bottle that kind of energy... (I'll have a separate write up on the camp soon - it's pretty much claiming its spot as one of the highlights of this season already!).

Yesterday was registration day for the US Nationals, and the Event Site is slowly filling up. Lots of juniors, most of them freshly tuned up after the camp, and a bunch of familiar faces from all over the place. The Kerns are here from Florida, we have a few East Coasters, Charles and Chad Allen from Corpus Christi, Chris Prior and Bill C. from BC, and of course the Bay Area contingent. Yesterday saw full-on slalom conditions at the Event Site, and a bunch of the Bay guys were out getting used to their slalom gear. Lots of fun and big smiles all around.

Looks like today we might actually run some slalom - the forecast is looking promising for that. Tomorrow and Friday look a little lighter, so there should be some good course racing, and Sunday looks like we might get hit with a heat wave and no breeze - but the forecasts have been pretty fluid, so I for one am thinking it's entirely possible we'll get a whole four days of racing.

Major kudos to Bruce Peterson of Sailworks, who jumped in and saved the regatta for several sailors who had chartered gear. The chartered FE rigs didn't arrive as planned due to some logistical snafus, and Bruce stepped up and helped folks out with a killer charter deal that can't come anywhere close to covering his cost, not to mention time and effort. In addition, there was a parade of sailors getting help with all kinds of odds and ends and repairs at the Sailworks loft yesterday, and they all got help, regardless of what brand they were on. Way to go to support the sport!

Nationals Debrief - Slalom

And finally some notes on slalom. First off - we were lucky with the conditions, as they were pretty consistent for Crissy Field standards. I was able to be competitive for the whole series of races on a 24" Roberts with a 7.2 Sailworks NXsl. Others did switch around their gear a bit; I don't know if it's because their stuff isn't as rangy, or whether they just wanted to optimize; my setup felt right the whole time, though.

Usually, slalom starts are biased towards the pin a little bit; that's supposed to reduce congestion at the boat (as people would try to be above others and roll over them on the way to the first mark). Since the first leg was a bit of a tight reach (especially in the finals when the ebb had slacked and it was starting to flood a little), it seems like the best starts were to be had in the middle of the line (with a bit of upwind advantage over the people at the pin, but with enough distance to the boat to avoid its windshadow and to avoid being pushed up by leeward boards with right of way).

The second reach, however, was *very* deep. So taking the first mark high was not necessarily a winning strategy, especially at the beginning when it was pretty light and you couldn't really get enough power to really fly that deep off the breeze. In the finals series, the first mark was moved down a bit - which was very welcome because it (a) reduced the too-deep angle for the second reach and (b) made up for the flood making the first leg even more of a squeeze.

In the qualifying heats, I had no problems getting pretty good starts; in the finals, with more people pushing hard and 13 boards in the race, the rather short start line made starting a bit more precarious. Add to that the fact that at the first mark it was flooding a bit now, and you really didn't want to be stuck to leeward of the line, pinching to make the mark and getting rolled by those above you.

The course was pretty short; each heat took between 2 and 3 minutes for the leaders, and the reaches were too short to do a lot of passing. Good starts and aggressive jibes, as well as fast acceleration out of the jibes, were thus the critical success factors (more so than big time straight-line speed on the reaches). This favored lighter, nimble sailors (like David Wells and Jason Voss), as well as really solid and aggressive jibers like Bill Weir. Seth, while not exactly a fly-weight, is certainly nimble and aggressive, plus he tended to run bigger boards than most to optimize acceleration out of the jibes, and that certainly paid off for him.

Waterstate was interesting, too. In the qualifying series, the first mark was right at an eddy line, so there was a bit of cross chop right in the jibe zone. Add to that the disturbance in the water from the press boat maneuvering to stay just to windward of the mark, and you had some 'interesting' water to jibe in. The second and fourth marks had typical Crissy ebb chop, while the third jibe was in pretty smooth water. In the finals, the picture changed a bit with the tide changing over; the first mark was now pretty flat (plus speeds were lower as we were pinching a bit with the flood pushing us down), but the second mark was all of a sudden experiencing some really strange cross chop with an eddy line close by (I stuffed the nose of my board into that in the last heat when I was trying to squeeze by David Wells on the inside of the jibe, resulting in a tremendous wipeout for me).

