Wednesday 11th February, 2009
The next few weeks we’ll be braving it out on the freezing cold Poole Harbour to prepare for our next event, the ISAF Nations Cup Grand Final.
The ISAF Nations Cup is a global competition to find the world’s top match racing nation, and to develop match racing infrastructure around the world. This year the event will take place in Porto Alegre, Brazil, from the 23rd–28th March. Our team for the event will be Annie, Ally, Mary Rook and myself and we’ll be racing in J24 class yachts. Luckily we have some club members at Parkstone Yacht Club helping out by allowing us to train in their boats in the lead up to the event. Thank you to them!
Our training will consist of some boat handling in the J24s, getting used to the quickest way of sailing around the course, how they handle under slow speed and also perhaps most importantly, some match racing against some of the male match race teams in the country. Having competed at the J24 World Championships in Sardinia last year with Annie and Mary we already have good knowledge of racing the boats, although match racing them with 4 crew will be a little different to our fleet racing with 6 crew then (yes it was VERY cramped!).
Bring on March! Lucy x
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Tags: 2009, Training
Saturday 7th February, 2009
Ahoy thar, me hearties!
Now look’ee ‘ere… Lucy be promotin’ the Women’s Match Racing World Championships.
It’ll be sure to shiver yer timbers… :)
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Tags: 2009, World Championships
Sunday 1st February, 2009
Friday saw the end of a great week of racing for us match racers at the Rolex Miami OCR. One hundred and thirty something races run by the committee, twenty-seven of which we raced and twenty-one of which we won… all resulting in a bronze medal for Annie, Ally and myself.
Friday began with light winds for our semi final races against Lotte Meldgaard Pedersen (DEN) and her team. After two close starts in the first two races Lotte won an initial advantage that we were unable come back from in the light and choppy conditions. Going into the third ‘must win’ race we controlled the last part of the start but were given a red flag penalty for infringing Lotte at start time. Luckily we completed our penalty gybe and ducked Lotte to win the right hand, favoured side of the race course. Unfortunately though, having gained a strong position with the girls calling our gains and losses against the other team it became very clear we were beginning the loose… quickly! It turns out that we had managed to get a forest of weed stuck on our keel, I’m fairly sure I’ve never been so slow in an SB3 in my life!
So unfortunately we missed out on a place in the finals but did go on to win our petite-finals 2–0 against Genevieve Tulloch (USA). As the front came through, bringing much more wind, Lotte went on to win the event against Giulia Conti’s team in a 5 match final, winning the final deciding race by less than half a meter!
Overall it’s been a great couple of weeks. It has been the first time just Annie, Ally and I have sailed together, the first time I’ve had any match racing coaching and the first Women’s Match Racing event in an Olympic Classes Regatta. The event was a real success, the race committee and club were fantastic, and there seems to be a very strong desire by the sailors to make match racing in the Olympics one of the best sailing disciplines.
Finally, but by no means least, thanks to Jenkins Marine for their support for this event and especially to Hortensia and Bob for putting up with us staying in their home with them in Key Biscayne this week!
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Tags: 2009, ISAF Sailing World Cup, Rolex Miami OCR, SB3
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