by Anna Tunnicliffe
We won the 2011 Chicago Match Race Center Winter Invitational in Miami, with a 14-2 record through the two round robins. The event was co-hosted by CMRC and Sail Sheboygan. We had some great races today against our opponents. Rounding out the top three were Silja Lehtinen and team from Finland with a 12-4 record for second, and Taylor Canfield and team in thrid with a 11-5 record.
Today's racing started just a little later than yesterday, but only by half an hour at most. We started racing in a dying north westerly, that quickly filled from the north east and made for great racing. Around mid-morning, people began coming out in their boats to spectate and enjoy the beautiful weather that we had today. The bay got very choppy very quickly. This made the conditions very challenging, particularly when trying to keep up boat speed. But the race committee did a fantastic job, given the shifting winds and tough waters, in getting in the racing. Racing was concluded after the second round robin was completed due to time constraints. As a result the final gold round robin was not sailed and the results were taken from the combined first and second round robins.
Once again we had some awesome races today. Our closest, most exciting race was against Silja and team. We started at opposite ends of the line and came together multiple times up the beat (according to the tweets, it seemed like every 10 secs), but we managed to round ahead at the top mark by one length. Downwind, Silja gybed onto our wind, collapsed our kite and managed to roll over the top of us, taking the inside at the bottom mark. Up the second leg, we kept it close and by the top mark managed to round just inside of her. On the last downwind leg, we gybed early, she rolled over us but we were able to fill our kite quickly this time and maintain our speed to match hers. We didn't have luffing rights so we were required to sail our proper course to the finish line. When we got to the finish line layline we gybed and rolled back over the top of her and took the lead to cross the line by a quarter of a length. Phew!
You can check the results at the regatta website.
Tomorrow we continue training with Team Finland through Wednesday before we take a break for a couple weeks.
We would like to thank Carmeuse and Trinity Yachts for their continued support of our women's match racing campaign for the 2012 Olympics in London. We would also like to thank US Sailing Team AlphaGraphics (USSTAG) and its sponsors for their support. Also, thank you to our private donors. Please remember that any and all donations/contributions to our campaign should be made payable directly to The Sailing Foundation of New York (tax deductible) memo'd Anna Tunnicliffe, or to Anna Tunnicliffe.
Results
1 ANNA TUNNICLIFFE TEAM TUNNICLIFFE FLORIDA ,US 7 - 1 7 - 1
2 SILJA LEHTINEN TEAM FINLAND HELSINKI ,FI 7 - 1 5 - 3
3 TAYLOR CANFIELD CANFIELD RACING ST. THOMAS ,VI 6 - 2 5 - 3 4 GENNY TULLOCH GETSAILING SAN FRANCISCO ,US 4 - 3 5 - 3
5 SALLY BARKOW WISCONSIN ,US 3 - 5 6 - 2
6 STEVE HUNT TEAM HUNT SAN DIEGO ,US 4 - 4 4 - 4
7 ANDREW CAMPBELL CAMPBELLSAILING SAN DIEGO ,US 3 - 5 3 - 5
8 DON WILSON CONVEXITY CHICAGO ,US 1 - 7 2 - 6
9 LEO VASILIEV NEW YORK ,US 0 - 8 0 - 8
Team Tunnicliffe
Chicago Match Race Center
