Yesterday was a long day of waiting, for our team here in Weymouth.  We were scheduled to do four races yesterday after the first group finished up.  We were greeted in the morning with 20-25kt winds, which calmed enough for the race committee to send out the first group.  After difficulties getting the course set and breakdowns on the Elliots, racing was further delayed for about an hour.  The group finally got in three races, before the race committee decided that it was too windy, as the wind was starting to average 25kts, gusting to 30kts.  The intent was for our group to go out if the wind died down again later in the day.  And it did, around 2:30pm.  It died down to the high teens, with gusts into the low 20’s.  We headed out for the race course and got situated with everything.  But as the race committee went into sequence, the wind picked back up to the mid 20’s with gusts to 30kts again.  But we raced.

We were last start in the flight, so got to watch as the other boats maneuvered the pre-starts and race course.  By the time our race came around, we had lost both of our name plates that were in our sail.  We were racing Denmark’s Trine Abrahamsen. We had a great pre-start and led them off the line by about three boat lengths.  We lost a lot of the lead upwind, and ended up drawing a penalty. 

We tacked clear in front of the boat, but they sailed to leeward of us and hit us and we came out with the penalty.  But no worries, all we had to do was sail fast from here to have enough room to do a turn.  We pulled back our lead on the downwind leg.  On the second upwind leg, they caught up to us to be within two boat lengths of us going into the top mark.  It wasn’t enough distance for us to burn our penalty so we had to pull some move to get them close to us and battle it out on the downwind leg.  As we approached the top mark, we were slightly ahead of them, so slowed to even up the race.  As they approached the mark, we headed down to point at them to try and force them to tack.  They bore away and we did a bit more, and they kept clear but got behind us.  As they went behind us, we headed up and tacked. Now we were exactly on layline and they were just shy of it, but couldn’t tack to make the mark.  We rounded the mark and they had to bare away and double tack to make the mark.  This had given us enough room to do our penalty.  Before hoisting the spinnaker, we sailed out of the mark zone and completed our penalty.  We set our kite and went on to win the race. 

It was very exciting to actually practice a match race move in that much wind.  Most match races in breeze just come down to two boats sailing around the course and the one that does it better, wins. But to be able to pull off a move was a very satisfying feeling.   

Today we are scheduled to finish the round robin.  We have three more races to do, but are the second group to be sailing again.  The wind is already in the low to mid-20’s with it forecasted to get windier, but fingers crossed we will get the racing in.  I will try and write a report tonight after sailing if I can find internet.  For more information, check Sail for Gold website.

I would like to thank Carmeuse for their continued support of my campaign for the 2012 Olympics in London, England.  I would also like to thank USSTAG for their support. 

Sail hard,

Anna