Today was the day the remainder of the event has been defined. The battle for first has very much been isolated to France and Spain. These two teams have demonstrated an amazing ability to get off the starting line early. They tend to just jump to the front. The tricky wind conditions are made much easier by sailing from in front due to the availability of clear lanes, which is really invaluable, and it's showing in the results. The next two teams, Argentina and USA have shown they are competitive with the top two teams, however, they just don't get in front early. In fact, they have both been challenged out of the starting blocks and are sailing a much more difficult regatta because of it. The fact they are able to wriggle out of trouble is a testament to both patience, picking good opportunities and being speedy fast when it counts. With all of that said they've entered into a two boat battle for the third spot on the podium. It should be a very interesting final three races that will determine the winners of these two battles.
Today's racing was relatively uneventful with the exception of about 15 minutes of a mid-20's knot squall that turned the fleet inside out and many boats upside down. The first time we've seen any sort of boat-handling issues from any of the teams. Oddly, once those 15 minutes were over the conditions returned to almost exactly what they were prior to the the squall. Unfortunately for some and fortunately for others the squall hit midway through the first beat and because of the significant windshift that came with it the race was abandoned, but not after the race committee let the sailors continue for a couple legs including one very exciting and fast downwind leg.
Fingers crossed for tomorrow for what should be a pretty exciting day!
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