GBR Match Race Girls

We’ve had a busy but good few weeks getting used to the RYA’s new Elliott 6m keelboats, the class chosen for Match Racing at the 2012 Olympics. After spending a week training alongside the Dutch team in their boats, we were excited to finally get our hands on the RYA’s newly commissioned boats over the course of the last week, before rolling straight into our National Championships this weekend — the first event for the new fleet.

Having had about 20 knots or more for all of our practice days, it was a bit of change only having 10–14 knots over the last two days… and a good break for all the bow girl’s raw hands!

Due to illness catching up with Ally, this weekend my sister Nicky joined Annie and I for the National Championships. Although it was a slight baptism of fire on Saturday morning, we were pleased to finish the day having won the double round robin, qualifying us through to the semis in 1st place.

This morning we continued our winning streak, defeating Charlotte Lawrence’s team in the semi finals 3–0 to go through to the finals. With the breeze building slightly throughout the day we had some close racing in the finals against Katie Archer’s team, and despite a few errors on our part, we were pleased to be crowned National Champions once again with a 3–1 win.

We now go straight into a Grade 2 International event, which runs from Monday through to Wednesday, giving some of the top teams from around the world their first chance to sail the Elliott 6m at Weymouth. This all stands us in good stead in preparation for Sail for Gold regatta next week, which in addition to being the showcase Olympic Classes regatta in the UK, is also the final event on the ISAF Sailing World Cup tour, where we’re obviously extra keen to do well on our home turf!

We’ll try and keep you posted,

Lucy