| A Beautiful Day For Sailing And Into The Finals | | Print | |
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August 26, 2011 
Photo: (c) Mark Wessel, Buddy Melges Challenge 2011
The day started with wind from the south west at 5-8kts and puffy. After finishing yesterday 2-0, at that point in quarterfinals we were looking to grab one more win this morning. We were the second start of the day racing Team Wang, and as we started the wind dropped to the lighter end of the range. Up the first beat the racing was very close, and at the top mark both boats were bow to bow with us on the inside. We were able to draw a foul on her at the top and extend out of the mark with a couple length lead. We extended quite nicely until she got the wind that was filling back in and closed the gap right up to our transom by the bottom mark. We were able to execute a better mark rounding than her and continued to extended out our lead and hold a five length lead until the finish to take the series 3-0 and move onto the semi's.
The
other races for the semi's were close, but the winner of the second
quarterfinal match would be who we would race in the semi's. Julie
Bossard and team were able to edge out Olivia Price in their
quarterfinal match up 3-1, to advance to the semi's and race us.
By the time the semi's started, the wind had swung to the south a little more and was beginning to pick up. The wind was very steady from here on out, so the racing was close all around the track.
Race
one started with both boats sailing away from each other at opposite
ends of the line. When we came back together, we ducked her and took
the right and she took the left. Up the beat, we were able to edge out
on her and round ahead at the top mark. Downwind, she was very fast
and put the pressure on, but we were able to hold her off at the
bottom and rounded ahead again. Upwind we were only able to extend to a
two length lead which remained the same all around the course.
In the second race, both Julie and us were OCS but we were able to come out of it in a slightly better position to windward of her. We pinned her to the port layline and the race was very similar to the first one and we took a 2-0 lead in the series. The third race had a little more of an exciting prestart. We were able to pin her out at the boat end of the line. At the gun we had a length or two lead on which we were able to extend in a tacking dual upwind. We had very good speed in the third race and took the race by a few lengths at the finish to wrap up the series and advance to the finals tomorrow morning. We will be racing Team Le Berre who edged out Team Souter (AUS) 3-1 in an exciting finish to their series. You can follow the racing live on the regatta website and also check out the results there too. 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, Team Maclaren 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.
Anna: 4D's: "Dream,Desire,Dedication,Discipline"TM
Team Maclaren: 3P's: Passion...Performance...Perfection...TM
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Team Member
.jpg "Team Maclaren")
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.
