Coconut Grove, Florida
December 27, 2007

I want to send season’s greetings and Happy New Year wishes to all my friends, family and supporters and provide you with an update of all my activities in the weeks since the Rolex International Women’s Keelboat Championship in November.

Flying the Bladerider Moth

I just got back here to coach at the Youth Orange Bowl Regatta at the Coral Reef Yacht Club after spending Christmas with my family in Cabarete in the Dominican Republic. They joined me down there after I wrapped up a few day’s training there before the holidays. After this I’m looking for a couple of days off over New Year’s before I head down to Australia on January 3.

Today US Sailing announced its short list for the Rolex Yachtswoman of the Year. I’ve been nominated, along with Yngling skipper Sally Barkow and seven other top woman sailors.

Just five days ago, US Sailing named me as their Sportswoman of the Year. The citation read, in part: "Laser Radial sailor Anna Tunnicliffe has had a year of stellar success, which when factored against all other racers competing in this singlehanded dinghy class has made Tunnicliffe the number-one ranked Laser Radial sailor in the world in 2007. A string of gold medal performances characterized her year, beginning in February with a win in the 96-boat fleet racing the Laser Midwinters East Championship and followed in August by a gold medal at the 2007 Good Luck Beijing – Qingdao International Regatta, an official test event for the 2008 Olympic Games; in October she won the 16-race U.S. Olympic Team Trials – Sailing in Newport (R.I.), which earned her a berth on the U.S. Olympic Sailing Team."

On the same day, the International Sailing Federation announced that I had dropped to Number Two in the Laser Radial Class Rankings. My friend and sailing partner Tania Elias Calles from Mexico took over the top ranking after finishing second in the Sydney International Regatta earlier this month. I sat this one out, concentrating instead on training in Fort Lauderdale.

It was good to get back to training in the Radial in December. It’s amazing how quickly you get out of shape when you take a month off. I really needed the month off, but now I’m back in the swing of it. I was training in Ft. Lauderdale out of the Lauderdale Yacht Club. We had a string of days that provided perfect practice for the conditions that I will likely see in China. Usually at this time of year, the sea breeze kicks in quite good around noon to 1:00 pm. Instead we had some lighter training days with lumpy seas. I was very happy with this because it allowed me to start focusing on specific trimming and set-up techniques in advance of next August.

There were some breezier days too which were good to show me how much I need to get back into shape. I have been training mostly by myself, but a couple times I joined in with youth sailors training. I was coached twice a week by Brad Funk. We have been taking some very good video and Brad has been very critical of my technique and throwing a lot of very good suggestions and observations at me. I also had a week of training Lauderdale with US Sailing Team Coach Luther Carpenter.

Enough of Radials…what other fun things have I been up to? Well, I spent Thanksgiving at Brad’s parents house in Clearwater. We had a great time there. We played tennis almost every day against Brad’s dad, and frequently got beaten. We ran our annual Turkey Trot, the 10k race in Clearwater. I was very excited to run the race, well actually I was excited to run the 5k race because I had a specific goal time in mind, but the night before the race we decided to change to the 10k, so I wasn’t exactly super-excited, but still happy to be out running anyway. My goal for the race was to run a sub 43 mins (my Mum’s best time) but I didn’t quite get it and I finished with a 44:18. The good news was that I was 22nd female overall which was a huge shock. I went out at the beginning of the race a little too fast for a 10k, but I think I hit my 5k mark around a 20:30 which was the time I wanted to beat for my 5k, so this was good news too. The dinner that followed that night was delicious and I felt like I needed to run another 10k right after dinner to burn it all off.

The following weekend I got the opportunity to sail a Bladerider Moth. This is a hydrofoiling Moth. It comes out of the water when you get going fast enough. The picture at the top of this report is me sailing the Moth in Clearwater on my first day. The next day we took the Moth out to the ocean where it was blowing about 12 knots. Unofficially I got the boat going close to 23mph which was quite a thrilling experience.

I loved sailing the boat and really look forward to getting one when I’m done with the Radial. I’ve set myself a rule that I am not allowed to sail one again until the Olympics are over…so we’ll see if I stick to that, given that Brad has just bought one.

As always, a big thanks to my sponsors Carmeuse and K-Swiss for their continued support.

Sail hard,
Anna