GBR Match Race Girls

We’re through to the finals :)

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

The Match Race Girls have won all four of their matches today at the world championships to finish the repechage round robin in first place.

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!

Well on day 10 we’re still going with the epic 16 team repechage… just one more day left before we know who goes through to the quarter finals, so the end is in sight!

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