Cold Sailing For Team Tunnicliffe. Image copyright Marni Lane, USSTAG, May 2010.
by Anna Tunnicliffe
It was a great day for sailing again despite the overcast skies. We ended up finishing second overall to Sally Barkow after losing 3-1 in the finals. Sally sailed a very good series and definitely deserved to win today. Placing third, after winning the petit-finals, was Genny Tulloch.
Our morning started with one more race in the semi finals against Katy Lovell. After starting the series yesterday 2-0, we wrapped up the race today after she started early. We led from there, all around the course.
After our race, we sat around waiting for the other semi-final match up to finish. Sally ended up beating Genny 3-1 in the series to advance to the finals. With the current getting stronger and the wind dying a bit, we did a warm up during their race so we would be ready for the match up when they finished.
The racing was tight between us except for the last race. In the first race, we rounded inside at the top mark, but she had position to roll right over us and led us around the bottom mark. She then got the right of the course on the next up wind and held on to the lead. In the second race, we rounded right behind her, and passed her downwind. She passed us again upwind but then we had a tight battle downwind where she got two penalties. In the third race, we led off the line, but made a mistake upwind and gave her the lead. Despite staying close for the rest of the race, we couldn't catch them. In the final race of the series, we started to the left of them and were in less pressure from the get-go. We couldn't close the lead and she went on to win the race and the series 3-1.
We learned a lot and are happy with our result. We would have liked to win, but today wasn't our day. We are looking forward to two weeks off before our next event on June 1 in Annapolis, MD, giving us time to decompress, debrief the past three regattas and regroup. We had a good series of events finishing with two second places and a first place.
Team Tunnicliffe
NYYC Women's Match Race Clinic
