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2004 Olympic Diary
For the sixth time in his 24-year career
with US SAILING, Olympic Director Jonathan Harley is accompanying the
USA's Team to the Olympic Games. |
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August 15 – Another challenging day for the sailors as
Chris Bedford tried to hedge bets with the forecast. There could be a
little of everything and he was not sure when the breeze would settle
down. He spent most of the morning revising and updating his forecast
and was very busy with individual sailor discussions as today eight of
the 11 events were to be sailed. Only 49er, Star and Tornado would not
sail. There is always a lot of activity early at the dinghy park as we try to get everyone off to their respective courses, followed by three to four hours of waiting and watching until all the boats return. Today was also measurement day for Tornado and Star. Following some last minute paperwork our Tornado breezed through measurement. The Star needed a slight correction to one small keel measurement and, as usual, Carl Eichenlaub had everything fixed in short order. With so many fleets on the water and with everyone watching the action on TV, there was a constant battle in the athlete’s lounge as to which fleet to checks results for. The “featured fleet of the day” for TV coverage was the 470, so the US contingent followed Paul and Kevin’s lead in race three closely, which eventually ended up being a second-place finish. Katie and Isabelle rounded the last windward mark sixth, but on the run and final reach to the finish they passed three boats to finish third. So on TV for race three USA was 2-3 and lots of excitement for us. Meanwhile on another TV there were mark-by-mark roundings posted and with six other races underway I don’t think the TV stayed on one fleet more than 10 seconds as someone was always looking for another set of roundings.  Mistrals
were first ashore about 3:00 pm having completed two races each. As the
afternoon wore on, and the breeze built there were numerous capsizes and
some minor damage in the other fleets still on the water. As mentioned earlier, the forecast was a challenge with a strong NNE breeze that died out near mid-day and forced the abandonment of two Finn races, which forced the Ynglings to be pushed to later in the day as well. With the Yngling Race Committee determined to stay on the schedule of completing their day’s two races, they started Race Four very late, with the strongest breeze (gusts to 32 knots) and finished well after 7:00 pm. Our team did not reach the dock until 7:45 p.m. Luther Carpenter, our 49er/Europe coach, said he would have liked to stay to welcome them home “but I did not know the Ynglings were doing an overnight race!” After waiting for the end of protest time -- there was the possibility of issues in two classes, but nothing was filed -- we all departed the venue by 8:30 p.m. Tomorrow should be an interesting day as it should be “breeze on.” Chris Bedford, in his forecast for today, concluded by saying that for tomorrow “the Meltemi should be present with Machiavellian authority.” |
