After almost a week of training in great breeze, Murphy’s Law finally caught up to us and the first day of racing was a bust. That law of course states that the ‘breeze during the event will always be different than the breeze during training.’ We sailed out to the racecourse in the morning’s dying northerly only to watch it fade from 8 knots to 3-4 knots. The current picked up and prevented us from making very much speed over ground upwind. Actually, the Sunfish fleet started a race and made it within a minute of the windward mark before being necessarily abandoned because they had reached their 20 minute first beat time limit. The Lasers were the only other fleet to get a start off, but even with 12 boats and adverse current we managed to force a general recall and then never started another sequence all day.
It was a fantastic day nonetheless, and the beaches were covered with people for that reason. High temperatures near 80 and the water in the 70s made, not to mention a cloudless sky to accompany the dry heat made for a pleasant, although tedious day drifting around the racecourse.
Upon returning home to the village a number of us quickly grabbed showers and hopped on a bus to the US women’s basketball game against Cuba. The stadium of nearly 15,000 people was filling up throughout the game in anticipation of the Brazil team taking on Canada after the matchup we went to see. The game was decidedly more physcal than the match against Argentina the day before, and we were certainly 6 of about 12 people total among the 10,000 ravenous locals. More to come from Monday’s Sailing
