Sailing: 'It's written on people's faces if they are strong'

Although we've achieved a lot in a short time, more than many critics suggested we might, we and others will judge our performance on our quarter-final against Dennis Conner's Stars & Stripes. When you read this, we might be out – we were 3-1 down and due to race again in the early hours of Sunday morning your time. This is my diary of the third phase of our America's Cup adventure.

There is not much opportunity for testing between the rounds, it is just too windy. While this has implications for our choice of boat, there are benefits – after two weeks of long race days, I need some time to recover physically. In rowing I always enjoyed the few weeks before racing because we only did short-duration intense training, to get rested and ready to race. In sailing we have so much more to do on the shore, so there is less down time.

We spend the time sizing up our opponents. We know more about Stars & Stripes than most, as they don't use skirts to cover the hull of their boat or their keel configuration. They choose to use USA 77, which no one has raced against before. It's similar to their first boat, but with a larger rudder and longer wings on the keel. This suggests it will be faster up wind, but may be slower downwind in light airs. Larger appendages have more lift to enable a boat to sail upwind more efficiently, but also more drag downwind.

We already know our own strengths, so we go into the races well-equipped to know our best chances and in which situations we're likely to have the edge.

As we go into the pre-start for the first race I cast my eye around the boat and try to make eye contact with a few people, just to let them know I'm calm and to check the others look confident and controlled. That's where there's no difference at all between sports – it's written on people's faces whether they are strong and good under pressure.

The start becomes very competitive, with the boats really close and us having right of way. As I see their boat cross our bow I can't help but flinch and hold my winch handles tight in case of impact. The boats missby the narrowest margin. The umpires penalise Stars & Stripes, but they still get the side of the start line which we wanted.

As the boats sail away from the start we were behind, but we know that at some stage they will have deal with the penalty. They have a choice either to perform a 270 turn or try to cause another incident in which we might foul them. They sail the race with us only a short distance behind andattack us as we approached the finish. We want to stay clear, but like the agnostic who stumbles into a conversation with a religious fanatic we are forced to defend ourselves. Everyone seems to be shouting at the umpires who are forced to make another decision – we were both to blame and S & S have failed to off load their penalty. As we cross the line ahead the atmosphere is as good as I've felt it. When I leave the yard at 7.30pm I power my bicycle up the hill and home to pasta and early to bed.

Day two begins with a detailed debrief. It is good to hear even our experienced sailors and umpire say they didn't understand what had gone on at the end of race one – so I was not alone, then.

The start of race two is less eventful and as we line up and throw the boat around we head off to the left. Stars & Stripes seem happy to let us go and start to our right. Because they are on top of us we have few options but to wait until they tack before coming back towards the top mark. As we go around the first mark we hope our speed will be quicker downwind. Sadly, we are not, so we are left to follow them around the course and hope for a mistake, which doesn't come.

The debrief is still positive and we feel sure that we can win if we can just gain control of the race. Unfortunately, the decision where to start is where we lost that control.

I am off the boat for races three and four – being rested and feeling frustrated watching the television. Through the coverage, which rarely showed race three our race I'm led to believe the race is not very eventful. This is bad news because I've seen that we are behind, and if they're not showing us then we've probably not performed a fantastic recovery. Race four is different. Although we have a poor start, we recover and constantly threaten them. At times our boat looks as quick as theirs, probably for the first time in the series.

At 3-1 behind we know we can still do it, but we do need to win the next three. We know it's no excuse to say they have plenty of experience and possibly a quicker boat – we just want to get a few breaks and a few wind shifts and I know we can turn over these veterans.

Greg Searle, the Olympic gold medal rower, is a grinder with GBR Challenge.