We had some tight racing in the semi-finals and the finals yesterday as we advanced through to the win.  We started the day, racing against the top seeded team entering the event, Keith Swinton from Australia.  We had already raced and lost one race from the semis on Saturday afternoon, so we knew that we had to come out ready to win two races on Sunday morning to advance to the finals. 

Our first race was in very light and shifty winds.  Swinton foulded at the start and drew a penalty.  We managed to accelerate from the foul faster and sail the shifts as we wanted, and won the race by over half a leg.  The next race was a bit closer.  Both teams started without penalties and at the first cross we were ahead.  I hesitated in a tack which slowed us enough to put him ahead in the next cross.  We fought back on the downwind leg and got inside of him at the leeward mark to take the lead and hold it to the finish.  Our team was very excited to win the semis and so advance to the finals.  We were sailing well, and looking forward to our next match-up against Phil Robertson from New Zealand. The finals were scheduled to be a best-of-5 series. 

We did so successfully, but that  was when the drama at the leeward mark started.  Because of the current, we ended up drifting below layline, and there were lots of shouts, flags and maneuvers, before we finally got around the mark.  When we came out of the mark, we were still ahead, but he had a penalty and we had a red flag penalty, which meant that we had to clear ourselves immediately.  We were pretty down speed coming out of the mark, but had to do our turn and in doing so, drifted down current pretty quickly. He spun his penalty at the same time and was ahead of us.  Despite being close for the rest of the race, he hung on to even up the series 1-1. 

At this point, the OA was getting short on time and so shortened the series to a best-of-3 series, which meant one more race to decided this year's champion.  After an exciting pre-start, Phil started a couple seconds early and was over the line at the gun, meaning he had to restart and was immediately six boat lengths behind us in the race.  We knew now that all we had to do was to sail the race clean and fast and cross the line.  We did so and won this year's regatta.  Robertson finished second and Swinton won the petit-finals to take third. 

It was an exciting event for us to finish first.  This event and the Knickerbocker Cup last weekend were training events for us as we head in to the Sail for Gold regatta.  We start training today and will train for three days before we go.  We are training with our USSTAG teammates Genny Tulloch and team.  I am sailing with Molly Vandemoer and Alice Manard. 

I would like to thank Carmeuse and Gill for their support of us during the Detroit Cup. 

Sail Hard,

Anna