by Anna Tunnicliffe
Today was our last race at the 2010 Argo Group Gold Cup. We had two races yesterday and one race today to finish up our round robin. We won one race yesterday, and were winning the race today until the last downwind leg, when we were passed just at the finish line. This meant our overall score was 1-5...not very impressive I agree, but we had a good time sailing and learned some new things from sailing against these top guys.
Our races yesterday were against Ian Williams (GBR) and local sailor Blythe Walker. We had a good pre-start with Ian, but just as we approached the line, a left shift came, which allowed him to not be early on the line. We tacked off and he tacked on top of us and we couldn't catch him from there. In our race with Blythe, we controlled most of the start but made a timing mistake at the end so had to circle around and consequently, started late. However, the girls put us in great puffs and shifts and we rallied back from about 8 boat lengths behind at the start line to having an inside overlap at the top mark. We held him high at the mark until we had him slower than us, then bore away and extended our lead from there. It felt good to finally get a point on the board.
Our race today was against Dave Perry from the USA. Our first start was blown off as the wind died to nothing. Then the wind came back in and we got under way again. We did a couple of dial ups before we managed to break to the right off the line with Dave going to the left. Again, we sailed the shifts great and put a nice lead on Dave at the top mark. Downwind, he managed to gain back a bit of the lead as he brought down new pressure. We held our lead upwind and at the top mark had about four boat lengths on him. Again, he would close the gap every time he got pressure and then when it hit us we would extend away again. But eventually the wind started to drop all over the course and Dave brought the last puff down towards the line and us. We gybed onto layline and he gybed about two lengths to windward of us. We fought hard to keep our speed up, but since he had gybed in the puff and we hadn't, he carried more momentum and closed the gap between us. We both drifted towards the line and he managed to get over our bow to cross the line half a length before us. Again, we were disappointed, and it was not a great way to end the regatta, but Perry and crew positioned themselves well in the puff and sailed well to take the lead from us.
Now we are going to stay and watch the rest of the event and take notes. There has been some great racing so far and there is definitely exciting racing to come.
Today and tomorrow is the repechage, with the quarter finals following on from that group. You can checkout the results at the regatta website.
We would like to thank Carmeuse and Trinity Yachts for their continued support of our campaign for the 2012 Olympics in London. We would also like to thank US Sailing Team AlphaGraphics (USSTAG) and its sponsors for their support.
Team Tunnicliffe
Argo Group Gold Cup
World Match Racing Tour
