Subscribe to Anna's Newsletter
| St Thomas, USVI, Day 1 - Tricky Conditions, but a good start to the USWMRC | | Print | |
|
November 12, 2009
St. Thomas, USVI
Racing was scheduled to start
this morning at 9am here in St Thomas at the US Women’s Match Racing
National Championships, but due to lack of wind we were postponed for
about an hour. Racing did eventually commence, however, and the
race committee managed to get in a full round robin. My team of
Molly Vandemoer, Liz Bower, and Alice Manard, did a great job, and we
finished the day with a 7-0 record.
View from Hosts' House
Photo: Liz Bower, Nov 2009
Our first race was held in
a dying breeze and we drifted across the line to take our first win
of the regatta. The wind switched around and we completed the
next six races in nice, but puffy and shifty conditions. We
made it a little difficult on ourselves at times, but the racing was
close which made it more fun because we actually did a
lot of match racing.
More Views
Photo: Liz Bower, Nov 2009
Our closest race was against
Evan Brown. She led us off the line, and rounded the top mark
ahead of us. We jumped her downwind, but she held us
past layline, meaning we had to follow her into the mark. We came in
a tight angle, and had problems getting our spinnaker down. Once
we got around the mark and sorted out everything, we could focus on our race
again. We lost a little distance initially, but hit a couple shifts
upwind and closed the gap again. Downwind, we pulled the same play, managed to get into the pressure before her resulting in a pass three-quarters
of the way down the leg. We held on to the lead to the finish.
It was a great race, and after that race, we sorted out most of our
boathandling issues. It was a good race for this to happen to
us because it was early enough in the round for us to make the needed corrections so we wouldn't be hindered again.
This evening, we had a team
dinner at our hosts' house. We grilled up some veggies and chicken
with some rice to fuel us for tomorrow's racing. Racing resumes
tomorrow morning at 9am. We are scheduled to do two more round
robins in the next two days. With the forecast looking similar,
we should get in a lot of good racing. You can follow the results
at the regatta website .
I would like the thank Carmeuse
for their continued support of our campaign for the 2012 Olympic Games
in London. I would also like to thank Gill and USSTAG for their
support.
Sail Hard,
Anna
|
Team Member
Anna: "To achieve our goals, we need 4D's:
Dream, Desire, Dedication, Discipline"
TM
Olympic Gold Medalist, World Class Woman Laser Radial Sailor And Now World Class Women's Match Racer
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 was the ISAF world's Number One-ranked women's Radial sailor from April 9, 2008 to May 2010. She was voted 2009 & 2011 ISAF Rolex World Sailor of the Year. Now Anna, skipper of Team Maclaren, has teamed up with Molly O'Bryan Vandemoer and Debbie Capozzi to take on the world and go for Gold in 2012 London Olympic Games in Women's Match Racing and the team is currently ranked #1 in the ISAF WMR rankings.
Useful Links to help raise
the level of your match racing game: