A fresh breeze, an international fleet of fast and furious 505 dinghies, and the second mark of the Olympic-style course appears almost before the busy crews are ready for it.
Approaching on the plane on a starboard spinnaker reach, each boat must be gybed, every other boat must be avoided, legitimate buoy overlaps must be requested and agreed, the other must be decisively rejected.
There is much shouting about such things, and many commands from skipper to crew, with a few protests hurled the other way. The 505 dinghy has an unusually long spinnaker pole which must be somehow unrigged from the starboard side of the mast and set up on the other side, once the sails are across. The 505's hull is inherently unstable, so the helmsman's prime concern, as he pulls his tiller towards him and brings in the mainheat, must be to keep an even keel. More capsizes occurs in a 505 at the gybing mark than anywhere else.
The Americans in US 6847 having gybed neatly, have preserved their lead and, since the forward hand is already fully extended on his trapeze and all three sails are pulling hardand the hull is already skidding on a plane, they must be pulling away from the others, who are all struggling with sails and gear, and struggling, too, to avoid one another. Sailing is more athletic than it ever used to be.