Archive for June, 2009

After Close Quarters, Finished 6th Place at Kiel Week

We had a relatively rough day today.  When all was said and done at the end of the quarterfinals, four of us had tied for the fourth spot entry into the semis.  We had unfortunately lost a race in which the umpires completely missed seeing us doing a penalty turn on the upwind (after the race apologizing to us for not understanding that’s what we had done when we GYBED on the upwind leg!), and that team went on to beat us in that race (because we had to do a 2nd turn) and thus beat us in the tiebreak.  Bit of a heartbreaker for us, but we did have some other good fun races.  In the race against the top-ranked team coming into this event, Lucy Macgregor’s British team, we drew two penalties against them on the final downwind leg to beat them at the finish, and another where we had a very close defensive gybing duel to beat Aussies Nicky Souter, and a third where we just edged ahead of local German Silke Hahlbrock by about 3 feet at the finish line.
We knew from the start that the two teams who qualified in from the repechage round (for 7th and 8th place in the quarterfinal round robin), would have an advantage over the rest of us as they’ve sailed 8 more races, twice as many as those of us who qualified through from the first round.  Its was an edge we were okay to give up being assured of a spot in the quarters, but seeing as both teams from the repechage qualified for the semi-finals it seems to have been a big advantage to spend the maximum amount of time in these brand new boats.  It would have been ideal for us to make the semis, but we have accomplished many of our goals. Being a part of the first World Cup event in the Olympic boat, getting to sail the Eliott 6 meter and see how it handles and what we’ll need to work on once we get them in the US, and seeing how we stack up against 20 of our international competitors were some of the major reasons for coming here.  We finished 6th out of 20, beating many who are currently ranked higher than us, and learned a lot about the boats and about the international competition.
Ultimately we would have liked to sail more than two days, but we understand the hardships of the organizers in trying to get as many teams racing as many races as possible while still having a good event.  The competitors all sat down last night with the umpires and PRO’s from Kiel Week and Sail For Gold in Weymouth and had a discussion about some of the adjustments that could be made to the boats and the formats for better racing next time, and we are sure that the events will just get better and better as time goes on.  We are excited to get the boats into the US next month so that we can do the same and just get better and better as competitors!

Thanks to my teammates Jamie Haines and Chafee Emory, and our coach Jonas Warrer, and to those who helped make this regatta possible for us.  I’m off next week to do the Transpac Race from LA to Hawaii on Ragtime, and with our record of a first in the Tahiti Race last year and a first in our division in the Sydney Hobart, we’re looking for a trifecta!

Qualified for the Quarterfinals at Kiel!

We are at Kiel Week for the first World Cup Women’s Match Race event in the actual Olympic equipment- the modified Eliott 6 meter.  The Europeans have combined the fleets of Netherlands and Germany to give us 8 boats here, unfortunately there are 21 teams so the regatta has a lot on its hands to get us all racing as much as possible.  Initially they split us into 3 groups of seven, with the top 2 of each group qualifiying for the quarterfinals and then a repechage round for the next 15 to determine the final two spots.  Saturday saw both A and B round robins get off all of their races in pretty good conditions, but the forecast for our Group C racing on Sunday was for very little wind and major shifts.  The race committee did an excellent job of getting our racing in, with the option of three windward marks to handle the shifty venues, and were very quick to send us for a race as every rain squall/cloud brought the pressure down.  We raced through about 300 degrees throughout the day, with many races abandoned in pre-start or first leg, but they got through our 7 races and were done for the day by 5 pm.  Considering that none of the other fleets raced at all, it was actually a good sign for match racing. 
For us, the first race was a bummer as we had a course change at our leeward mark, and we thought it showed a green flag (as did our coach), so we rounded the green weather mark while our competitors rounded another mark.  When we crossed the finish line first to no flag or horn, we had lost the first race.  The next two races were better for us, racing against the Yngling Olympic teams from both Russia and Germany, we were able to use the shifty conditions to our advantage and come from behind and win the race in the second upwind leg.  The fourth race against the highest seeded competitor in our bracket we fouled in the prestart and were almost able to get back her in a starboard/port at the WW mark but just missed her, and lost the race.
The final two races were against the two Australian teams, a very close match against Katie Spithill, the top-ranked AUS team.  Very shifty, just after the start we tried to tack off of  her hip but ended up tacking through a 45 degree lift and had to come back at her very slow.  She beat us to the top mark, we both sat 5 boatlengths away from the leeward mark for 2 minutes, and ultimately we were able to round outside of her and as she tried to tack away she dealt with the same shift we had on the first leg, and we got by her and beat her to the finish.  The last race we were able to overcome a penalty in the pre-start, gybing on the layline to the WW mark in some adverse conditions with another match coming downwind luffing each other right on our line, allowing our opponent to pass us, but we passed them through a gybe on the downwind and matched gybe for gybe to cross the finish line close, but ahead.

