January 23, 2012
Miami, Fl

Team Maclaren had a pretty good start to the regatta today. We finished the long day of sailing with a 6-1 record. Tomorrow is a day off while group B sails for the full day before we begin again on Wednesday morning.

Photo: @RMOCR_CourseE Miami, FL

We had all sorts of conditions today starting with 12+ knots this morning dropping to 5-7 knots at the end of the day. With 12 teams in our group, teams had to rotate in and out of the eight supplied boats. We had the first two races off to watch and see what was developing on the race course. When we got in, we sailed three races, one each against the two Brazilian teams, and one against Team Wang from China. The races between us and the Brazilian teams were a couple of our closest of the day. Our loss was to Team Senfft from Brazil after she sailed a very smart last run to the finish and got us by inches as we crossed the line.

After our first three races, we sat out two races and re-assessed after our loss and other tight races. We re-focused our heads, and came out and sailed four very good races to finish up the day.

Our first race of the afternoon was against Team Souter and involved at least three lead changes around the whole race course.  We led her off the line and she was able to just get around us at the top mark after we misjudged a call. Downwind, our goal was to try and close the distance between the boats so as make it a battle on the next leg. We were able to do that a little by the bottom mark. Around the mark, we rolled into three tacks with her matching the first two before we separated a little. We came back together and did a few more tacks before we were able to separate to the left. We saw a bit of pressure out there and held until we got to it. When we came back together, we had a strong leebow, forced her away from the pressure and we headed left for more. On the next interaction, we were able to cross over to the right of the course and claim control of the beat from there. Downwind, we focused on the left pressure and were able to extend the lead and take the win at the finish line.

We have four more races over the next three days. Tomorrow is off, then we sail Wednesday morning, and Thursday afternoon. I know we start racing first thing on Wednesday, our first race being against our training partners, Team Audi Match Race from Finland. They had a great day today with a 8-1 record. Also doing well in our group is Team Barkow at 6-0, and Team Skudina at 5-3.

You can check the scores at the regatta website (http://rmocr.ussailing.org/) and racing is also live 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-Siderfor 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.