Palma Day 1

Photo is us (in the center of the shot) approaching the windward mark in the top 10 in race 2

Racing was tough today in the puffy, offshore conditions. 20th and 29th, 51st/69 boats overall. Pretty much all the players in the world are racing this ISAF grade 1 event in Palma de Mallorca. 24 countries from all over the world.

We had two good first windward mark roundings, rounding 11th and 8th, in the two races respectively - Up with all the top boats and in unfamiliar territory to date! It was nice to do that in both races, and we know we are few boat handling mistakes away from nailing two top 15 finishes. That would have us with our training partner, currently the top American boat in the event.

We were happy with our tune, as we continue to learn more and more about our highly responsive rig. In the big breeze, we had some smooth gybes, tacks, one very nice gybe-set and some good hoists. The one real boat handling issue was our douses at the leeward mark (also the windiest part of the course), that is when we flipped in the second race on the second leeward mark rounding. It was heart breaking because we were in 14th place, over halfway through a grueling race and we had a nice little gap behind us. We righted the boat quickly and got back to racing and were still able to beat a handful of boats, but the damage had already been done...that capsize cost us 20 places overall! But this is all early days and we know we can put it together. 4 races tomorrow, a long day, and we know tomorrow will be when the results will shake out. So we live to fight another day at our first event in Europe of 2011 and have hopes of moving up through this internationally stacked fleet.

-Zander