| SOF: Day 5 Finally Racing And Into The Finals | | Print | |
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April 29, 2010 We finally got racing again today at the Semaine Olympique Francaise regatta in Hyeres, France. We raced the quarter-finals and the semi-finals, winning each one 3-0, 3-1 respectively. These wins advance us to the finals tomorrow against Germany's Silke Hahlbrock. 
It was a long day for the racers today.
We met at 8:30am to draw boats for today's sailing, and finally got
off the water at 7:30pm this evening. We were under postponement this
morning for a couple of hours before we went out and raced three races.
We were matched up against Spain's Sylvia Roca. We had some good
close races with her, but managed to win all three of them.
After the quarters, we got about an hour
off to let the silver fleet finish their races before we went out for
the semi-finals. We were matched up against France's Claire Leroy. We were
looking forward to racing her, as she is a very good match racer and we
always have good races against her. The first two races we had even
starts, and took the lead three-quarters of the way up the first leg
and held on to the lead for the rest of the race, despite it getting
quite close on the downwind legs. The third race, we drew a penalty in
the pre-start and rounded behind her at the top mark. Downwind we passed
her, but couldn't quite pin her to the layline on the second upwind
leg, and she passed us and took the win from us. The last race, we had a
very exciting and aggressive pre-start. With 20 seconds to go, we had
Claire on port, low of the boat end of the line. She completed a
tack, and we immediately avoided by tacking. She then sailed down and
there was contact between our boats. After some luffing and yelling, we had a good start to windward of her. She sailed over the top of us and
slightly over the line, and then we pinned her to the layline. The umpires talked for a couple of
minutes as to who should get the penalty, and they ended up awarding it
to her. We led her at the top mark, and held on for the rest of the
race to advance to the finals.
Just Some Of The Marks Needed For The Racing
Photo: (c) Guillaume
Durand, April 2010
Our goal coming into the regatta was to
make the finals, which we have now done. We would like to finish with a
gold medal, and are very much looking forward to racing tomorrow. In
the other semi-final match up, Silke beat Australia's Katie Spithill
3-0 to advance on.
You can check out the results at the regatta
website.
We would like to thank our sponsors Carmeuse
and Trinity Yachts
for their continued support of our campaign for the 2012 Olympics in
London. We would also like to thank USSTAG
for their support.
Sail Hard, |