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

Our first start was very close, with both teams coming to the line early, we thought we’d made a good start and gained the dominant right hand side, but unfortunately we were judged to be over and had to restart, trailing by some margin for the rest of the match. The second and third matches were very close, but we didn’t manage to nail the starts and although always threatening we couldn’t pass to take a race win.

While we’re disappointed with the defeat in the finals today, overall we’re very pleased to come away with a medal here on home waters in the biggest test yet at the 2012 venue.

We’re delighted to also have been confirmed entry to the official Olympic Test Event which will be held in Weymouth & Portland in August, where only the top 12 nations will be permitted to send a single team, as it will be in the Olympics next year. So we now two more months of training to turn that Silver into a Gold! :)

Many thanks for all the support we’ve received this week, both from our sponsors, supporters, and friends and family cheering us on.

First up was our quarter final matches against Mandy Mulder (NED). We won the first, then they levelled the score. We won the third, then they equalised again, making it 2–2 and a winner takes all in the 5th. The deciding match was close, but after a good start we maintained the dominant position and a small lead throughout to go through 3–2.

Our semi-final was against Sally Barkow (USA). Sally won the pre-start in the first match, and went on to win. There was drama in second match at the leward mark as Barkow was given two penalties, the second of which has to be taken immediately. This allowed us to sail to an easy win and bring the score level at 1–1. In the third match we picked up a penalty in the last few seconds of the pre-start, but maintained control and extended our lead such that we could take the penalty at the 2nd windward mark. This put us neck-and-neck with Barkow on the final run, and a close battle ensued. Several gybes and a bit of a luffing match saw Barkow given first one and then a second penalty meaning again that they have to stop to take one immediately, letting us cruise in to the finish and a 2–1 lead. In the fourth match we had a good pre-start managing to inflict a penalty on Barkow and lead away in a controlling position off the line. The race was again extremely close, though they didn’t manage to take their penalty and we won the semis 3–1.

Tomorrow sees us race for gold in the Finals against Anna Tunnicliffe (USA), Barkow will face Claire Leroy (FRA) in the petit final to decide bronze.

Time for some rest now, then bring on tomorrow!

Check out the video summary of the day below, including interview starting at about 2:20

We’re also looking forward to having our support boat out tomorrow!

Lucy

Check out the video and interview with Lucy below!

The day started with three rounds of the Repechage before we were sent out for the Gold Group. A course re-shuffle saw the match race fleet move inside the harbour to allow the 49ers to take the most sheltered water in Newton’s Cove. Conditions inside are actually worse than in the shelter of the North wall, making the down wind legs particularly challenging with the ever-present danger of a nose dive!

In our first race, a confident start over Nicky Souter (AUS) saw us win the favoured starboard end of the line and defend the starboard side up the first beat. A slight error at the first windward mark saw us pick up a penalty as we were judged to have tacked too close, but we rounded ahead. An exciting run with speeds regularly hitting 10 knots saw us extend, and we had a good second beat. At the second windward mark we had enough lead to round, sail outside two boat lengths and then tack, offloading our penalty and coming back at the mark in an attacking position on starboard as Souter rounded on port. The final run was neck and neck all the way, with a photo finish at the line. After some deliberation on board the committee boat the blue flag was flown, signalling the win was awarded to Souter.

The second race of the day for us was against Le Berre (FRA) in which we dominated the pre-start, inflicting two penalties on our opponents. This means that they had to take one penalty turn immediately after starting, leaving us to sail away and extend our lead to a comfortable win of over 150m. The conditions continued to deteriorate throughout the race with the average wind speed moving into the high 20s, and a nasty chop building. Boat speeds down wind were hitting 12 knots with some interesting submarine-ing moments! Exhilarating racing but hard work physically and a good test of the boat handling and concentration!

Some of the other boats suffered minor damage and with the wind increasing racing was then postponed for the day.

Tomorrow sees a slightly revised schedule with the repechage again at an earlier first start of 0930, then we’ll be out mid-morning for the completion of the gold fleet. The forecast is for a more manageable 15 knots so hopefully they can catch up on the schedule.

