GBR Match Race Girls

At the beginning of day 3 it is not looking great for us on decisions for the schedule. Disappointingly the Race Management are wanting to go straight to semi finals rather than quarter finals first, which would be understandable except we still have two days left of the regatta so they have plenty of time left. We came here for a four day regatta not a two day regatta so we’re hoping they change their mind when group B’s round robin is completed in three flights time.

We’ll keep you posted,

Lucy

Well the rain continued ALL day today making it a rather grey day here in Hard! After group B had finished their round robin we began our second round robin which, this time was held outside the Harbour thankfully in slightly less shifty conditions. The breeze held up for all of our session and it was going well for us with four straight wins…until the final race. After rounding the first windward mark ahead of Lotte Meldegaard’s team (DEN), on our spinnaker hoist our sheet came unclipped from the clew of the spinnaker however with another boat from another match inside us we couldn’t gybe to sort the problem and ended up being passed by Lotte…very frustrating! Although we rounded the leeward mark not too far behind we were never able to pass so ended the day with 4 wins and 1 loss.

With 7 wins and 3 losses after the two round robins we are on equal points with the Danish team but our loss to her in the final race puts her ahead of us in 2^nd and us in 3^rd. We are now hoping there is time to go to quarter finals and not straight to semi finals otherwise an unclipped spinnaker sheet will have had a huge impact on our event.

Lucy

Here we are in the event hospitality tent ready to start racing on day two of the European Championships, and it is absolutely chucking it down with rain outside! Ally, Annie and I are on after two races in which group B will complete their first round robin. Yesterday we finished our first round robin in 2nd place with 3 wins and 2 losses, and today we will be racing the same five teams again in another round robin.

Conditions were tricky yesterday with light and very shifty winds, today we have the wind but also the rain to go with it! We struggled a bit yesterday with getting used to the boats, the boat handling of the asymmetric kite and the way they handle at low speed, but it was a common problem among the fleet and we feel we have made some good progress in our debrief. Of course it’s a new day today though with 5–10 knots more breeze so plenty more learning to do!

We’ll keep you posted,

Lucy

Update: the results show the girls winning 4 out their 5 matches today, losing only to Lotte Meldgaard (DEN). They finish the round robin 7–3, the same as Meldgaard, but today’s defeat means on the tie-break they slip to 3rd.

Racing is due to start at 10.00am here in Hard, Austria for the 2010 Women’s European Match Racing Championships and Ally, Annie and I are just having a cup of coffee and preparing to go out on the water.

As was the case last year, the Europeans this year is taking place alongside the Open event (nice for us to have some men around for a change!) and also like last year, the women have got the raw end of the deal with the boats we’ll be using compared to the men!

This week we’ve left the Elliott notes at home and will be starting a new page for Scholtz 22s. So far the three of us have spent just two hours in the boat which was yesterday during our allocated training slot and while we tried to find out as much as we could about them but I’m sure there is plenty more to learn! Unlike the Olympic Elliott 6m class we’ve been putting all our time into recently, the Scholtz carries an asymmetric spinnaker and is slightly more of a ‘keelboat’. I have to admit we weren’t overwhelmed with love for the boat, but there isn’t much we can do about that other than get our heads down and race and move forward as much as possible with our boat handling and speed through the early rounds.

The event will start today with a round robin series in two groups and throughout the week will move onto another round robin in our groups, followed by quarters, semis then finals on Saturday.

Hard is situated in the Austrian corner of Lake Constance and the race areas we’ll be using will be a mixture of inside the “Binnenbecken” harbour (an area no bigger than Poole Park Lake) and the other course will be outside on the main lake which will hopefully be a little less shifty!

Today we’re inside on the little lake, sailing our first round robin against Lotte Meldgaard (DEN), Renee Groeneveld (NED), Ekaterina Skudina (RUS), Petra Kliba (CRO), and Vesna Dekleva Paoli (SLO).

Wish us luck — it could be a venue where we need a little!

Lucy x