With a 4-2 record, we qualified for the quarterfinals in the top 6, leaving the rest of the 15 teams to duke it out today while we have a day off.  Signs are good again for match racing as they’ve already gotten 6 races of the repechage done this morning, while the rest of the fleets sit ashore waiting for more solid breeze to fill.  Overall it’s been great to get a feel for the boat, see how it feels and responds in the light air, and we’re ready for a bit more breeze for the quarters tomorrow!

Second Place at the BoatUS Santa Maria Cup!

The Santa Maria Cup in Annapolis was unfortunately not shined upon by the wind gods, and we had four light air days where the breezes were fighting with each other rather than cooperating on our behalf. Sadly I had caught a pretty bad cold on the flight to Annapolis, so while many of the other teams were sunbathing in bikinis, I was still in a jacket, sneezing anytime a zephyr of 2 knots came through. I have to thank our team of Liz Hall on the bow, Jamie Haines on the jib and downwind tactics, and newcomer Elizabeth Kratzig on the main and spinnaker and upwind tactics, who kept me together both on the race course (Elizabeth thankfully has us constantly checking in with the wind direction-even as it shifted 180 degrees) and as a human being (Liz Hall has an incredibly stocked medical cabinet she travels with, and Jamie is the queen of homeopathic remedies for NZ and GB).

We knew the weather was bad when we were told Thursday night that the Santa Maria Cup had never been this far behind in races before, and then we went out and were only able to get one race the next day. We finally finished the first round robin, racing its final race on Saturday, which left us ranked second on a tie-break, as we had beaten both Katie Spithill (last year’s MR World Champion), and Liz Baylis (last year’s second place in World Champs) in the round robin races. The breeze then died again and we sat out there for about 6 hours as our Northerly gradient fought the Southerly seabreeze, neither one staying long enough to actually get a start off for our semi-finals, though the other match raced one race with three different 180 degree shifts—kites up on the downwind, then sailing upwind on the downwind leg and kites back up for the upwind leg, etc. We were happy not to have raced in that. They finally moved us straight to the finals matches at four, so we were up against Claire Leroy (currently ISAF ranked #1 Women’s Match Racer) to see who would get the win.

Unfortunately Claire got the better of us in the first start as a big left shift 15 seconds to the start saw her lead off the line and continue on to hold us off to the finish. The second race was much more fun, we hit the pin at the gun (and actually thought that both boats were over, so thought we would have possibly spun our circle right then around the pin going back). However, neither were called over so we followed Claire closely into the WW mark, and then fouled again on the downwind leg as we tried to gybe to starboard and she came up quickly underneath us as the leeward boat. Two penalties means an immediate circle, but you can’t spin inside the zone, so we followed her around the leeward mark and then spun our circle closely thereafter. We caught up slightly to only be about boatlength and a half back by the weather mark, but still had another penalty to try to get rid of.

As we neared the finish line, we sailed over Claire just as the breeze died from behind us and went filled from in front. We were quicker at getting our kite down and our jib up, and now as the leeward boat we had rights and when her spinnaker dropped onto our shroud we flagged, thinking we had just exonerated our penalty by her foul, and we crossed the finish line ahead. The start boat put our flag up to signal our finishing ahead just as the umpires green flagged the previous incident, unfortunately they hadn’t seen the contact of our shrouds and her kite, so we were left to recross the line and take our penalty turn, Claire winning the regatta and us all going in to celebrate. It was a long week, but we’re happy with our second place, and I’m now home, nursing the remains of my cold, which has now turned into a hoarse voice, so for those of you who are coming to St. Francis Yacht Club tonight to see Morning Light, you’ll have to excuse me using a microphone when I introduce it!

NYYC Women’s Match Race Clinic and Regatta

The week before we were in Newport RI, for the NYYC Women’s Match Race Clinic and Regatta. This event was run in a new style, essentially as an incredible clinic and training tool for all the competitors, with four coaches there to help us progress our match racing skills during the clinic and to continue coaching us for the regatta. We had world-class coaches Dave Perry, Dave Dellenbaugh, Tony Rey, and Henry Menin, and we focused on four different areas for the clinic—starts, upwinds, downwinds, and penalties/umpire situations.

