October 7th

Day two of the Trials greeted us with a 15 to 20 knot Northerly wind that filled in after a cold front cleared last night. The breeze gradually faded throughout the day, ending with 8 to 12 knots in the last race.

I had a solid first race, finishing 5th after working the windshifts fairly well and having good boatspeed in the windy and flat water conditions.

In Race two I nailed the midline sag and got off to a good start, and then successfully worked my way up the beat in a left-hand shift, rounding in 1st with Andrew Campbell just behind. It was fun to hear my friends and family cheering from the spectator boat and banging the cowbell as I rounded. I rounded the second weather mark in second behind Campbell, and caught up for a tie for 1st with only the last two downwind legs to go. The last run was a battle between Campbell, Brad Funk, and I, and unfortunately I missed the last puff and finished 3rd. Still a good race!

In the third race, I had a terrible start when I lost my speed and got caught in a pack of boats, so I was last off the line and needed to catch up. Luckily the wind was shifty and hard to predict, so many people made mistakes and I was able to grind back to 8th place in the 33 boat fleet. Although it wasn't pretty, that was probably the best thing I have done so far, because I saved a lot of points by coming back to a respectable finish.

4 Races down, 12 to go over the next week, so there is plenty more to come.