Practising on Biscayne Bay. Image copyright John Payne, January 2010.
by Anna Tunnicliffe
Tomorrow sees the start of the 2010 US Sailing Rolex Miami OCR. We have had a great week of practice and are now ready to start racing in the first event of the ISAF World Cup series for the Match Racing Discipline.
Early in the week we had a USSTAG training camp, where we met up with Genny Tulloch's, and Sally Barkow's teams, and team coach, Dave Perry. After a windy training session and regatta a couple weeks ago, it was good to get in these three days of light air boat handling. There were a few international teams practicing as well, so we were able to mix up our practices with them.
Thursday and Friday, the boats were being worked on by the owners, so they would all be even for the event. This meant that we couldn't practice, but that was OK though, because it forced us to take some time off and get our chores done.
On Friday, we had a USSTAG team fitness test as a check up to see where we all are physically. Our big fitness camp is coming up in March, so we all now have a bench mark as to where we are at. After the camp, we had about an hour to get showered and dressed up for the first annual USSTAG awards banquet. It was the first time that the whole US Sailing Team AlphaGraphics had been together in the same place, and all dressed up as well! There were six award categories, and I was awarded Best Individual Performance. It was an honor to receive this award, but I made a point of thanking all my team mates for helping me along during the year. The list of thank you's is quite long and includes my Radial teammate, Paige Railey, my match racing team mates, Molly and Debbie, my other USSTAG team mates, and my coaches throughout the year. And also my sponsors, who have allowed me to do my job on the water.
These past two days, we have had two two-hour slots where we had some great breezey practices again. We practiced against the ISAF World #1 and #2 ranked sailors, Claire Leroy (FRA) and Lucy MacGregor (GBR) respectively.
Racing starts tomorrow at 10am. There are 24 teams here from 14 countries. The 24 teams are divided into three groups to start the regatta. We are in the first group and are scheduled to do three races.
Anna Tunnicliffe
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