Medal Race!

Today we finally made it out on the water to have three races in light wind. The weather is abnormally sunny and warm here, almost like a normal summer day instead of the perpetual wet and cold. The Kiel race committee likes to set long courses, and we had three 45-minute races that were almost back-to-back. I like when we can get the racing done quickly because I don't have time to get anxious during the wait between them.

The technique I've been learning has finally started to sink in and my speed was better today in the nonplaning conditions. I stayed with the faster girls on downwinds and also sailed a few solid tactical upwind legs. The wind was much more stable today and the shifts weren't so big. The chop was pretty steep and short, and we had to be focused on maintaining boardspeed on the upwinds. I had moments on the downwinds when I was quite fast, but I couldn't maintain it for long periods of time. In the end, I sailed a few good races and managed a 9th and 8th which put me into the medal race. There are only 16 boards here and I'm 10 / 16, but it is a good small victory nonetheless and I'm really excited about racing tomorrow. The committee is giving us GPS receivers for live tracking of the medal race, which you can see on the website http://www.kieler-woche.de/eng/englishdefault.php . Our race is at 13:50 Central Europe time, which is 6 hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time in the USA.