With an OCS in the first finals heat, and a big wipeout in the last, there are certainly some lessons to be learned from this one. Given how I was set up, and how the course worked, however, I don't think I'd change anything about my approach. While I had great straight-line speed on just about anyone in the fleet, the short reaches didn't really afford me an opportunity to take full advantage of that. My jibe exits tend to be a little slower than those of lighter sailors (or sailors who ran bigger boards). That left starts and aggressive positioning in the jibes as the key factors, and I tried to maximize those. In that first heat, I hit the line 1 second prematurely - so it was a matter of relative positioning (as I had left myself not quite enough room to maneuver in this first heat with the top of the fleet), but the general approach of pushing hard at the start was certainly valid.

Similarly, I was able to hold off a number of lighter sailors in several heats by positioning my jibes to close the door on them, protecting my position, and was able to pick up several positions by attacking those in front of me who left the door open. The fact that in that last heat I crashed while attacking is the risk you take trying to win a heat as opposed to just placing.
While you could argue that sometimes you just have to be conservative to protect your position, I've found that when I try to jibe conservatively, it often results in being too tentative - which often leads if not to outright crashes than at least baubled jibes that allow others to pass.

One thing for me to change, however (other than continuing to work on my jibes) would be to go with a slightly larger slalom board. While this would marginally decrease straight line speed, it should do a lot for acceleration on jibe exit, as well as make me more impervious to holes and adverse current (very important for a heavier sailor).

Racing downwind slalom is a blast. While the heats are short, they're definitely intense. The round robin fleet format allowed everyone a fair amount of racing - definitely an improvement from double-eliminations, which tend to result in the majority of sailors being eliminated early and getting very little racing in. For downwind slalom to be fun, though, the conditions have to be right. We were lucky to get enough breeze to have fun, exciting races.

The pros race slalom on large gear in light air these days, as a way to guarantee a contest. While I get their motivation (it's much easier to sell a slalom contest to spectators and sponsors, since it's easy to follow what's going on and you don't have to worry about setting different courses when it's getting light), as a competitor, I'd have to say that the prospect of racing slalom in 12-14 knots is just not very exciting. Sure, you're still going pretty fast, but the raw adrenaline rush of 'real' slalom (i.e., high wind slalom in 20+ knots) is just not there. As a racer, you're then stuck with moderately exciting sailing, but without the tactical challenge you can have in course racing in those conditions.

I'm curious to see how this will develop at the amateur level; in the Gorge, we're all basically racing 2 boards and 4 sails, just like the pros - it's just that we distribute that over one Formula and one Slalom setup, as opposed to two sets of slalom gear, giving us more range and variety for only marginally more money (as the large slalom stuff isn't really that much cheaper than formula gear).

US Nationals - Multimedia frenzy

Some good stuff from the Nationals:

Bryan McDonald's podcast after the slalom - fun to hear Bill Weir's point of view (for one, he used three sails to my one).


An article in the SF Chronicle.


Some video from the slalom, courtesy of Paul Beulow:



This one's an interview with Jim Kiriakis on the SF local news:

US Nationals - Day 5 - Final

Whoa, it was windy... While Friday we were racing slalom in 20-25 knots, since the forecast for Saturday didn't show much to get excited about, Saturday morning greeted us with a thick marine layer far outside the gate and solid breeze early, which increased steadily. John Craig, the St. Francis Race Director, got off a quick heat for juniors and RS:X before it went ballistic. By the time the Formula fleet hit the water at about 12:30, it was getting furry.

The official windreading on the boat was 28-32 knots, and there was more on the outside. I had decided that this season, I wouldn't get a 9m sail - the rationale being that I'd only really be needing it one day or so during Nationals. This was that day...

We got two heats off. After the first one, the RC had the announcer remind sailors that they were responsible for their own safety, and to please not go out unless they thought they could safely complete the course.

I posted two 8ths - not stellar, but given how insanely overpowered I was on the 9.9 (only Ben, who outweighs me by 30 pounds, was on a sail that big - all the locals knew better), I was pretty happy with how things went.

My final Formula standing was 9th, with a 5th in slalom. I'm pretty happy with that, and have some ideas on how to improve on that in the next couple seasons. The event was great - well organized, challenging, and just plain fun. My body is about as battered as it's been in a few years, and today I actually passed up an opportunity to go for a sail in favor of a nap - go figure.

I'll post some more analysis after I'm back home (we've got a little family trip planned on the way home). In the meantime, there are links to pictures and results on the official Nationals Blog
(another example of how well this event was organized).

