Thursday 1st April, 2010
Uncooperative winds have meant that the GBR Match Race Girls have been putting in some very long days on the water, so there has been little time for getting online and posting updates.
Yesterday the Gold fleet round robin, comprising of the top six placed teams, was completed with the girls defeating Meldgaard (DEN) and Spithill (AUS) to finish with three wins out of five, tied alongside Barkow (USA) and Groeneveld (NED). The two winners from the Repechage round robin, Hahlbrock (GER) and Souter (AUS), join the gold fleet to form the final two quarter finalists.
This morning the quarter finals have been sailed, with the GBR Match Race Girls dispatching Spithill 3–0. The semi-finals will hopefully be completed this afternoon, before the final day of competition tomorrow.
Follow the action via the twitter feed or on the Trofeo Princesa Sofia event website.
Update — by text message this evening: “Long, shifty, frustrating day. Won quarters 3–0 but lost to Nicky Souter 1–3 in semis. Led 1st 3 matches but v light, 50 degree shifts. Petit finals tomorrow against Sally Barkow.”
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Tags: 2010, Elliott 6M, ISAF Sailing World Cup, Palma, Princess Sofia OCR
Tuesday 30th March, 2010
Sorry for the slight delay but it was a long night last night, finally getting to sit down for dinner at 10pm!
After a wait onshore for breeze, group C started the day off in a light southerly breeze and it wasn’t until after 4pm that we were out into the boats to complete our round robin. Our final four races were against Skudina (RUS), Barkow (USA), Bossard (FRA) and Le Berre (FRA) and all started with fairly unconventional starts but all wining starts for us. Drawing a penalty against Skudina’s crew pre start meant round the course we were able to keep close and low risk to take the win. Unfortunately that was also all we needed to do in our second race against Barkow after giving her a penalty pre start and leading around the top mark, however a mistake by me towards the bottom of the run equalled out the penalties and lost us the lead… an expensive mistake as we were never able to make up the distance again before the finish.
With eight boat round robins as we have in our first round, every match is crucial because the only way to guarantee qualifying through to the gold fleet is not to loose any races. The next two races against the French teams were therefore must wins for us. In both we controlled the pre start from entry to to start gun (and even hoisted our spinnaker for one!). A slight mistake against Bossard lost us the control over the first beat however a strong run where we just broke the overlap with her in time to round the leeward mark in front gave us control and the ability to extend and take the win. Settling down again we made our lives a bit easier for ourselves in the final race against Le Berre’s team making her stop dead in the water at the start gun, and gaining on every leg to take the win and second place in our group.
From here the top two from each group qualify directly to the gold fleet (a seeding round before the quarter finals). The 3rd and 4th place finishers from each group go through to a repechage, from which the top two teams will make it through to make up the last two quarter finalists.
Today’s forecast is for much more wind and currently all fleets are waiting ashore in about 25knots. The breeze is meant to drop throughout the day so hopefully the repechage group will be sent out soon for their first three flights followed by three flights for us in the gold fleet. We are certainly looking forward to racing in wind and waves!
Lucy x
Video diary update from Ally:
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Tags: 2010, Elliott 6M, ISAF Sailing World Cup, Palma, Princess Sofia OCR, Video
Sunday 28th March, 2010
Just in from our first three races of the Princess Sofia Regatta, the second ISAF Sailing World Cup Regatta for our year and I’m pleased to say we’ve had a great start! After waiting ashore for and 1h30for wind, once we started our first race against Jensen (DEN) we had around 7 knots but still a fighting breeze between the gradient and sea breeze direction. After slightly underestimating the left shift at the bottom of the course, we were a bit back into the first cross but two tacks later with the right side of the course starting to pay more, we were ahead and in control. Managing to get them to the port lay line early meant we had made further gains by the windward mark and we then continued to gain around the course to take our first win. In our next two races we won both starts and comfortably led to finish win 3 wins out of 3. Group B are now racing and we are off until tomorrow afternoon when we’ll race our other four round robin races.
Lucy
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Tags: 2010, Elliott 6M, ISAF Sailing World Cup, Palma, Princess Sofia OCR
Sunday 28th March, 2010
Day 1 has arrived but unfortunatley the wind has not yet! We are in group A meaning we’re racing first this morning, we’ll have three flights against Jensen (DEN), Dekleva (SLO) and Kutovaya (RUS). Looking forward to getting out there and going racing!
We’ll keep you posted…
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Tags: 2010, Elliott 6M, ISAF Sailing World Cup, Palma, Princess Sofia OCR
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