Henry Menin then moved on to be the chief umpire for the event, and the three coaches stayed to watch our racing, take video, and help us in between races and in debriefs afterwards. Really an incredibly enlightening experience that boosted all of our match racing skills and we hope other clubs and regattas follow this same model! My teammate Chafee Emory, envisioned this event two or three years ago, and had a lot on her plate trying first just to get it run and then in the last couple of months to actually get it to run as smoothly and perfectly as it did. After all her work she did a fabulous job sailing with us as well. Thanks Chafee! Chafee was trimming the jib and the spinnaker and other team members were Jamie Haines on the main trim and tactics and Liz Hall on the bow. The regatta went reasonably well for us, we were ranked third after the two round robins, having lost only to Sally Barkow and Anna Tunnicliffe. Anna beat Sally in the final match so went on as 1st place to race 4th-placed Lotte Peterson in the semis, while we raced Sally in the 2nd vs 3rd matchup.

The first race we led her all the way around the course, until just at the finish when we both gybed for the line, and her spinnaker must have crossed ahead of ours by a quarter of an inch. We were all shocked by the color that went up on the race committee, and had to regroup that night and come back the next morning with renewed focus (and lighter air) to race Sally again. Unfortunately the next race we were penalized for a pre-start luff, where there was no contact but we were deemed to have come up too quickly, and then we were penalized again for a starboard-port incident, where we truly believed as the port boat that we had nowhere to go when Sally started hunting, we tried to avoid as best we could but the boats hit with a big bang that got everyone’s attention on the race course. Sally won the match and went on to race Anna in a very close finals, where ultimately Anna’s team came out on top.

We went on to race Lotte Peterson (ISAF World ranked #4) in the semis, and after losing in the first race we had an incredible second match that had all of the competitors and umpires discussing the outcome still when we reached the shore hours later. As we sailed to the finish line, probably only 5 boatlengths away, Lotte got 2 penalties, and perhaps should have gotten more, but was able to spin them and still beat us. The first penalty we were outside of her, she was restricted by not having luffing rights and she sailed past her proper gybing course to the finish, we flagged, and she was penalized by the umpires. That’s the only clear part of what happened.

After that, kites came down, jibs went up, we tried to tack to the finish line only to have to tack back to avoid Lotte, she was given a second penalty with a red (which means do it immediately), we thought she then fouled us again as we had to avoid her while she was spinning (which would have been her third penalty), and after she came out of it she held us past her proper course again before gybing (which may have been a fourth penalty), but then beat us to the line. Debriefing with the umpires afterwards didn’t really clarify the situation for any of us, they admitted they were still discussing the first two penalties so might have missed the last ones, and we all are hoping the situation just never arises again! We finished fourth, behind a very good field of sailors and match racers and still ahead of other very talented teams, so we were fine with our result and very happy with the level of training and advancement we’d made over the week! Thanks to all the coaches and the umps and the race officers and the NYYC staff and again to Chafee for making this incredible event happen.

Race Reports Online

With the new website up, we’ve posted the race reports from the last couple of months here in the news section. Please check them out, click on any images to see the pictures up close, and feel free to post comments about anything!

Undefeated (18-0) in the Rolex Women’s Match

Just wanted to report back about how the Rolex Women’s Match in St. Pete went last week. If you’ve seen the scores, you’ll know the event went really well for us, we finished 18-0 after two round robins, beating the other two teams on the US Sailing Team, as well as a 3-time winner of the event. It was a great feeling to be undefeated after 18 races, but more importantly it also went really well for our team personally. I had sailed individually with bow Liz Hall and with Jamie Haines, the main-trimmer, but had not yet sailed with Chafee Emory, the trimmer, so we grew together as a team both in boat-handling and especially in communication as the week went on.

It was a very shifty and puffy venue, so we really had to keep our head out of the boat and pay attention to the conditions as well as our opponent, and at the same time be able to shift gears and keep the boat going fast. A lot of stuff going on, and we got better and better at handling it all and relaying to each other the most important information that would get us around the course fastest and ahead of our competition. In general we had really good pre-starts, setting ourselves up for a good start and first weather beat, but we did have one race where we were over at the start and had some work to do to make up the distance. We were able to sail smart upwind and quickly downwind and close the gap to overtake on the final run. We had another race where we drew a penalty right at the start on Debbie Capozzi, she then beat us to the weather mark somewhat as a result of her foul, we overtook her on the run, then she fouled us again at the leeward mark! It was so close to the leeward mark that we had a hard time getting our kite down, so she was able to spin her 2nd penalty to clear it and just duck our stern. We kept ahead of her though and finished the race ahead, while she still had to spin, but it was a pretty entertaining race for all watching!

