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| OCR, Miami: Day 5, A Hard Won Semi's | | Print | |
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January 29, 2010
Miami, FL
Today was a full day of racing against the Aussies to advance to the Finals at the 2010 Rolex Miami OCR. It felt like a long day of racing despite
only sailing six races. Every race was very close, thanks to the shifty and
puffy winds. You could never guarantee a win because the other team could
get a shift and be right back in the race.
Hiking Hard : Looking For Wind Shifts
Photo: (c) Walter Cooper, January 2010
We wrapped up the Quarter finals first thing this morning with a win
against Lucinda Whitty, from Australia to advance to the Semi finals. After
having two wins from yesterday's quarter-finals racing, we had to win one of
the three scheduled races this morning. The race started with us being
behind, but we pulled a fake gybe on her downwind, tricking her into gybing, which resulted in her being awarded a penalty during the subsequent luff. This happened just before the finish, so
we gybed away and led to the finish line.
Debbie Setting The Spinnaker Pole
Photo: (c) Walter Cooper, January 2010
The next round was against Lucinda's teammate, and 2009 ISAF Women's
Match Racing World Champion, Nicky Souter. We had five fantastic races with
her and came out ahead in the end with a 3-2 record. We won the first two
races and felt good about how things were going. But Nicky and team turned it around and handed us two losses to tie up the series. So everything
came down to the last race. And what a race it was! The race started, and we
had a good start at the pin end. We pinched the Aussies off and they tacked away. We got the first shift and controlled the first beat. Downwind,
we made a bad tactical call and they had got around us by the leeward mark.
Upwind we played the shifts corretly, managed to get our bow back in front of her, and now we could control her coming into the top mark again. This time at
the top mark, we stuck to our guns, and held our course after our set. They gybed away and held their course. We gybed to match their course but
kept our wind clear behind us, so it wouldn't be affected by their sail shadow. The downwind leg took a long time, with surges from both boats in the puffs. As we got
closer to the line, we saw the boat end slightly favoured, but our nerves were still racing. When we crossed the line our flag went up first and our
team let out a huge cheer and sigh of relief. We also got some kind words
from the Aussies as well, which was great to hear.
Dousing The Kite
Photo: (c) Dave Hein, January 2010
It was a fantastic series, and we are really happy we got some good match races. Having won our Semi's, we now advance to the Finals against GBR's
Lucy MacGregor. Lucy's team has gone through all the rounds undefeated, so we are definitley looking forward to some exciting racing tomorrow. You can check the results out here at the regatta website.
Sail Hard,
Anna
Team Tunnicliffe
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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: