Full details of today’s action to follow, but for now check out yesterday’s round-up video featuring some of the match racing from the quarter finals (though sadly not our all important deciding match which really was a thriller!)

Right, off for a wee celebration!

Lucy, Annie & Kate x

The regatta started on Monday, though strangely we began with a lay-day as Group A raced all day. Tuesday was our turn, and it was a long day on the water as we competed in both the first and the last of the 11 flights sailed by Group B. Six races in all for us, bit of an average start but an OK day with four wins and two losses.

Group A were out again first yesterday to complete their round robin, with Sally Barkow (USA), Silja Lehtinen (FIN), Ekaterina Skudina (RUS) and Anna Tunnicliffe (USA) making it through to the quarter finals. There’s a change of format this year at the World Cup events, with two groups of 12 instead of three groups of 8. The top 4 from each group then go straight into to the quarters, making it a pretty big cut with no second chances of progressing through a repechage round.

Yesterday we only did two races, first a win over Olivia Price (AUS), but then lost to Julie Bossard (FRA) which was pretty disappointing. A stupid mistake early on, we were both over the line early and I took the most ridiculous way to get back behind the line and ended up with too big a distance to try and catch up.

We’d been struggling a bit with a couple of little things in the boat over the last couple of days, but had a great day today. We had three races left to complete our round robin, and the results were really tight at the top. A good start to the day saw us with two wins against the Dutch teams of Renee Groeneveld and Mandy Mulder. With one flight to go to complete Group B there were six teams all pretty much tied on points with only the top 4 to advance. Our crucial final match was against Claire Leroy (FRA) and proved to be a typically close contest, but we just managed to get to the finish line ahead to make it three wins out of three and in fact to win the round robin. Had we lost to Claire however, I don’t think we’d have made the quarters on the tie-break, as indeed the French team didn’t.

Due to a breakdown we had a bit of a wait while the other three quarter finals were held, before we were on against the 4th place finisher from Group A — our adversary from the World Championship finals in Perth just a month ago — Anna Tunnicliffe. The 0–4 score line from our last encounter belied the closeness of the racing, and this time around was no exception either. Today we were starting really well against them and in fact in the first two matches we were leading her the whole way round the course only to get rolled at the finish line. Two-nil down in a first to three wins match is never a great place to be, but we had confidence and dug deep to turn it around, kept on doing what we were doing well and worked out how to defend her a little bit better, and delivered three straight wins to advance to the semis.

It’s really good to have got through the quarter-finals, it is always a massive sigh of relief because it’s such a big cut and everyone racing in the quarters is good — Anna’s the World Champion and we meet her in the quarters. It’s a really tough stage and a relief to get through it! A pleasing end to a pretty tough day :)

Tomorrow we’re up against Silja Lehtinen’s team from Finland, follow the action on Twitter @RMOCR_CourseE or at matchracingresults.com.

Cheers,

Lucy, Annie & Kate x

Today’s finals held in the harbour right in front of the packed grandstand provided a thrilling afternoon’s spectacle as the Women’s finalists battled for the title, demonstrating once again how match racing is an an exciting spectator sport for both sailing enthusiasts and non-sailors alike.

The Match Race Girls have been in Perth for about a month, cumulating in an intense two weeks of competition which has seen them compete in more than 40 individual matches. Coming ashore the girls commented “It’s been a great two weeks, but hard work. We’re really pleased with the way we’re sailing at the moment and our performance at this regatta, we’re quick, but today we made some mistakes in getting penalties which is quite frustrating. Without them we’d have been looking very strong today and the scoreline could have looked quite different. We’re looking forward to building on this and competing next year at the Olympics.”

Read more about the day’s racing at the Skandia Team GBR and Perth2011 sites, and there’s also been considerable interest in the news. Video highlights and a full report from the girls to follow later… for now there’s some celebrating to be done :)

After a day of extremely close racing on the Centre Course at Perth 2011 we’ve secured our spot in the finals tomorrow.

We did it the hard way though… losing out first two matches to Claire Leroy (FRA). It was then really do or die as in a best of 5 knock out we had to win all three of the remaining races, one win for them and they would go through. It was close, but we did it, pulling back to 2–2 and then winning the all important deciding match :)

Read all about it in the Skandia Team GBR press release and the Day 13 round-up on Perth2011.com.

Tomorrow we face Anna Tunnicliffe (USA) in a best of 7 matches to determine the 2011 World Champion.

Follow the action on MatchRacingResults.com which has links to video and GPS tracking. Racing begins 0600 GMT.

Cheers

Lucy, Annie and Kate x

It was a very long day on the water but finally we got some great racing completed outside the harbour/docks where we have been racing all week. Tomorrow it looks like we’ll be outside again so all change from the last two weeks but Kate, Annie and I can’t wait to take it on!

