Well, as the old saying goes…. the opera ain’t over till the fat lady sings… she’s not onstage yet, but we sure can hear her warming up!

Two more races, two more bullets. Today we really had to work extra hard for our second win. The first race we led the race mark by mark, extending on every leg to the finish. The second race though was a fight…

A big left shift seconds before the start caused Scott/Julia and us to not be able to lay the pin end of the line. Scott gybed out at the pin, we tacked and ducked a couple of boats, finding ourselves the last boat right after crossing the start line.

We had just tightened up the rig before the race as we could see the breeze build, but it was painfully obvious soon into the race, that the breeze had really piped up! I couldn’t get the boat in control, as the boat heeled and heeled over and I eased and eased the main and the jib to try to keep us flatter. I tightened controls till they were nearly bottomed out and still the boat would not flatten in the strong gusts. Just before the 1st mark, we needed to duck Karen & JP who were on the starboard tack lay line to the mark. In order to do that, I had to ease the mainsheet so that Nick could turn the boat down in the 15-20 knot breeze. Well, the main was stuck! The end of the line got tangled up in the motor of my seat base, I couldn’t ease the sheet, and we fouled Karen & J.P., a classic port/starboard foul. We immediately did our penalty turn and were back in 4th! We gybe set at the mark while the rest of the fleet extended, which allowed us to make a huge gain. By the bottom of the run, we were back in second place behind Karen & J.P. On the second beat we traded the lead back and forth with them in some windshifts, and rounded the windward mark still in second.

I love the big breeze downwind, and it was really up now and it was a fast, fun ride to the second leeward mark, planing downwind with Scott & Julia following us, as we both passed Karen & J.P. in a 25 knot gust! YEE HAW! Moments like that are why I love the SKUD - it just takes off like a jet if you know how to control the spinnaker the right way. We made more gains on the right side of the final beat, covering our 2 closest competitors. It was an exciting, come from behind win. My heart was pounding out of my chest most of that race and in fact, it was the first time since the very first race where we didn’t lead at every mark rounding.

So with Nick & I taking two bullets, and Karen & Scott again trading 2’s and 3’s there are a number of scenarios where we can mathematically clinch our place on the US Paralympic Team. The simplest is for us to finish 1st or 2ndin any race. There are four races remaining for our class, so we’re feeling pretty good! Looking across the results for all 14 Olympic and Paralympic classes, we’re the only team this close to clinching a spot. There are tie scores and slim leads in every other class. We’re pulling hard our friends in a all of the classes, particularly Sonar, 2.4mR, Star, 49er, Laser and Laser Radial… Go Ricky, Tim & Bill! Marc! Mark & Magnus! Tim and Chris! Brad! Anna!

I’m really looking forward to tomorrow. The kids are coming back again for the day and it would be nice to take them out for Chinese food for dinner!!

P.S. New Photos are up here.