Here is a report from Jill Nickerson of the Suncoast Sailing Campaign (Robbie Daniel/Enrique Rodriguez):

As many of you already are aware, we have started the US Olympic Trials. The racing of the trials began on Saturday, February 14, and will end on Sunday, February 22. Racing will take place in the middle to Southern end of Biscayne Bay.

Prior to the beginning of racing all competitors were required to go thru a vigorous measurement process which includes measuring many different entities of the boat. This process requires you to disassemble much of your boat, measure in, attach any required corrector weights, then put it all back together. In addition to the parts on the boat, each team was allowed to measure in 2 sets of sails.

Something that is different this year is that they are allowing some equipment changes when we get to middle of the event which is on Wednesday. Some teams will take that opportunity to switch out sails, masts or other equipment that they may not be happy with.

Unlike Tornado Olympic Trials of the past, this years event, at least for the Tornado Class, has lacked any of the formalities or pomp and circumstances normally found in an event of this level. Although some of the classes that are being hosted by other clubs around the bay have had opening ceremonies, champaign celebrations and such, the Tornado class found them selves lucky to have a member of the Olympic Committee do a very informal, last minute registration of competitors. Undaunted, the Tornado participants have managed to somehow get thru this disappointment and more.

The event was scheduled on top of the Miami boat show, but more importantly, two convenient, safe, and close to the race course launching sites were completely ignored by organizers as they opted to have the boats sail out of the Miami Yacht Club. This requires the boats to sail thru 5 bridges, with two double bridges that make passage treacherous at times. One of the double bridges is located in the heart of the boat show and commercial boat traffic area. The boat traffic, coupled with no wind, high current and narrow passage, makes it quite dangerous to get the fleet thru twice a day. The coach boats make every effort to assist the boats by either pulling them thru or holding up boat traffic but find them selves often in a verbal confrontation with the locals who do not like to wait for the boats to make it thru the bridge. During a difficult passage, one of the commercial tourist boat captains stood on the bow of his boat and pretended to shoot the sailors. In addition to making it thru the maze of bridges, the sailors have approximately 1 hour long sail to get out to the race course in reasonable wind.

Our day starts at 7:30AM when we all get up and eat some breakfast as we print out weather information from the computer to review during breakfast. After a short drive to the Yacht Club, we start preparing for the day, load up the coach boat with spare parts, food, clothing and what ever else we can fit in it. We leave the beach at 11AM to get to the race course for the start of the first scheduled of two races, at 1PM.

Most all of the training time that has been spent in Miami has been in light wind. Like many regattas, the first two days have been in rough wind and seas and has included some rain.

The first race of the series was started in about 14 knots of wind. Although challenged at the end of the race, the first race belonged to John Lovell and Charlie Ogletree. Due to a considerable amount of confusion with the support boats for the race committee, there was an anchoring problem that gave Lars Guck and Jonathan Farrar the opportunity to protest the finish. The result was a redress of score from second to 1st. After that ruling was made, Lovell/Ogletree filed a protest that will be heard later in the event.

The second race saw similar wind, and once again Lovell/Ogletree took and kept the lead with Guck/Farrar close behind.

After feeling a little overpowered for the conditions, Robbie Daniel and Enrique Rodriquez, made some adjustments to prepare for the next day of racing.

The second day saw horrible conditions with high winds and rain. As a prelude to the day the race committee put up a map showing the location of the nearest hospital to the course.....they even have a dock! Despite the conditions, all the boats and their coach boats left the beach and when most mariners were coming in from the storm, they all headed out to the Bay. During the ride out....and oh what a ride....we saw lots of heavy rain, rough seas and 20 plus knot gusts. After about an hour beating up wind in these conditions we found ourselves once again on the course.

The race committee was right on time and started the first race at 1PM. The first race was started in 13 knots and the sailors found similar conditions as the previous day. At the first down wind leg, it was Daniel/Rodriquez in the lead followed closely by a pack of 3 boats. While turning thu the gate, a freak thing happened on their boat where the flap for the trampoline got caught in their traveler car, similar to catching your coat in the zipper. By the time they were able to repeatedly kick the car to get it unstuck, they had dropped to fourth. Lovell/Ogletree won out over Guck/Farrar followed by Schryer/Durdin.

Undaunted by the disappointment, Daniel/Rodriquez came back strong in the next race, taking the lead early on and building it thru the end of the race followed by Lovell/Ogletree and Schryer/Durdin.

Although a slower start than they had hoped for, Daniel/Rodriguez working hard to keep moving up during the next 6 days of scheduled racing.