Strong start…

Monday 25th January, 2010

A strong start for us on day one with 4 wins out of 4!

After a really good race against Mandy Mulder’s team (NED) where we gave them a penalty on the first beat, the rumours of a big storm spread and we were brought in off the water for an hour and a half before finally getting out again around 3pm for 3 more races. Our next win was against the Finnish team of Chita Wahlroos, and then we had some excitement in our third race when during the pre-start Uli Schuemann’s team (GER) got stuck on the anchor of the committee boat and then later in the race were black flagged (disqualified) to prevent further damage to their boom which was damaged in the hit. So a quiet race for us there, and then into our final race of the day against the American team helmed by Katie Lovell. During the pre start we were able to give them a penalty and then with Ally calling us up to the line we had a good start and extended from there!

Tomorrow the Race Committee will start group C first for 4 matches and then we’ll be out again from around 11.00 for the final 3 races of our round robin. With 3 teams all on 4 wins at the moment, I’m sure it’ll be an exciting day!

For full results go to http://rmocr.ussailing.org/Results.htm, or look out for updates on the RolexMiamiOCR Twitter feed.

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One day to go.

Sunday 24th January, 2010

We’re just in from our final practice session before the start of the Rolex Miami Olympic Classes Regatta tomorrow. With 24 entries in the Match Racing, the fleet have been split into 3 groups of 8 for the initial round robins, the idea being that each group will sail at least 3 flights each day. In our group we have some very good competition including two American teams, both Dutch teams and a German, Swedish and Finnish team. The forecast is looking good for the week with 15+ knots expected tomorrow, and our group should be on the water racing by early afternoon (we’re 5 hours behind UK).

We’ll let you know how it goes!

Lucy

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Happy New Year!

Sunday 3rd January, 2010

Annie, Ally and I would just like to take the opportunity to wish everyone a very happy and successful 2010 and to thank all our supporters and sponsors for their continued support.

2010 will be busy year for us starting with a weeks training in Palma and then straight off to Miami to prepare for the Rolex Miami Olympic Classes Regatta, the first event in the 2010 ISAF World Cup Series. Following Miami we’ll be back to Palma for training until the European season begins with Princess Sofia Regatta at the end of March. There are a total of 6 World Cup events which we will compete in, the series finale being in the 2012 Olympic venue at Weymouth for the Sail for Gold Regatta in August. As well as the World Cup events our other focus for the year will be the ISAF Women’s World Match Racing Championships to be held at Rhode Island, New York in September.

Having finished 2009 ranked #2 in the World and winning the ISAF World Cup Series, Annie, Ally and I had a fantastic year and intend to keep that momentum through to 2010 with aim of topping the World rankings and winning the World Cup Series again. With the support of Skandia Team GBR, The City Livery Yacht Club, Jenkins Marine, Morris Lane and Spinnaker Yachts we can’t wait to get back on the water and continue our campaign to winning Gold at the Olympics in 2012 – Just 936 days to go!

Happy sailing, Lucy x

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What’s next?

Sunday 27th September, 2009

It has been a month now since our Elliott’s had their first dip in the water down at the Weymouth and Portland Sailing Academy and since then Ally, Annie and myself haven’t stopped! A weeks hard training getting used to the boats as much as possible led in to the National Championships (and my third National title). It was then straight into the the International event where we did not lose a single race for the whole event. Next up was the Skandia Sail for Gold Regatta, the first true test of Elliott 6ms, in the Olympic Venue and with all the top Match Races and ex-Yngling sailors. Here we were delighted to go through to the finals after an epic day of quarter finals against the Australians (which went to 4 races and then a re-sail), then semi finals against the French World #1 team (which went to 5 matches). However new conditions on Saturday for the finals against the Dutch team saw us disappointed to only manage the Silver medal loosing the finals 2-1. It’s hard to feel happy with a Silver when your gunning for the gold but we realise the three events for us have been fantastic and put us in a very strong position going into our winters training.

After finish racing on Saturday, it was straight into the winters programme at 09.00 on Monday morning! Having competed in 11 International and more Domestic events since January, its time for us to focus on some training at last! Up to Christmas we’ll be based down in Weymouth working with a squad of other British teams. Our main focus for the period will be getting used to the boats in both the boat handling and speed sense, not focusing on Match Racing tactics too much for now. Included in our programme will be plenty of land based fitness training (bring on the hiking bench!) and we’ll be looking to do some fundraising to ensure we can complete a World Class training programme. We’ll hope to finish this period of training with a test in Melbourne, Australia for the first round of next years ISAF World Cup Series.

Finally a quick thank you to all our supporters over the last 8 months, watching us from rocks, on the TV, or on the internet and a huge thank you to the local buisnesses for their support including Jenkins Marine and Quay Sails.

Back to Weymouth for us on Monday morning…think of us as it gets colder!

Keep sailing!

Lucy x

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