Follow the results and twitter feed at http://www.matchracegirls.com/sail-for-gold/2011/

Today we completed the stage 1 round robin, sailing the remaining three matches in Group C. In the first, against Hahlbrock (GER) we had a good start and controlled up the beat, but unfortunately picked up a penalty on the first run. We continued to lead around the course but didn’t manage to extend enough of a lead to take the penalty so took our first loss. Race 2 saw a win over Meldgaard (DEN).

Race 3 started with a furious pre-start against Tunnicliffe (USA), from which we emerged neck-and-neck. A close race but we didn’t manage to pass, so finished on 5–2. This puts us 2nd in Group C behind Tunnicliffe, but with the all important guaranteed entry to the quarter finals which is always the aim!

We’re trying to keep tabs on the results this week at
http://www.matchracegirls.com/sail-for-gold/2011/
this page automatically loads updates so you don’t have to keep refreshing!

Tomorrow the Match Racing will be using the GPS trackers so you should also be able to watch our progress around the course — scroll down to see the match racing flights.

Off for some much needed rest, it was a full-on day today and tomorrow promises more of the same! We’ll be out to do three gold group matches, probably starting around 1pm.

Breeze looks like its starting to die out again but fingers crossed we’ll get at least three of our races today. Follow the racing at the Skandia Sail for Gold Regatta website.

Lucy

Team Volvo for life Match Race Girls — Lloyd Images

It has been great to have been able to spend the last month down in Weymouth, training hard and getting in some good hours on the water ahead of the Skandia Sail for Gold Regatta. Last week in particular we had some pretty strong breezes but it was all from a fairly similar direction so there has not been much chopping and changing in the conditions. No doubt we will get something completely different when the regatta is going on!

We don’t mind that though, we haven’t really got favourite conditions as a team and although we have spent a lot of time training at Weymouth and Portland it is still not enough. We have still got loads to learn about certain conditions in the venue and the different courses, which is why every single time you go out on the water you take something new from it.

The Match Race Girls training in Palma — Credit Lloyd images

Skandia Sail for Gold is an important regatta for us but we are always looking at the long-term goal of London 2012 so not all our training has been geared to the next week.

We go into Sail for Gold full of confidence though. It was really nice to win gold in Hyeres [French Olympic sailing week - forth leg of the ISAF World Cup Sailing series] . With Kate only joining us towards the back end of last year and then our campaign taking a bit of a hit when Annie was injured in Miami [Rolex Miami OCR- second leg or the ISAF World Sailing series]  in January, we haven’t actually had that long together as a team. There were a few particular areas we had worked on in the build-up to Hyeres and it was a really good feeling when they came together. It showed the hard work we have been doing was paying off and we were on the right track. It was probably the most together and strong that we have felt as a team, both in the boat and around each other.

The Match Race Girls training in Palma — Credit Lloyd images

It has been getting really busy in Weymouth and you can tell that the other teams are beginning to take it much more seriously as the Olympic venue this year but the venue is geared up to take large numbers of people and seems to be handling everything fine. We are still trying to get as much from the venue as possible but so are all the other teams and I’m sure by the time the Olympics start there won’t be a huge amount of difference in the amount of time we have all spent preparing on the Olympic race courses.

We’ve enjoyed a couple of days off this week, just to give our minds and bodies a bit of a rest before the regatta starts. When you are in the middle of a hard period of training seeing friends etc can be difficult so it was nice to catch up with a few people and just spend some time pottering around the house and enjoy being at home.

This weekend there are a couple of practice slots that we will be taking advantage of just to get out on the water for a couple of hours but we haven’t got too much to do and hopefully it will be a pretty laid back couple of days before we start racing on Monday.

Lucy

This week we have had a good 3 days training in Weymouth with some up-and-coming Kiwi guys who are in Europe for the Match race tour this summer. They have had a lot of experience in the Elliotts so they were able to whip us into shape a bit in the 15knots we had most of the week.

Tomorrow we are loading two of our boats to go and be used for the Delta Lloyd Regatta in Holland, however we will not be competing there because we have chosen to focus on Weymouth and the Skandia Sail for Gold Regatta which takes place at the being of June.

After tomorrow we have a few days off to play with our new Volvo, thanks to Team Volvo for Life, then we’re back to Weymouth to play with our pair of brand new boats! (suggestions for names anyone?!)

Stay tuned…

Kate x