US Nationals Day 4 - Slalom

Brilliant sunshine and building breeze, so the RC called for slalom. It took a while for the breeze to fill in towards the shore, where the course was set, leading some to gripe that we should be running Formula races instead. Mother Nature came through for us, though, and we went into a round robin elimination series, with the fleet divided into 6 groups and everyone racing everyone else at least once. The 13 highest scoring sailors advanced to the final (it was supposed to be 12, but there was a tie).

I had 2 1st and 3 3rd place finishes in the qualification round, so I sat in 3rd overall going into the finals, comfortably qualifying. The breeze was filled in, and the water was getting a bit choppy as the strong ebb conspired with boat wakes and eddie lines to make life interesting on the course. I was nicely powered on my 7.2.

The final round consisted of five heats, with one throwout. I felt great, and with 12 guys crowding the start line, I was determined not to get rolled. So determined, in fact, that in the first finals heat I was over early by about a second - bummer, since I sailed a pretty good race. I followed that with a 3rd and a second, then we had a little break before the last two heats. As we were lining up for the start of the fourth heat, I baubled my jibe outside, and it took me too long to get to the start to be in a good position on the line - I got rolled, and had to claw my way back up to finish in 7th.

Now I was all fired up for the last heat - I got a great start, rolled Seth and made it to the mark in 3rd behind Jon Jay Ernst (who'd pulled an amazing start) and David Wells (who was a very consistent contender throughout the event). As we got to the second mark, I was catching up on them with good boat speed, and I saw David taking the mark pretty wide to get around Jon - so I decided to go for it and try for an inside line. I set the rail hard, and half-way around the turn stuffed the nose in a piece of stray chop - the resulting wipeout was pretty spectacular, as I did a superman off the front. When I came up for air, the mast was pointing down, and I feverishly started to recover among the whole fleet jibing around me - amazing that noone hit me. I finished that heat in 8th, getting a couple places back on the last two legs.

I felt great about my speed, and my jibes were pretty solid. Even with the OCS and the wipeout, I ended up in 5th overall for the slalom - I'm pretty happy with that. Slalom doesn't reward conservatism too much, so I'm glad I went for it; in the past, I don't think I would have tried to attack David's position on that second jibe, instead just focusing on warding off the challenge from Seth behind me. While it cost me a better placing, I think long-term, it's the right mind-set.

Links to results and photos on the official Nationals Blog.

Nationals - Day 3 - Long Distance

Today we ran the long distance race, which counts for two scores towards the Formula title. The sailing instructions lay out the course - up from a start line off Crissy to a windward mark, then down through a gate in front of the yacht club, another gate off Blossom Rock, a leeward mark near the north end of Treasure Island, back up through the Blossom Rock gate, and finish in front of the club. I started on port and got to the windward mark in reasonable position, right behind Steve Bodner and Steve Sylvester. I jibed right after the mark to avoid the hole that was developing further in, but then got stuck with the windshadow from the oncoming parade of boards. Took me a while to get going, and the 9.9 (picked in anticipation of big breeze further down the course) had me pumping and looking for more power the whole way down.

Closer to the second gate, I finally got powered up enough and was starting to make up some places. I rounded the leeward mark and, in an attempt to catch up to the pod of leaders strung out before me, I decided to take a hitch and tacked. I got a good lift and decided to play the shift, hoping to stay in phase. Unfortunately, I didn't realize that while it was ebbing big out in the channel, inside above Treasure Island I was getting much less of a boost. When I tacked off, I crossed Percey by quite a distance; when I tacked back, he had me by several hundred yards.

The leaders (except for Seth, it seems), all overstood the gate off Blossom, and the rest of them followed them; I was looking for the gate and getting Blossom mixed up with another channel marker. I finally finished in 11th; that leaves me in 7th for now, but Al Mirel has pulled away quite a bit with his 3rd place finish today, and Bodner and Ben are both moving up with consistent low scores, plus they've got DNF's to discard.

Word has it that we'll be doing 4 course races tomorrow, then race slalom on Saturday. Results, links to photos, etc. are on the official Nationals Blog.

US Nationals - Day 2

Better - three races today, starting with light breeze on an ebb, and going to stronger breeze and a flood. Was on the 9.9 and 70 all day. Better angle, still good speed. 9th, 4th, 3rd. Seth is pretty much walking away with it at this point. Results are here; I've moved up to 7th now, three points behind Al Mirel. Steve Bodner had a mast break on him, so he scored a DNS - when the throwout comes into effect in the 10th score, he'll be moving up for sure; same for Ben Bamer who broke a fin today. Tomorrow is the long distance race, which will count for two course race scores. Should be fun!