GBR Match Race Girls

Another good day for us today, two wins and one loss meant we have won our group and has therefore put us through to the gold fleet and quarter finals. Second and also going through to the gold fleet in our group was the Dutch team helmed by Groeneveld, and Le Berre (FRA) and Abrahamsen (DEN) go through to the repechage.

We are really pleased with how we were sailing today. In the starts we were much stronger than yesterday and we seemed fairly quick again. The final race against Le Berre was our only loss and only frustrating moment because after a great start where we pushed them over the line early, we had a good few lengths lead until the final run where we got caught up with another match and missed our opportunity to go the favoured side of the run. We were then also unable to stay with our opponent and although we were still just ahead when we came back together, we were soon swapped by the three boats giving them the chance to pass just before the finish…not too flash!

Tomorrow we’ll be on second again for three races in the gold fleet which will seed us for the quarter finals.

Watch this space, Lucy.

It was a good day 1 for us today at the French Olympic Sailing Week in Hyeres. Once again we are in group C so it was a late start and late finish for us with our first race getting underway around 3pm and finishing up about 6pm. Our opponents for the day were Abrahamsen (DEN), Mota (BRA), Hazard (NZL) and Kjellberg (SWE) and despite a few shaky moments pre start (mainly my fault!) we won all four races by a comfortable margin and are finishing the day pretty happy all round.

Unfortunately it looks like today may have been our best day for breeze looking at the weeks forecast. Tomorrow is looking light and ,meant to be dropping throughout the day so we’ll hope it stays in long enough for our group to finish our last three round robin races. We’ll be racing two of the French teams, Bossard and Le Berre and Groeneveld (NED) and will try to keep you posted but full results can be found here.

Lucy x

With a one hour wait onshore for breeze before starting the quarter finals against the German team helmed by Silke Hahlbrock team (after the gold fleet round robin was cancelled yesterday), we were all delighted to see that the sea breeze came in early so racing got underway and they were able to fit in the quarter finals, the final three silver fleet races and then the semi finals and playoffs… a huge relief for the event organisers.

After winning all three starts against the Germans we are pretty disappointed to say we then lost 3–0 and ended up in the playoffs against the Russians then Spanish, leaving us 6^th overall. It was frustrating not to sail to the best of our ability today, but we have picked out some areas to work on in the next few weeks before going into our next event, the European Championships in Austria.

Tomorrow we’ll go out to watch Tunicliffe race Hahlbrock in the finals, and Spithill race Leroy in the petite finals. We’ll also be preparing the tunes for the long drive home!

Lucy