Bassadone Clark - 470 Olympic Sailing Blog

Day 2

So you may have noticed after looking at the results that we were disqualified from the first race yesterday. At the time of writing our blog the noticeboard had been checked and there was nothing up. It was over dinner that a phone call came through that we would be in the protest room at 9pm.

We had an incident at the final mark before the finish with the Slovenian team, we believed we had water on them, they believed we didn't so shut the door on us. To avoid a collision we headed up to go around the back of them but in the light and sloppy conditions just nudged them on the way past. We thought we were in the right and they thought they were in the right. They finished the race in the position that they had rounded the mark and we lost 2 places as going around the back of them opened up a gap for others to overtake.

Going into the protest room in any situation is risky, even if it is a clear cut port and starboard there is still a risk that the jury will see it differently and make the call against you. So for this reason we decided not to protest, however the Slovenian was in another totally unrelated protest for which she got DSQ'd from the race so had nothing to lose by protesting us.

So it didn't go our way and a frustrating day got even more disappointing.

Anyway, today was another day and the comments we made in yesterday's blog were still true. It's going to be a long regatta and everyone is going to have their ups and downs.

So with a point to prove today we went out there firing on all cylinders. Awareness high we made good decisions off the startline, were patient with the shifts and got the basics right- sounds very simple when its put like that!