1^st at US Women’s Match Race Championship

We have just finished up the US Women’s Match Racing Championships held at the Southern Yacht Club in New Orleans. Since the event was held in J 22’s we had to add person to our team. Our ringer for the event was Amanda Callahan. She did the bow and kept us all in check. It was great having her there.

The first stage was a double round robin with the eight teams. We went 13-1 in this stage and were seeded first into the semi finals. In the semi finals we were paired up against Kaity Storck and team in a first to 3 points series. We won the series 3-0, and moved on to face Genny Tulloch in the finals. The racing in the finals was tight. We won the first race, she won the second race, we won the third race, and she won the fourth race, so it came down to race five. She led us off the line by about 4 lengths. It was very shifty so we played the shifts and caught up to about 2 lengths behind on the first beat. At about this time we realized that she was on the layline sailing to the wrong mark. We followed her to the wrong mark until we were well above the layline to the correct mark. We tacked and sailed to the correct mark, she rounded the wrong mark. She led us into the leeward mark and we did two tacks and we spilt with her.   We led her around the next windward mark and went on to win the race and the regatta.

We would like to thank Southern Yacht Club for putting on a great event, Kyle Smith for housing and entertaining us, and the US Sailing Team AlphaGraphics for all their support.

3^rd at US Trials Part 1

Last week we competed in the first phase of our US Olympic Trials. The event was hosted by the Key Biscayne Yacht Club. There were eight teams at the event. We sailed a double round robin before the top four moved on to stage 2. The top four from this event will compete in the second part of the trials in May 2012 in Weymouth, England. We finished the double round robin 11-3, which seeded us second, and qualified us for the second part of the trials.

In the semi finals we sailed Anna Tunnicliffe and team in a first to four points series. We sailed the first three races on Friday. We had even starts in all three of those races and rounded right behind her in the first two. In the first two races, we gained on the downwinds and put ourselves in a position to pass her. We got in a gybing duel and were able to pass her and win the first two races. In the third race, the positions were reversed. On the last downwind we were in a good spot but did not have luffing rights and got a penalty for sailing above our proper course.

The Knickerbocker Cup was cut short due to Hurricane Irene, but we did manage to get in two full days of racing. The event was sailed in Swedish Match 40’s and required 5 people, so we added one of our USSTAG teammate’s Trevor Moore as trimmer and Tom Loughbrough as bow.

We started out day one with a bang. We raced the number one seed, Laurie Jury in race one. We were leading him up the first leg and then got a penalty for tacking too close. We maintained our lead and held him past the windward mark. At one point we thought we could take our penalty, but were mistaken and hit his stern in the process. We got rid of our initial penalty but gained another one. We set our spinnaker and were charging towards him. He did not set his spinnaker due to damage. Once we caught up to him we were given another penalty, so we had to take one penalty immediately. After that he was able to beat us to the finish. We ended up 4-1 on day one.

We have just finished up the Olympic Test Event, also known as the Weymouth and Portland International Regatta. This regatta was different from our world cup events because there were only twelve teams, so we were not seeded into groups. Instead we did a full round robin over three days. We finished the round robin at 7-4. That put us sixth going into the quarterfinals.

In the quarterfinals, we were seeded against Mandy Mulder and her team from Holland, in the first to three point series. We took an early 2-0 lead and then stumbled on the last downwind legs of the next two races allowing her to even up the score 2-2. In the fifth and final match, we got a penalty in the prestart. We led her off the line and held her well past layline. We realized we did not have enough space to complete our penalty, so we continued racing. On the next upwind leg, we had gained a little more and thought about spinning at the windward mark. Sally was all for it but the wise Elizabeth and Alana would not allow it. We instead drew her in downwind and we were able to come at her on starboard tack and do our penalty. She was initially ahead of us but on the long starboard gybe to the finish we were able to roll her and reached to the finish.