GBR Match Race Girls

A solid day for us today at the Princess Sofia OCR our Sperrys and Oakleys helping us win two out of three races put us second in our group overall and therefore won us a ticket through to the quarter finals.

After swapping into the boats we had a short wait while the sea breeze formed and then we were first start against the Danish team. A strong start put us into a really good position to be able to lead the race from start to finish by a good margin….a great start to the day. Next up we had two crucial matches against the French and American teams. Against the French we were in control for the whole start sequence and with 45 seconds to go managed to put a penalty against them. By now the chop had started to build and tacking became quite expensive so the tacking duel which formed wasn’t much fun and even less fun was us getting a penalty for placing a tack a bit too close! However, we were still in the lead and seemed quite quick so managed to gain ourselves a bit of space and take the win. Our final race of the day against the Americans was the closest of the day in the end. We led off the line and maintained a slim advantage up the first beat and run however a slip knot in the spinnaker haliyard at the bottom mark meant they were able to take the favoured right hand side. We kept then under pressure the whole beat and very nearly regained the lead at the final windward mark however in the end they were able to slow us and get the better spinnaker set, and ultimately the win.

By finishing second in our group we are through to the quarter finals but firstly, tomorrow we will race in the gold fleet to seed us for the quarters.

Wish us luck!

Lucy x

Day 2 highlights are available on youtube, featuring some of the action from Group B

The first day of the 42nd “Trofeo Princesa Sofia” regatta brought big breeze for all competitors. With some classes postponed ashore, the Women’s Match Racing started on time and completed a full schedule of racing today.

We have been drawn in round-robin Group C, so had a long wait ashore while the other two groups each completed three matches. It was mid afternoon before we took to the water, winning out opening matches against Abbott (CAN) and Zimmermann (PER). We then lost our third match against Hazard (NZL), before finishing the day at 3–1 with a win against Kjellberg (SWE).

Check out the video below summarising the first day of the regatta, featuring some opening footage of the match racing in Group A.

Forecast for tomorrow is for much less breeze, hopefully we’ll get the full schedule in and complete the first round-robin stage.

Lucy

We are now coming towards the end of our week training in Palma, and the conditions have been fantastic. We have been training with one of the American teams and by slowly building up the amount of racing each day we are now feeling good about going racing next week. Today we will have our last day of training in our boats before sending them home in a container tomorrow. We will then have the official practice on Sunday and start racing on Monday… can’t wait!

Keep checking back for updates, or follow the action on the Princess Sofia OCR website

Lucy