October 24, 2011
Miami, FL

The U.S. Olympic Trials Part 1 are just around the corner. We have been training hard for the last two months and are ready to start racing on Wednesday morning. Since the Santa Maria Cup at the beginning of this month, we have been training with Team Audi Match Race (Finnish team) out of Key Biscayne YC.

We have had great conditions, everything from light air to heavy air, hot and dry to mild and very wet! With some tropical systems moving through the area earlier this month, it mixed up the conditions for us to practice in which was great so we could cover all parts of our sailing. We have focused on fine tuning the game and have worked with multiple coaches over the month including, Tuds Owen (Team Audi coach), Dave Dellenbaugh (our coach), and Ed Baird. The reason we have switched it up was to get multiple perspectives on the game. 

The training has prepared us for this upcoming event in which the top four teams will qualify to race for the second and final part of the US Trials to be held in May in Weymouth, England. But to test how much we had learned, we competed in our usual 'Championship'; a competition between the Finnish team and us which we hold at the end of each training session with them.

The 'KBYC Championship' was held on Sunday morning. This time it was a first to three point series. The racing was very close with Team Maclaren coming out on top with a 3-1 scoreline.

Our closest race was the third race of the series where they led us off the line. We were able to get inside them at the top mark, and then the lead changed three times downwind. Upwind, we were able to get the right side of the course and managed to hold them off by a boat length to up our series score to 2-1. We then went on to win the final race which was also close, but not as many lead changes around the course. On Saturday night, we had made a trophy for the series, so later on Sunday evening we had a prizegiving where the trophy was presented. The whole thing was all in jest, but we started this championship last December when we started training together and have continued it since. 

The Fins left today and we were sad to see them go, but we are very thankful to them for coming over for a month and working hard to get us ready. We also would like to thank Tuds and Ed, and of course, Dave, for coaching us this last month.

Tomorrow is the registration for the regatta where we will register, weigh-in and go out for a short practice. Later in the evening there will be the opening ceremony at Key Biscayne YC, and then racing starts on Wednesday morning at 10am. There are eight teams registered for the event. The format calls for two round robin, semi-finals, and finals over five days. You can follow along at the regatta website, which I will post in tomorrow's blog, on Facebook, and on Twitter.

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, Chicago Match Race Center and Sperry Top-Sider 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.