Overall we are delighted to have finished in 2nd last week in the ISAF Nations Cup Grand Final. Really pleased to have had such a tight final against the French team of Claire Leroy, although disappointed to have made exactly the same mistake in both of the last two races allowing them to pass downwind!

Porto Alegre made a great job of the event, racing was run very well and everything on shore ran smoothly. Thanks again to Jenkins Marine for their support, and to Chris for all her help finding our accommodation!

The first race of the finals was held yesterday evening in 20+ kts of breeze, the girls got off to a good start 1–0 up against world #1 Claire Leroy.

Unfortunately the wind gods were not on side today, again bringing very light and flukey conditions. From what we understand, Claire took the first race today to level up 1–1. Lucy was leading in the following two races, but despite best efforts they were unable to keep the highly experience French team at bay. Final result 3–1 to Claire.

So Claire Leroy takes the Nations Cup title for the second time, having won the previous event in 2006. However our girls have achieved another very credible result and are continuing to get ever closer to knocking Leroy off the top spot :)

More from Lucy and Co in the next couple of days, but in the meantime check out this video of the action in the early stages of the event…

At the end of racing today Lucy is 1 — 0 up against Claire Leroy in the first-to-three points final.

Full report to follow soon…

Our first race and win was against the Brazilians where after holding them out at the committee boat at start time, we were able to cover them for the length of the course and remain ahead. Next up against us were the Portuguese team helmed by Rita Goncalves. Although we started ahead, racing was close and after the windward mark they were right on our tail. Leading the gybe on to starboard we were able to luff and win a penalty against them and also keep the overlap, holding them out beyond layline so we could comfortably lead into the leeward mark. By covering upwind we able to extend our lead to gain another win with just one race to go against the Australians. Starting just to windward of them we were able to hold them out to layline for the windward mark and then extend slightly to the leeward mark. With the breeze dying off on our final upwind we knew it could still end up close and sure enough it turned into a bit of a drifter! Although under a bit of extra pressure at the end we secured the final win which puts us through to the semi-finals tomorrow.

In the middle of writing this we just had the draw for boats and teams so tomorrow we will be racing in the morning and against the Italian team helmed by Gulia Conti in the first to 3 points round leaving USA to race FRA.

All in all a much better day, nothing stolen and through to the semi finals!

Another morning slot for us today though so after begging and borrowing kit from others we headed out to the race course to complete the round robin. With clear sky, the breeze was lighter today but also the shiftiest I’ve sailed in for a while! Once ahead it was fairly easy to remain in control as you could make the best use of the shifts and pressure. This was good news for us in our first race against the Brazilian team however not such good news in our next two against Portugal and France. After looking in great shape with about 30 seconds until the start to go we weren’t quick enough to completely punish them and therefore lost control of them at start time. We tried everything in the book to pass, but frustratingly were not able to so unfortunately lost these two.

Finishing fourth after the round robin means tomorrow we will now sail the repechage (places 4th-7th) to fight for the final spot to join Italy, USA and France in the semi finals.

So not one of our best days but hopefully tomorrow will be better!

First race saw us up against the Australian team helmed by Nicky Souter. After controlling a tight pre-start, racing remained close but we extended on the final downwind to start our event off with a win. With such shifty conditions races were close all day but we sailed well to win against the Danish, Italians and Argentineans but unfortunately lost by less than half a meter to the American team helmed by Anna Tunnicliffe.

It looks like conditions will be similar tomorrow when we’ll be completing the round robin stage racing against Brazil, Portugal and the French, we still have to wait and see whether we’ll be on in the morning or afternoon.

We’ve had a couple of days in Brazil now getting used to the heat (about 30˚ in the middle of the day), but we definitely still have a bit of a language barrier with our lack of Portugese! This morning we had our practice slot in the J24s we’ll be using for the event and funnily enough they aren’t much different from the ones we’ve been training in back at home in Poole. Conditions seem like they’ll be quite light with flat water and potentially huge shifts so I’m sure racing will be tight and tricky.

So, registration and weighing-in done, practice time used, opening ceremony completed, now time to start racing, we’ll let you know how it goes!

Lucy x