Checking In With The Race Committee And The Jury. Image copyright Fried Elliott/www.friedbits.com June 2010.
by Anna Tunnicliffe
Today was a tough day for Team Tunnicliffe. We had some great starts to the races, but made mistakes on the course that cost us the lead at the top marks. We ended the day 0-3 in the gold fleet round robin, but we came away with some valuable lessons learned.
The day started with a postponement for every fleet since there was no breeze. By 11:30am, the sea breeze was beginning to fill, and the match racers were sent out to race. The repecharge were the first fleet to race, and looked like they had decent breeze to race in. By the time they were done with their racing, the breeze was on a downward trend and other fleets were beginning to venture out to practice since their racing had been cancelled for the day. This extra boat traffic made for some choppy waters and difficult conditions.
Our first race was against Australia's Katie Spithill. We won the start by winning the pin end, but tacked a little too soon on her hip and then were forced to tack away. By the time we came back together again, she was ahead by four boat lengths. On the second upwind leg, we caught up to within two boat lengths of her, but did two too many tacks at the top of the beat and lost what we had gained back.
Our second race, against our USSTAG teammates, Genny Tulloch and team, was set up very well. We won the pin again and were leading by about two lengths coming into the top mark. Unfortunately for us, just as we were approaching the mark, some huge waves came through and slowed us so much that we couldn't make it around the mark without her getting to us on starboard. After finally getting back up to speed, we rounded the mark about two lengths behind, but were able to pass and just get inside room at the mark. Despite having inside at the mark, she had more speed than us and rolled around the outside of us to take over the lead again. From there she sailed very well and controlled us to take the win.
Overall, it was a disappointing day for us, but we learned that in these types of conditions we need to switch to a more fleet race mode than a match race mode which was what we were focusing on too much. The forecast for tomorrow is for slightly better conditions, but still fairly light air. We are hoping to get to practice what we learned from today in our final two races of the gold fleet round tomorrow. From there we will move into the quarter finals.
Team Tunnicliffe
Kieler Woche
