Today is a rest day before the big event! Racing at the 2017 Sailing World Cup Miami starts tomorrow so today I am taking it easy, catching up on some work, and staying out of the sun. We have had some great training over the past few days here and I am feeling fast and excited to race!

We have had three really productive days on the water. In the previous post I talked about our first day on the water, and the second turned out to be very similar. Lighter conditions, and lots of competitive practice races. My speed was great, and when I managed to get my bow up and to get off the line quickly I had great races. I think one of my focus themes going into this event will be making sure I set up at the start with my bow in line with the other girls so I can get a clear acceleration. I tend to be a bit cautious in a really competitive fleet and set up with my bow a bit back. But if I do that, even with a fast and well executed acceleration I am starting in dirty air. I’ve got to be bold and get up there!

The third day on water was windier (~13 knots) so we got a bit of hiking in, which felt great! We missed the timing on the practice races with the international group, but got some great tuning and smaller start practice with the rest of the Canadian team, so it was still a really productive day. I worked on getting my bow up on the start line and on my downwind speed, both which felt great by the end of the day.

Yesterday was measurement and registration, so we got my sail and boat checked in and finished registration. It was pretty windy as a storm was coming through so we decided not to go out sailing. I don’t have a spare mast down here and it would be frustrating to bend or break some gear right before the event. It sucks a bit to miss out on the big breeze, but the priority is to have the boat race ready. Today is a rest day, with the opening ceremony in the evening. Then it’s two races a day for the next five days and the medal race on Sunday, time to get stoked!

Below is a video of some of our downwind practice from the third day. It looks like I get right past Brenda (no sail numbers), but later on she reaches up hard under me and manages to pull a great move a bit before the bottom mark forcing me up and off my wave so she could surf back down and to the mark when I was forced too high. She got to the downwind mark a couple boat lengths ahead of me. I was focusing totally on speed (and was going fast!) but neglected tactics and fleet awareness as a result. Still learning!

Wish me luck and thanks for reading! – Maura