Hello Race Fans!!!

Yesterday was another day of minimal wind. At times we were double trapped, but mostly it was single-trapping conditions.

There were four races yesterday, and we were supposed to race in the second and fourth races. So while we could have gotten up late, we didn't -- probably because we were too keyed up.

Race 1: (Our first race) Wind was out of the east blowing about 9 knots. Our start was unbelievable. But it was so good that I thought we were probably over the starting line early. We headed up the left side of the course closer to the beach than the open ocean where the waves would have been smaller. At the top mark we rounded in 5th place. The rest of the race went well and we didn't lose any boats, finishing 5th. It was GREAT. And NO, we were not over early!

Race 2: Again, our start was one where I kept saying, "Bob, we are already over the starting line!!" But in a World Championship, you never go back and re-cross the starting line to exonerate yourself from an over-early. But it made me feel very relaxed the entire race because I assumed we were going to have to throw out that race. But again, we stayed on the shore side on all beats upwind and had a very respectable finish of 16!

We have now sailed four races altogether in the semi-finals, and we get to throw out our worst race and not count it. So we threw out our 51 from yesterday so now we are in 21st place overall with 121 teams. Not too shabby. We didn't get off the water until 6:00 pm because the poor people in the third race today were stuck on the water for over 3 hours because the wind died in the middle of their race thus the race committee had to abandon it. And so they had to start their race all over again.

Today is the last day of the semi finals. We should have two more races, and then the top 60 teams advance to the Gold Fleet -- the finals.

Liza Cleveland