The Rolex Women’s Match was essentially a great practice for us as a team, and we will be sailing together again in the NYYC Event next month, which should be a much harder event as Sally Barkow, Anna Tunnicliffe, Liz Baylis, and Lotte Pedersen (DEN-winner of the Miami OCRs) will all be there. We go from there straight to the Santa Maria Cup, a Grade 1 in Annapolis with a lot of great international competition including Katie Spithill, last year’s Women’s Match Racing World Champion, and Claire Leroy, currently the ISAF ranked #1 women’s match racer. The event results for us were excellent, but we’re keeping everything in perspective, we have a lot of great competition coming up and still have a long way to go.

Qualified for the top Women’s Match Race Spot on the USSTAG!

We just wrapped up the Rolex Miami Olympic Classes Regatta, the first Women’s Match Racing Olympic event of this quadrennium and the qualifier for the US Sailing Team Alphagraphics. After competing in a grueling (and hot) 22 races in the first two round robins, we were the only US team to qualify for the semi-finals, thus securing our position as the top women’s match racing spot on the US Sailing Team! After finishing the first round robin third, we had a day of wearing the ISAF red pennies, and ended up qualifying for the semi-finals in fourth place. Thus we had nothing to lose on Friday, as we could only advance positions or stay in fourth place. We raced the top-seeded Italians, skippered by two-time Olympian Julia Conti, in the semi-finals, and although holding her out at the Race Commitee boat in two of three races she was a little bit faster than us around the course and was able to get by us (barely) by the finish line. The third race against her was marred by continual kelp on our rudder, as the current line was crossing through our race course and big kelp islands got in our way. Interesting conversation then ensued with the umpires about whether kelp can be considered an obstruction (the answer to which was never perfectly answered). We then raced the British, skippered by Lucy Macgregor who’s ranked fifth in the world, in the Petit finals, and again beat them off the line but had narrow losses at the finish. We actually had a much better day on the water than on the scorecard, winning every pre-start but one, and having some very close racing (two finishes were within three feet!), but unfortunately still finished fourth for the day. The Italian team and the Danish went on to a jaw-dropping finals, where the were 2-2 going into the final race, which was held with no spinnakers as the breeze had built to 22+ knots, and they crossed the finish line within 2 inches of each other!

All in all it was a great two weeks of sailing, racing, and learning for us. We got to learn from master match racer and rules advisor Dave Perry, both in a clinic beforehand and with his coaching throughout the event, and his knowledge about both match racing scenarios and racing rules is something we greatly benefitted from and hopefully will get to continue to do so throughout the quad. We started to get used to three-person match racing and the roles that we each play, and we spent time learning how to make the Laser SB3 go fast, as well as figuring out how match race tactics work downwind with asymmetric spinnakers. I’d like to say we can just put the asymmetric notes aside and start focusing on symmetric sailing again, but it seems that many of the World Cup events could use the Laser SB3 until they’re able to get ahold of the Olympic equipment–Eliot 6s–sometime at the end of this year.

Ultimately, we’re happy to come out of it with the top US ranking spot on the US Sailing Team Alphagraphics, and along with that the ability to pick which events we’d like to have priority for in the World Cup (as there are only a limited number of match racing spots per event). It puts us in a good position in that we’ll get to sail a maximum number of events this year, which is how we want to start this quad! Now we just need to get on the podium for the next one..

Sydney Hobart Race Report

Happy New Years!!! It’s been New Years here for about 30 hours now, so I’m starting to get my senses back together enough to write about the race.

