Olympic Trials, Day 2

[Lainie9126 (at) AOL.COM]

Clear and sunshine today, so the sea breeze came in right on schedule.  The 
RC ran the Lasers first, so we had the outside trap, and we finished sooner 
than the Europes  (aka "Euro-trash"), so they started our second race 
immediately, on the outer loop again.

We amazingly had two starts, again, with no recalls or OCS's.  The current 
must be doing us the favor, although I'm sure the guys will figure it out 
soon, that everyone's starting nearly a boatlength down from the line. I'm 
not going to be the one to tell them, you can be sure. Of course, the fact 
that the tide changes to flood an hour later each day might make a difference 
to their strategy, too.  Anticipate we may see a few recalls later in the 
week.

At the first start, the wind was already about 12 knots and oscillating a 
little erratically but seemed to steady down. John Torgerson got one of the 
worst starts of his recent career, third row at the committee boat.  He had 
to tack out onto starboard to clear his air, hit a great little right shift, 
crossed the fleet and hardly looked back the whole race.  He's got great 
speed this regatta and once out in front, he sure made it look easy.  John 
Myrdal was the closest rival for most of the race with Mark Mendelblatt 
working his way out of a bit of a hole for 3rd.

By the second start the wind had increased to at least 16 knots, along with 
the current which was running between 1 and 2 knots across the course, 
depending upon how deep the water was. Working the current seemed to be one 
of the biggest factors in this race. If you got it wrong, you lost bigtime. 
Usually it pays to go right on the upwind legs, but in this section of the 
Berkley Circle, down very close to the Berkley Pier area, the water depth 
made the opposite tactic the winner today on all but the very first leg.

Andy Lovell got off the middle of the line looking golden, stretched out a 
small lead by the first mark, but he had a hard fight on his hands from John 
Myrdal, who had started at the pin, and Mendelblatt who had started closer to 
the Committee Boat.  Nice even line, I'd say. Myrdal, Mendelblat and Ben 
Richardson were closely grouped in pursuit of Andy by the reach mark, and on 
the downwind leg, both Myrdal & Mendelblatt rolled Lovell.  By the next 
weather leg, Ben squeaked inside Andy at the mark, and held him off going 
downwind.  

The real story of this race was John Torgerson, though. He started at the 
boat end of the line, went right and got killed, and was deep in the 20's at 
the first mark. By the first downwind leg, he took a flyer, gybed at the mark 
to head far left (into the deeper water and stronger current, maybe?) and 
picked off at least 12 boats on one leg. By the third windward mark, he had 
worked his way up to 7th, and was on fire to keep moving up, so much so that 
he flipped going downwind.  Still ended up finishing an astonishing 10th. 
This was an amazing show to watch. Bill Hardesty had an inspired  race, to 
overtake Lovell at the finish for a 4th.

Tomorrow when the 5th race of the series is done, there will be a throwout, 
and the results will alter pretty drastically, with Mendelblatt currently in 
7th counting an OCS, and Kurt Taulbee looking very solid with an 8,8,9 OCS.  
It's a talent show from beginning to end around here, folks.  More of you 
should be here to watch. There's an impressive spectator fleet out there.

Yours Sleepily

Lainie
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