The Paralympic Regatta has begun in Qingdao and Team USA is off to a great start.

Nick Scandone (Newport Beach, Calif.) and Maureen McKinnon-Tucker (Marblehead, Mass.) battled out the increasingly challenging conditions to grab a bullet and a second place in their first two races to claim the lead in the new SKUD-18 class. The Sonar team of Rick Doerr (Clifton, N.J.), Tim Angle (Marblehead, Mass.) and Bill Donohue (Brick, N.J.) also won their first race today, beating Greece by almost eight boat lengths. John Ruf (Pewaukee, Wis.) also excelled in the 2.4 mR class with impressive second and sixth place finishes.

Read more news from US Sailing here, and check out the sailors' blogs.

Photo: Getty / Phil Cole

The 2008 US Paralympic Sailing Team has arrived in Qingdao, China in preparation for the start of the paralympic summer games. Barely weeks after the close of the Summer Olympic sailing events, the venue at Qingdao is again readying for sailboat racing action.

The team's first days mainly consisted of unpacking bags and unloading containers. After the Torch Relay to mark the start of the event, they were back to business getting the boats ready for practice in the afternoon. Racing is scheduled to start Monday September 8th. Read more about the preparations here.

More about the team is here.

And to follow the action live, Universal Sports will be providing online broadcast coverage of the 2008 Beijing Paralympic Games. They will offer three separate Live segments each day, for users to watch free online. The segments will also be offered On-Demand for viewing after the Live broadcast. Check out the schedule and coverage here.

Two British visionaries are on the verge of breaking the world land-speed record for a wind-powered vehicle. Using a hi-tech composite machine named "Greenbird," the two will try to beat the record of 116mph at Lake LeFroy in Western Australia in the next few days.

The name "Greenbird" is a reference to early speed pioneer Donald Campbell who used several cars and boats named Bluebird to break speed records.

"Campbell did it with the prevalent fuel of the day - we're doing it with the prevalent fuel of tomorrow," said Eco-entrepreneur, Dale Vince. Campbell utilized massive cubic capacity fossil-fueled engines for his speed records. "We have just the wind," Vince said.

Greenbird uses a vertical rigid sail which enables the craft to travel between four to six times the real wind speed, depending on the surface traction. After the dry lake record attempt, the "sailors" plan to fit the ship with skates and achieve speeds in excess of 150 mph.

Read more here (BBC News) and at the Greenbird website.

Photo: Courtesy of Greenbird.

The Dutch Tornado team has decided not to use the controversial "upwind spinnaker" which they unveiled several weeks ago. In a big gamble (perhaps brought on by a Dutch bluff?), the US team decided to go with the sail. In the first Tornado class racing yesterday, the gamble paid off -- at first. But when the breeze freshened, the sail was too much for upwind work and not enough off-the-wind sailing. The US team finished 14th, nearly eight minutes behind the lead boat, beating only one boat.

Writing on their Olympic Blog, US Tornado team member Charlie Ogletree said: "With the sail measured in and officially accepted, the only remaining decision was whether to employ it or stick with a standard gennaker during the series. We can’t have both. It was a tough and risky call..." In a telling statement, they also say: "We know for sure that our Dutch training partners Mitch Booth and Pim Nieuwenhuis have elected to go with a similar sail. We don’t know about others." Only problem is that the Dutch team elected not to go with the sail, saying, "'the risk is too big," on their website.

All teams are allowed to measure in two gennakers, including a spare one. The Dutchmen got a normal and small gennaker stamped while Americans Lovell and Ogletree measured in two Code Zero's, leaving no choice but to carry the controversial sail.

Read more about the race, and other Day 7 action here.