The athletes got in two races today on the long Olympic trapezoid course in puffy conditions ranging from 10 to 16 knots, perhaps with a few gusts to 18, and the wind backing roughly 20 degrees throughout the afternoon. Several teams capsized around the final downwind mark rounding, and a few had trouble getting their boats righted in the breeze. There were at least three torn spinnakers, and one US men’s team retired after a capsize on the first race. Men’s teams from Germany and Argentina were over early in race one, and a US men’s team failed to make the time cutoff in the second race after a capsize. It wasn’t only the competitors enduring gear failure: the race committee’s finish line boat, the Pt. Judith, suffered a runaway diesel engine on the drive back to the docks and required a tow after becoming a major ball of steam and smoke on the water (sorry, no photos of the incident).

Preliminary results saw Argentina leading the women with ARG108 (Sesto) taking the gun in the first race and a second place finish in race two. Other women’s top finishers were USA1736 (Clark) and POL55 (Tylinska), second and third in race one, and USA1760 (Jolly) and AUT431 (Vogl) taking first and third in race two. For mens & mixed crews, it was USA1734 (Anderson-Mittlering), ARG61 (Buhler), and FRA2638 (Philippe) finishing in the top three in race one. The Japanese men swept race two with JPN4181 (Kazuto), JPN4154 (Shiraishi), and JPN4120 (Matsunaga) taking first through third.

Source: Paul V. Oliva