Very fun race, fast downhill most of the way but really dynamic conditions, only 2 days 10 hours for us but we still easily could have done 30 sail changes. Had a great escape from the harbor, super frenetic with all the chop from the spectator boats, but hung in there with the big guys and were happy with it. Then had a scary night the first night, just starting to build to about 25-30 knots and we’re ripping with a kite up and saw a flare go off offshore of us. The instruments on board are all red, and it was a strange feeling looking from them to the red flare and back, trying to slow the boat down as we got all hands up and started communicating on the radio. Exact words the navigator from Georgia said were “I’m standing at the nav. station, waist deep in water”. Funny how calm she sounded when she said that, reassuring us that they had the situation somewhat under control, but the words definitely made us try to get there even quicker. Telecoininabox Merit turned around as well, and when the time came to make the transfer of the crew from Georgia they went to Merit, as the Volvo 60 really has much more room downstairs that Ragtime would have. Scary to see the bowlights of Georgia above water one second, and glowing from underwater the next. Could make out the liferaft as it was transferred from Georgia to Merit then back again to pick up the second load, and then that was it, we were given the signal to keep on racing, so sails went back up and we were off. Merit had to hang out for 9 hrs for daylight so they could transfer the crew to the naval vessel that was there to pick them up, and in the end missed the weather system that sent the rest of us through Bass Strait, and they sat there for 8 hrs, took the main down so it would stop flogging. Redress gave us 2 hrs for the time that we spent not racing, gave them 18 for a combination of rescue time and weather change.

Never really saw the gnarly stuff that I was expecting of the race, max breeze we had was probably 40 kts, but we had a good time ripping downwind with our 6A and 3A on the second day and night. Caught back up to our fleet pretty well as we went through the Bass Strait and were doing well on corrected, even without our redress time. One wave over the bow as we were reefing sent our pitman into the winches, and hurt his hamstring badly enough that he was relegated to the bunk below for the rest of the race. Well stocked med kit took care of him, and he was able to start getting up to pee on day 2 rather than continuing to ruin our water bottles…

Gorgeous cliffs in the morning as we got to Tasmania, we were still trucking along downwind, just about to round Tasman Island when we saw a squall ahead of us with a boat sailing through it with their storm trysail up. The Kiwi onboard who’s most familiar with the race figured we were going to see 50 kts, so we dropped the kite quickly and got ready for it. Funny cuz we were actually coming up on the backside of the squall, and we were hurting bareheaded as the breeze dropped to 16 and then 12. But it 180′d and went on the nose, and then tacked us, so we put up our #3 and were all right in the end. Turns out Brindabella (80 ft maxi) had blown out their mainsail in the night, hence the storm trysail. We caught up to them, but they got their delivery main sorted out and put it up and took off away from us again. (Actually they’d had another sail issue at the start–they’d tried to put up a blue kite-like spinnaker, and the whole team was wearing shirts that said “The Bro Will Go”. Needless to say, in the bar in Hobart they’d crossed out “Will” for “Don’t”…)

We had a bit of a rough time going upwind through the Derwent river at the end, especially as our #4 kept ripping out of the headfoil, and then would trail back from the boat like a kite on the end of a halyard. We’d have to sail downwind to catch up to it again and bring it back in. 2 steps forward one step back…

Arrival in Hobart was great, the finish is right on the town wall and we get to park the boats at the city marina. The race organizers met us with a case of Boags, we had a great 4 am burger, the drinks ran freely all night, and the bar just down from the dock also happens to be our hotel. Means we don’t have to stumble that far, but you also can’t ever make it through to your room without getting stuck there for ages. The last 3 days have been really humorous–you can see the boats finishing from the deck of the bar, and then guess how long it will take for that team to showup. You can pretty much gaze the size of the boat someone sailed on by how drunk they are and what they’re wearing. The guys who are showered have been here awhile, the guys in their sailing gear may have been here for awhile depending on how far along they are… There’s a cool “Taste of Tasmania” festival across the street with lots of food choices and wine/beer tastings, and the marina’s only a block away, so pretty much all the bases are covered.

The last boat got in yesterday, so everyone was at the dock for New Years. We have a great spot on the outermost dock, so had a completely unobstructed view to the motorboat setting off the fireworks right in front of us. Then a night of boat-hopping, really cool to watch 15 little kids playing hide and seek inside Wild Oats, and see the inflatable soccer ball Skandia had below for impromptu games in the bow. Brindabella has a microwave for their popcorn, and Ragamuffin (the old Morning Light) still has some writing on the ceiling by certain individuals…

We got to go to the Governor of Tasmania’s house for a reception last night, then the trophies were today at the club. We won our division and were commended for our help with Georgia, so it was a pretty cool end to a great trip. Everyone loves Ragtime, the old wooden beauty who was outlawed from the race 40 years ago and has finally made it to Hobart. Our crew shirts say “Ragtime, USA 6970, Honolulu, HI, Sydney Hobart 2008″ on the the left chest in our colors, and on the right chest, in white ghost writing, is “Infidel, A 56, Auckland, NZ, Sydney-Hobart 1967″. Pretty fitting we had 4 Americans and 6 Kiwis on board, and was a very special race for all of us.