annatunnicliffe.com - Dross Amongst the Gold

Dross Amongst the Gold

PDF

| Print |

E-mail

Kiel, Germany
June 27, 2008

There was dross amongst the gold today at the Grade 1 Kieler Woche Regatta today as 14 of the top competitors in the Laser Radial Gold Fleet, including me, were black-flagged for starting early in the last race of the day.

Rain on the launch ramp originally built for the 1972 Kiel Olympics

Today was forecast to be a typical Kiel day, with wind and rain, but it didn’t really play out that way. We woke up to rain, and it rained all the way through the middle of our second race when the clouds started to break up and the sun started to shine. The weather gurus called for it to get windy once the clouds had broken up but unfortunately we came ashore after the second race. Now as I’m sitting here writing this report, it’s gotten quite breezy.

In the first race I made a great start in the middle of the line. I took the first shift across the fleet to center up and get more into the right-hand pressure. The breeze was forecast to go right all day and it did, but the on the first beat it was still oscillating and I found myself trapped in the middle and lost my leverage. At the top mark for the first time I was deep, in 20th place, but I maintained good speed around the rest of the course to catch up to 11th.

Mid-fleet mark rounding

There were two or three postponements before we finally started the second race under a black flag. The race committee had set a course of 235 degrees but at the start the wind had backed to around 210-215 degrees, leaving a heavy pin-end bias. With this and the black flag, I chose to stay clear of the pin-end in order to not get pushed over early. After a mid-line start I was able to tack off the line onto port quite quickly and lead the pack on the right side, sailing a smart beat to put me in fifth at the weather mark. The second beat was quite tricky with the wind ranging from five to 12 knots in the lulls and puffs. I lost a couple of boats and was the seventh boat to finish.

After we had all sailed back up to the starting line again, we first saw the long list of people who had been black-flagged for that start. Fourteen of us had been called over early and I was one of them. I was a little upset, but that’s sail boat racing. At least I was in good company with all of the top contenders and that kept the overall points close.

I’m now in fifth place, 12 points off the lead. Sari Multala from Finland, who was second overall yesterday, moved into the lead after Lijia Xu from China had a bad first race finish and was among those black-flagged in the second race. Lijia is now second overall. France’s Sophie de Turckheim is still third, while Joe Aleh from New Zealand took over fourth place with a first and a black flag today.

We have three races remaining tomorrow and the Medal Race on Sunday. You can follow the full Kiel Week Laser Radial Results here.

As always I want to acknowledge my sponsors Carmeuse and K-Swiss for supporting my campaign for Olympic Gold in Qingdao.

Sail hard
Anna

Team Member

Olympic Gold Medalist and #1-Ranked Woman Laser Radial Sailor

Representing the USA, Anna Tunnicliffe won the Gold Medal in the Women's Laser Radial dinghy at the 2008 Olympic Games in Qingdao, China. Anna has been the world's Number One-ranked women's Radial sailor for most of the past 16 months after returning to the top spot in the ISAF April 9, 2008 rankings.