Team Seven - Victory at Vitória Brasil Women's Cup

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Victory at Vitória Brasil Women's Cup

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Vitória, Brasil
November 12, 2007

Our match racing team topped the standings and we won a severely truncated Vitória Brasil Women's Cup event here today. Heavy winds had kept us ashore for nearly three days, when we should have been racing one-design Swedish Match 40s as part of the second-to-last event of this year’s World Match Racing Tour.

Countdown to the start - - - Photo: Wander Roberto / Divulgação

In our most critical race, we defeated Frenchwoman Claire Leroy, ranked for the last two years as the Number One woman match racer in the world, winner of the 2007 ISAF Women's Match Racing World Championship and recent winner of the ISAF Rolex World Yachtswoman of the Year award.

Weather delays meant we only sailed one round robin but we went undefeated 6-0 and that was enough to take the cash prize and earn the right to compete with the men in their series later this week. Claire won all her races, except the one against us, and completed the series second with a 5-1 score.

Debbie Capozzi from our regular Team 7 Sailing Yngling crew raced here with me on our international crew that included Dana Riley from San Francisco, top-ranked British Yngling sailor Annie Lush, New Zealand’s number one Yngling skipper Sharon Ferris and Lindsay Bartel, Bayport, NY.

Getting a feel for the wheel - - - Photo: Wander Roberto / Divulgação

Heavy winds that pounded the island of Espirito Santo kept our seven international crews ashore for the better part of three days. Thursday was supposed to be a practise day but the boats were stuck in Customs. On Friday, we were going to combine practise and competition but it blew too hard and we never got off the dock.

On Saturday we got out on the water and tested the conditions with reefed mainsails and no spinnakers but it was too windy, so that was another day lost.

On Sunday, we were ready early but the wind was still too hard. However a lull around midday provided an opportunity to get in one set of races in 15 knots. We raced against Caroline Béjar from Brazil and got her pinned outside the starboard tack layline before the gun and then stayed ahead to control her comfortably around the course. Then the breeze got up again, we blew a jib track and that was it for the day.

Vitória after dark - - - Photo: Divulgação

On Monday they held the skippers meeting before sunrise, at 0600 hours and we were out on the water before 0700 only to wait a couple of hours for the breeze to fill in. For the rest of the day we sailed in light, shifty conditions, before the wind died in mid afternoon, cutting the event short with only one round robin completed.

The toughest competition at Vitória was Claire, her fellow Frenchwoman Christelle Philippe, who is world ranked #3 match racer and Klaartje Zuiderbann from Holland who is ranked #8.

We knew we had to beat Claire and got a penalty on her before the start as she turned in front of us and failed to complete her jibe in time. We tried to keep it close but she got clear of us and got far enough ahead to make her penalty turn on the second beat. We rounded the weather mark right on her stern as we began the last run to the finish and a jibing duel that would decide the outcome. It was a great battle down the run but our boat handling was a little more polished than Claire’s team and we ended up rolling her right at the finish.

Champagne for all

We were left with the tough choice to staying to race against the men or heading for Houston and the Rolex International Women’s Keelboat Championship. We elected to race in Houston and defend our title. Claire is staying to race the men.

You can learn more about the event at Vitória Brasil Women's Cup.

Sally Barkow
-- for Team Seven Sailing -