August 25, 2011
Sheboygan, WI

Another long day of racing, and good results at the end for us. We won three of our four races this morning to advance to the quarterfinals as the third seed and are currently up 2-0 over Team Wang from China in the quarterfinals.

The day started with a nice 10-14kt offshore north westerly breeze which provided flat water with puffy and shifty racing before it slowly shifted to the right and got a little unsteady before settling in from the north east. The big swing to the right also brought in a big swell which seemed disproportionately large given the breeze in which we were sailing.

Our morning races were quite good races all around the course. We knew we had to do well in them to secure a good seed in the quarterfinals. We raced both the French teams and one of the Brazilian teams and after close first laps, we were able to hang onto the lead for the finish.

Our last race was against Team Souter from Australia. We didn't do a very good job in the prestart and were late to the start by about 20 seconds. We were able to hang for a while after the start, but the wind was going light and you had to hit the right side of the course. Unfortunately, although we had a good lane on port as we sailed to the right, we had to sail a couple extra lengths when we got to the right corner to ensure we would have a good lane back to the mark. This cost us a few lengths on them and they had about a five length lead at the top mark. Downwind, we made a move at the leeward mark and closed some distance to about two lengths, but the race committee shortened the course due to the dying breeze and we couldn't catch up.

Our record after those four races was 13-2. As it turned out, we were tied for second on this record, but lost the tie to Olivia Price since we lost to her yesterday. This seeded us as third and up against the Chinese team for the quarterfinals in a first to three point series.

When we started racing for the quarters', the wind had gotten very light and the sea was quite choppy. In the first race, we had a great pre-start, but punched the line a little too early and were OCS (as it turns out, it was only by an inch that we were over). It was a silly mistake that could have cost us the race, but the girls did a great job at finding the very light breeze and we had great speed and were able to pull back into the race. We managed to roll over Team Wang as she tried to leebow us half way up the beat. From there we extended to take the win and the first race of the series. In race two, we were both over, but that was just the way we set up for the start. We had them pinned high over the line, then came back late for the start, but with them behind us. Off the line, we forced them to the left and we kept to the right of them where there was a little more pressure. We again had great speed and were able to extend away and take race two.

Racing continues tomorrow morning in the first to three point quarterfinals series. The racing will be live on the regatta website along with up to date scores. Regatta website: http://www.sailsheboygan.org/BMC_2011.php.

We would very much like to thank our Title Sponsor, Maclaren, our Gold Level Sponsors 11th Hour Racing and Laser Performance, and our Bronze Level Sponsors Carmeuse, Trinity Yachts, and Chicago Match Race Center for their continued support of our campaign for the 2012 Olympic Games. We would also like to thank US Sailing Team AlphaGraphics (USSTAG) and its sponsors for their continued support. Also, thank you to our private donors. Please remember that any and all donations/contributions to our campaign should be made payable directly to either The Sailing Foundation of New York (tax deductible) memo'd Anna Tunnicliffe, or to Anna Tunnicliffe.

Sail Hard,

And as usual, don't forget, email us your questions and comments.  We love getting them and sharing our love of sailing and women's match racing.