Team USA's Toronado sailors Charlie Ogiltree and John Lovell describe their first race. They crossed the entire fleet and then...
We blasted out of the blocks today in the first Tornado race at the Summer Olympics. From there, weather and circumstances conspired to flush us to the back of the pack. We crossed the finish line 14th out of the 15 boats competing but at least we can say we’ve got over our opening night jitters.
After a lack of breeze forced cancellation of our practice race yesterday, we were looking forward to two races today on Course A, in front of the TV cameras and the spectators arranged along the massive breakwater that protects the yacht harbor and Olympic venue. With a 1:00 pm start we left the dock at noon for the short sail to the course. Out on the water the skies were dismal and the breeze very light and fluky. At 1:10 pm the committee signalled a postponement and sent us back to the harbor where we waited ashore until the weather brightened at 3:30 and we were called back out.
Our only race of the day finally started just before 4:30 pm in a puffy, shifty northeaster that was coming off the shore. The race committee had the breeze at nine knots but just before the start it got very light and we had an opportunity to hoist our Chupacabra Code 0 gennaker that’s designed to power us upwind in the light stuff. We made a great start at the pin end, hitting the line on full afterburner with both of us on the trapeze at times, and tacked across the whole fleet and then tacked back again to cover. Everything was working great until about three-quarters of the way to the top mark when the breeze ramped up and was way too strong for our light air sail. We struggled to get it down but were still able to get squared away and around the weather mark in fourth place.
Our first run of the six-lap course was only average and we dropped five places to start the second weather leg in 9th place. On the next beat we sailed into a really big hole and went the wrong way to lose another place before the weather mark. Two boats got past us on the second run and two more on the final run to leave us 14th.
These weren’t the conditions we expected. We only got an opportunity to gain the benefits from our Chupacabra during the first beat. Of course it’s also our downwind sail and smaller than standard spinnakers but we didn’t trade off much there. We just sailed a really poor race, unfortunately. On the other hand it was pretty encouraging to see several boats who are obvious medal contenders finishing right in front of us at the tail end of the fleet.
The forecast for tomorrow is for a light sea breeze, which is what we’ve been planning for. The schedule has been amended to feature three races, starting at noon.
