June 26, 2012
Gothenberg, Sweden

It was an amazingly beautiful day with pefect match racing conditions at ISAF Women's Match Racing World Championships today, held in Gothenberg, Sweden. After the first day of racing, we have a 4-0 record heading into the second half of the round robin tomorrow.

Yesterday Was Good For Ducks : Today Was Good For Sailors

Photos: Women's International Match Racing Association 2012

All of the teams arrived on Sunday evening and were picked up from the airport and dropped off at the hotel. The schedule started early on Monday morning with the shuttle pick up at 7:30 to head to the yacht club for registration and weigh in. At 10am we were allowed into the boats for the official practice. The rain was coming down hard as we rigged up, but the wind was great and we got to get a good look at the race course for today's racing.

We woke up this morning to clear skies and sunshine and a gentle 7kt breeze. We headed out to the race course for a 9am start. After a very short delay, racing got underway and rolled along with the schedule, getting in our four races by 11:45am.

Our closest race was against Team Mulder (NED). We had an even split start with her, us heading to the left, and her to the right. Up the beat she was able to leebow us until right at the top where we split, us again to the left and her to the right. She sailed out to her layline and we tacked a few lengths short of ours. We made a big gain and were able to tack in front of her and lead her around the mark. Downwind, we gybed half way down and she rolled over the top of us. Eventually she broke the overlap and we gybed away. She followed shortly after and we gybed back at her. We just managed to have a small piece of her and forced her to gybe back to starboard. A few more times of doing this until the final attempt by her to cross us when she pushed too hard and we were able to get her on a port/starboard penalty call. From there we gybed away and set the game up for us to round the mark ahead of her. We extended up the second leg and held our lead on the downwind so she couldn't get in front of us and attempt to draw a penalty back on us.

Overall, it was a fun day of sailing. And with the breeze quite steady, after it settled down in race one, it was perfect match racing conditions. There are 16 teams here competing divided into two groups. The top four teams from each group advance to the gold round, and the bottom four to the silver round. The gold round races decide the top four spots which make up the semi finalists.

Tomorrow we finish up the round robin with three races schedule for the second half of the day. You can follow the scores online at the regatta website or on MatchRacingResults.

We would very much like to thank our Title Sponsor, Maclaren, our Gold Level Sponsors 11th Hour Racingand 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 St Francis Sailing Foundation, CISA and SDYC Sailing Foundation, and US Sailing Team Sperry Top-Sider 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 to Sailing Foundation of New York, in the memo write 'Anna Tunnicliffe' and send to Sailing Foundation of New York (this one is tax deductible); or to Anna Tunnicliffe (via PayPal). (Please follow the links for more information. Thank you.)

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.