GBR Match Race Girls

A short but successful day for Mary Rook, Kate and I at the Rolex Miami Olympic Classes Regatta today as we finished our two final gold fleet races against Skudina (RUS) and Tunnicliffe (USA), and won both to win the stage.

The breeze was dying as our turn to race came around after the repecharge group but it just held long enough such that the races weren’t too fluky. After both starts we were able to make the first jump and gain control of the race to cut off the options for our competitors and ultimately extend to comfortable wins.

With one loss in the gold fleet round robin from yesterday, we now qualify through to the quarter finals in 1st and will be racing against the New Zealand team after they finished 2nd in the repechage group. The other pairings for the quarters will be Skudina (RUS) vs Barkow (USA), Souter (AUS) vs Leroy (FRA) and Tunnicliffe (USA) vs Lehtinen (FIN). The race committee’s plan A tomorrow will be to race first to three point quarters and semis but it looks like the breeze could be fairly light so we’ll see….

Keep tracking us,

Lucy x

After a long wait for the breeze to settle down this morning we finally got our turn in the boats this afternoon and started the gold fleet. First up for us was the Australian team helmed by Souter and after a split start we were slightly faster upwind and just held the advantage for the downwind. With them right on our tail racing remained tight downwind and by the leeward mark Souter had a penalty but was in control off to the left hand side of the course. As they went for their penalty offload it gave us the chance to gain the advantage back and once round the leeward mark we were in a strong position from which we could extend and win the race.

Our second race was against Leroy (FRA) and was a bit of snakes and ladders with them infringing prestart and being given a penalty but then us giving the advantage back by misjudging the line and being OCS. From there we then caught up and gained a good advantage ahead for the second lap however catching weed early on the second beat saw us get extremely slow and the lead passed back to the French for them to take the win. Somewhat frustrating but unfortunately just one of those things!

Our final race of the day was the most convincing win for us from start to finish against the Finnish team helmed by Lehtinen and a good boost going into tomorrow. So far in the gold fleet there are four of us on equal points so it’s all to play for tomorrow in our final two matches which will seed us for the quarter finals on Friday.

Keep checking the website out for Twitter updates and the GPS tracking.

Lucy x

Another good day for Mary, Kate and I today as we won 3 out of 4 races to earn our place in the gold fleet and quarter finals. It was another tricky day with close races throughout but an improvement on yesterday was that we were giving our opponents penalties rather than receiving them ourselves!

The first round is so critical for us with the format we race with because only the top two teams from each of the three groups are guaranteed a place in the gold fleet (the seeding round for the quarter finals). This means that every race counts and even with just one loss you can still miss the cut. In our group going into the final race, if we won we would be through to the gold fleet and if we lost we would be in the repechage so the pressure was on for our race against Anna Tunnicliffe. It was not a good start for us but we were ahead round the first mark and still ahead – just with Tunnicliffe having a penalty round the leeward mark. Racing remained extremely close up the second beat but we remained ahead until the top of the final run where after being rolled, we were behind but with the Americans still having to do a penalty. When Tunnicliffe dropped her spinnaker in the bottom third of the beat it was time for us to make a choice, match her and drop too or use our positioning to be able to roll her with our kite still up. Option two it was and after a shaky gybe at first, we rolled them straight away however still were being luffed – something the Y flagged solved and we crossed the finish line ahead and with Tunnicliffe having two penalties….it got the heart rate up a little ;).

Tomorrow we will sail the first three of our gold fleet races in the middle of the day aftre the repecharge group. Keep updated at the event website http://rmocr.ussailing.org/.

Lucy x