Cheers for supporting,

Lucy x

After missing out on direct progression to the quarter finals on count back following a three way tie in the first round robin, the girls have sailed 15 more matches in the repechage over the last four days. A strong performance has seen them take 13 wins with only two losses, beating all of the top 7 seeds. They will now face Mandy Mulder (NED) in the quarter finals tomorrow, check MatchRacingResults.com for all the action from 4am — 10am GMT.

The results at this crucial stage have been very tight, with many countries fighting to qualify for the 2012 Olympic Games where only 12 teams will compete. So far we have GBR, FRA, USA, RUS, NED, AUS, SWE, NZL, and POR confirmed. The final 3 countries will be selected at an event in January.

Also progressing to the quarter finals from the repechage are the two Australian teams of Olivia Price and Nicky Souter, both on 11–4, and Anna Kjellberg (SWE) 9–3.

Follow all the action in the quarter finals tomorrow!

The event is starting to go on a bit now however don’t get me wrong, we are still looking forward to racing tomorrow especially after another good day today. We won 3 out of 4 races in really tricky conditions, with light and patchy breeze made all the flukier by the ships and buildings surrounding the race area. On our boat Kate was the winner today as we had to do 4 very short laps in most of our races with some legs of only a minute to two… for those not quite with me, that’s a lot of work getting the spinnaker up and down and still staying ahead of the other boat! It was pretty crazy conditions and tomorrow could be similar, but hopefully without any rain!

We’re currently ahead on 9–2 but have the two Aussie teams close behind on 8–3. We race them both tomorrow, along with Silke Hahlbrock (GER) and Vesna Dekleva Paoli (SLO), so hope to have another good day and finish in the top 4 to go through into the quarters on Wednesday.

Wish us luck… we need it on this race course!

Lucy x

A delayed start today eventually saw a light sea breeze take over from the gradient, with racing getting under way about three hours later than scheduled. We were out in the first two flights, beating Silvia Roca Mata (ESP) and Silja Lehtinen (FIN). Six more flights were sailed but none for us, as racing was curtailed before we were due out again.

However an interesting one to watch was a head-to-head between the two Aussie teams, world #8 Nicky Souter against the young world #19 Olivia Price — formerly a crew member on Souter’s team who has recently turned rival and is proving a real challenger for Olympic Selection. It was a very close match with a number of lead changes keeping the crowds in the grandstand on the edge of their seats, but it was Price who edged over the line first to take the win away from the older and more experienced team.

So all in all quite a lot of waiting around for us, but a good day ending on 6–1 and still leading the repechage ahead of Price (AUS) on 7–3 and Kjellberg (SWE) 6–3.

In the fleet racing, the top 10 in each of classes that have been competing this week had their medal race, with four new World Champions decided. Massive congratulations to our fellow Skandia Team GBR team mates have put in some great results, with Giles Scott (@GilesScott) taking the title in the Finn class and Ed Wright (@EdWright11) picking up the bronze. In the Mens 470 Luke Patience and Stu Bithell (@PatienceBithell) took the silver medal, while Bryony Shaw and Alison Young finished 7th in the RS:X Women and Laser Radial classes. The remaining Olympic classes — Star, 49er, 470 Women, RS:X Men and Men’s Laser — start tomorrow and carry on through to the weekend.

The schedule for Women’s Match racing tomorrow is for the final three gold group seeding flights to be completed first, before another 7 flights of the repechage where we’re due to sail in 4 matches. We need to keep getting wins on the board to ensure we make it through to the quarters, so another big day tomorrow!

Keep an eye on the ISAF Channel on YouTube for the daily video round-ups.

Cheers,

Lucy, Annie and Kate x

With a good breeze around lunchtime that died away as the afternoon went on, another long day on the water saw 9 flights completed. We sat out the first four, and then had five races in a row. The first two went to plan, defeating Echegoyen (ESP) and Tulloch (USA) before our only loss of the day against Senfft (BRA). Two more matches swiftly followed, and we dispatched Kjellberg (SWE) and Groeneveld (NED) to lead the repechage overnight on a 4–1 scoreline.

Overall we’re very pleased with our day. It was another tricky day on the course, especially sailing into the early evening as the breeze died off. It all sort of merged into one… but we’re pretty happy to come away with four wins and just the one loss.

Tomorrow there are 11 flights scheduled, we’re on in the first two and the last two, so another long day but hopefully with a little down time in the middle. Strangely of our matches today were against competitors who came through with us in Group B, so we’d raced them all once before. Tomorrow sees us up against some Group A competitors, so it should be good to get some experience against them.

Keep up to date at matchracingresults.com and follow all of the action at the Worlds on perth2011.com.

You might also like to read Annie’s interview — “Passionate Persistence” on Sail-World.com

Cheers,

Lucy