August 27, 2011
Sheboygan, WI

We Won!  Today we won the 2011 Buddy Melges Challenge after defeating Team Le Berre 3-0 in the finals.

It was another beautiful day of racing here in Sheboygan with warm temperatures and a steady northerly wind around 8-13kts. We sailed slightly longer races today since there was only the finals and petit finals racing to be concluded. The longer courses meant that we would get in good races. And we did.  

In race one and two we had very similar starts at the pin end of the line. We got in a tacking dual up the first beats and about half way up we crossed over to the righthand side of the course after playing the left early. We rounded the top mark with her right on our tail. The downwinds were fun and exciting.

In the first race, we dragged the race out to the righthand side downwind and eventually she broke the overlap as the outside boat meaning we had to gybe to the mark. We did gybe and she gybed too. She thought she had room at the leeward mark, but didn't really and after rounding inside of us at the mark, earned a double penalty and gave us a nice lead to take the first race in the series. In the second race, she wasn't as successful in breaking the overlap and we held her out until we were comfortable that we were ready to head for the mark. We gained a few lengths in this maneuver and a few more up the second beat to take the second race.

The last race didn't start quite as we had planned, with us to the right and slightly late at the boat, but we were able to get a good tacking dual going and picked the right times to tack with the waves and small shifts and at the top were able to get her on starboard and pin her to the port layline. Downwind, we had a good gybing dual, but managed to just stay ahead by the zone and extend to a nice three to four length lead up the second beat and take race 3 and the overall win!

The team, Molly and Debbie, and coach Dave Dellenbaugh, did a great job all week long with the conditions. We are very happy with how we sailed and are looking forward to our next Elliott training.

But now, we are heading to Rochester NY for the Rolex International Women's Keelboat Championships (RIWKC).  We are hoping that our flight will make it so we can get our boat ready tomorrow for racing on Monday.

It was great that Buddy Melges could come out and watch the racing earlier this week and ride with Dave in the coach boat.  He shared his thoughts and compliments with all the competitors after the day of racing. We would like to thank to Buddy for this great regatta being named after him.
 
You can check out the Buddy Melges results at the regatta link, and also follow along at the RIWKC at their website.

Our thoughts are with everyone on the east coast and that they stay safe.

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.