Skandia Sail for Gold — Solid start on Day 1

Monday 14th September, 2009

The Skandia “Sail for Gold” regatta began today, the first Olympic Regatta to be held for all classes at the newly completed 2012 sailing venue in Weymouth, UK. It is also the last stage of the ISAF Sailing World Cup, in which Annie, Ally and I already have an unassailable lead in the new Women’s Match Racing discipline.

A top field of 24 teams from around the world have congregated at the Weymouth and Portland National Sailing Academy, including 7 of the world top 10, all keen to gain experience in the new Elliott 6m boats at the venue for the 2012 games.  We’ve been split into three round-robin groups of 8 competitors, with each group sailing 3 flights today in a fresh North-easterly breeze which provided exciting racing for all.

Following on from our win at the Grade 2 international warm-up event here last week, we’re pleased to have continued the clean sheet by wining all three of our matches today, against the French team skippered by Anne le Helley, Denmark’s Trine Abrahamsen and one our fellow British teams lead by Katie Archer.

Check out the full results and keep up-to-date with proceedings on the event website, which also offers live internet radio from the event.

GBR Match Race Girls GalleryGBR Match Race Girls GalleryGBR Match Race Girls GalleryGBR Match Race Girls Gallery

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Clean sheet at grade 2

Thursday 10th September, 2009

Sorry for the lack of updates, but the good news is that its been another fantastic few days for us in Weymouth. With Ally back from illness the three of us competed against 11 other of the the top international teams in a three day warm up event for Sail for Gold, and are delighted to have finished the event winning overall with a clean sheet!

After some exciting, close races on day 1 during the round robin, we made life a little easier for ourselves on day 2 winning our remaining round robin races with a bit of a gap and qualifying through to the quarter finals. Here we faced Julie Bossard’s team (FRA) and won our first two races comfortably. Day three saw a different day with a shifty NE breeze and a race committee very eager to get races in. Our final race of the quarters went well putting us through to the semis against Katie Spithill’s team (AUS). Despite close pre-starts and some pressure downwind on the first race, we sailed well to win 2–0 and go through to the finals against the NED team helmed by Renne Groeneveld. We knew the Dutch would be quick and sure enough even though we won the starts well, in both races of the finals we had them breathing down our necks the whole race. However, we managed to successfully hold them off, winning the second race by less than half a length to take the finals by 2–0 and the overall title.

Going into this regatta, the result was not too important to us, we just wanted to use it to learn as much as possible in preparation for Skandia Sail for Gold. But to win the event, and to do it having not dropped a single race, we now feel really confident going into the racing next week. We’ve now spent a couple of weeks training and one week racing (admittedly all in good breeze) in the boats, and although sleep is high on the list of things to do right now, we are really looking forward to racing next week! The new Elliotts are holding up to the challenge very well so far, and have produced some high quality close racing. However, next week with 24 teams racing in 8 Elliotts at the newly completed Olympic venue will be the true test… bring it on!

Lucy x

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National Champions!

Sunday 6th September, 2009

We’ve had a busy but good few weeks getting used to the RYA’s new Elliott 6m keelboats, the class chosen for Match Racing at the 2012 Olympics. After spending a week training alongside the Dutch team in their boats, we were excited to finally get our hands on the RYA’s newly commissioned boats over the course of the last week, before rolling straight into our National Championships this weekend — the first event for the new fleet.

Having had about 20 knots or more for all of our practice days, it was a bit of change only having 10–14 knots over the last two days… and a good break for all the bow girl’s raw hands!

Due to illness catching up with Ally, this weekend my sister Nicky joined Annie and I for the National Championships. Although it was a slight baptism of fire on Saturday morning, we were pleased to finish the day having won the double round robin, qualifying us through to the semis in 1st place.

This morning we continued our winning streak, defeating Charlotte Lawrence’s team in the semi finals 3–0 to go through to the finals. With the breeze building slightly throughout the day we had some close racing in the finals against Katie Archer’s team, and despite a few errors on our part, we were pleased to be crowned National Champions once again with a 3–1 win.

We now go straight into a Grade 2 International event, which runs from Monday through to Wednesday, giving some of the top teams from around the world their first chance to sail the Elliott 6m at Weymouth. This all stands us in good stead in preparation for Sail for Gold regatta next week, which in addition to being the showcase Olympic Classes regatta in the UK, is also the final event on the ISAF Sailing World Cup tour, where we’re obviously extra keen to do well on our home turf!

We’ll try and keep you posted,

Lucy

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