Plymouth Qualifier

Monday 20th July, 2009

This past weekend saw the RYA National Match Racing series take a trip to Plymouth where the PPSA hosted the 6 J80′s and 12 open and women’s teams.

As well as Annie and Ally, this weekend I was joined by both of my sisters, Nicky and Kate, the same team we’ll race in for the European Championships in a few weeks. After some good training over Thursday/Friday racing began at 10.00am Saturday morning in a shifty 6knot breeze but we were off for the first few races so were able to watch from our handy mother-ship ‘Flair’. Soon enough it was our turn to race but unfortunately after a pre start and a couple of minutes racing, we were abandoned due to an incoming Navy vessel and then later a significant lack of breeze! After a long wait on the water racing was finally abandoned for the day with only three flights completed and none for us.

Sunday saw quite the opposite conditions, a breeze of 20 knots built through the day and some entertaining broaches to watch downwind! We had 5 races on in a row and were pleased to sail some tidy races to finish with a clear sheet. Unfortunately this time, as we swapped out of the boats the breeze built further and the race committee were forced to abandon racing once again. With only eight flights completed over the weekend many of us did not race each other leaving some ties with us on 5 wins/5 and in joint 1st with Mary Rook on 4 wins/4 and Katie Archer on 3 wins/3. We also retain our position at the top of the 2009 series.

Looking forwards, our next event is the World Championships in Lysekil next week. We’re all really looking forwards to the event, a preview of our team and event will follow soon….

Success at RYA qualifier 3

Tuesday 12th May, 2009

Jody Slater, Hannah Yuill and my younger sister Kate joined Ally and I this past weekend for the third RYA Women’s Match Racing Qualifier at Queen Mary, London.

Six teams attended the event and despite incredibly shifty and light breeze at times, the race committee did a great job to fit in two round robins, best of five semis and best of three finals.

With just one loss in the round robin stages we went through to the semis in first place and therefore being paired against Josie Gibson. With the breeze dying all the time it was heads out of the boat as races were never over until you’d crossed the line but we managed to secure a 3-0 win to go through to the finals. In the other semi-final it was a close battle between Mary Rook and Charlotte Lawrence’s teams. Going to four races, Rook ended up winning the series 3-1 to qualify through to the finals.

Remaining shifty for the finals, the start of each race was important to get the initial advantage and our crew did a great job at calling the shifts to ensure this. Once ahead we had great boat speed and won the finals 2-0 to win our second of two RYA qualifiers this year. This also qualifies us for a place at the ISAF Sailing World Cup event, Kiel week next month.

The final results were
1st Lucy Macgregor, Ally Martin, Jody Slater, Hannah Yuill, Kate Macgregor
2nd Mary Rook
3rd Josie Gibson
4th Charlotte Lawrence
5th Katie Archer
6th Hester Robinson