Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Cold First Day In Newport, RI at NYYC Women's Match Race Regatta

May 12, 2010 - Newport, RI- It was a cold and rainy start to the first day of racing at the New York YC Women's Match Race Clinic and Regatta. Despite the weather, we had a great day on the water and finished the day 7-1. Handing us our loss for the day, and tight on our transom with results, are our USSTAG teammates, Genny Tulloch and team at 6-2.

Team Tunnicliffe (Debbie, Liz, Molly, Anna) Working The Shifts And Current
Photo: (c) Dave Johnson, USSTAG, May 2010

We completed a full round robin and the first race of the second round. We had challenging conditions, with a shifty wind that was slowly swinging left all day. On top of that, we had current flowing one way to start the day and then it switched half way through as the tide changed. However, in spite of these conditions, the team did a great job of positioning us in the best places to take advantage of the shifts. We had some great pre-starts, and some close races. We learned some good lessons, and are looking forward to racing tomorrow.

We came immediately from Calpe, Spain to Newport on Sunday and started the clinic part of this event at 8am the next morning. Our flights back from Spain to the USA were again affected by the volcano. Each of our flights were delayed from 2-4 hours. We were re-routed so that instead of flying the usual 8 hour route across the Atlantic, we had to fly north through France and England, and then further north to go around the volcano. As a result, we missed our connections when we landed in the USA and it all made for a very long day. However, we were happy that we made it as there had been a rumor going around the airport that our flight was cancelled.
We have had two days of clinic which were of great assistance in getting us used to the boats again and for practicing specific parts of a race on which we wanted to work. We had great coaches, both Dave Perry, Dave Dellenbaugh, and Henry Menin, along with Tony Rey and Colin Gordon. They all taught us a great deal, and at the same time we were learning important information about this venue; the venue of this year's Women's Match Racing World Championships.
Tomorrow, the plan is to finish the second round robin and start the semi-finals. Unfortunately there are no results posted on the regatta website.
We would like to thank our sponsors Carmeuse and Trinity Yachts for their continued support of our campaign for the 2012 Olympics in London. We would also like to thank USSTAG for their continued support.
Sail Hard,
Anna - Team Tunnicliffe