I think that there were a couple of important things sailing today with the top one being don’t capsize (though I think everyone did this at least once).  With the wind, the best way to sail fast was keeping the boat flat.  For the last 2 races, the wind built and the wind clocked left slightly.  When the wind shifted, the second leg of the triangle was definitely faster to sail by the lee.  You could tell this by watching Eric’s speed.  I chose not to do this however because of the shiftiness of the gusts and heaviness of the wind.  My opinion is that it was safer to not sail by the lee today on that leg.  Eric had one chicken gybe at the mark after doing this because of the puff that he was currently in.  The other important thing today was checking for stuff on your blades.  With all the rain there were a ton of leaves in the river and the blades were constantly building up.

The other important thing today was coming off the start line (as always).  With the brevity of the races though I think that starting well and keeping the boat flat and fast were about 90% of the racing.