September 28, 2012
Chicago, IL

We won today at the Chicago Match Race Center Autumn A Invitational regatta. We won both our semi finals and finals with a 3-0 record to take the top spot for the two day Grade 3 event.

Although the forecast was calling for lighter winds than yesterday, the breeze was a pleasant 12-15kts, with big waves again. We headed out from the dock around 8:30am for an early 9am start. The day started with the semi-finals; we had completed the two round robins during yesterday's racing. We were paired up against David Storrs (USA), while the other match-up was Don Wilson (USA) and Sakamoto Wataru (JPN).

We won our semi's 3-0, but the racing was quite close at times, especially during the last race. We led them off the line after giving Storrs' team a penalty for a windward/leeward situation. They kept the race close on the first lap and managed to get around us on the second beat by making some very good, well placed, tacks.

We were behind them as we rounded the top mark, totally aware that we were going into a situation where they would try to get a penalty on us to offset theirs. They had their sails pulled in tight to slow but were sailing a slightly hotter angle than dead down wind. We caught a wave and saw an opportunity to surf into leeward of them and take control of the race. However, just as we got our bow locked to windward, Storrs turned his boat down enough to get the boom to gybe and now we had to gybe to avoid and keep clear in a port/starboard situation. We avoided them cleanly, but then they were able to luff us. We advanced a little too far on them and they were able to tack through and clear their penalty. We bore way to set the spinnaker and still had good positioning on them heading towards the line. They saw that we were a bit ahead and gybed at us to hold us out passed the pin. We gybed and were able to surf a wave ahead just enough to break the overlap. They misjudged the break in overlap, luffed us again and consequently earned themselves another penalty. This meant that we had to just hang behind, keeping clear of them and take the third and final race of the semi's series.

In the other semi final, all five races were required to decide who was to advanced. In the end, Wataru took the series 3-2. We met them in the finals, and had some close races, but were able to get penalties on them in every race so took the series in three races.

It was good to be sailing again. Mike and Tyler did a fantastic job and as a team we had a lot of fun and laughs. We would like to say a huge thank you to the Teboreks for providing housing for us during the event. Also, big thanks to the organizers, umpires, CMRC and Don Wilson for an amazing regatta.

The results will be posted on the regatta website.

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. 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.