Halfway Through Gold Round

December 9, 2011

Fremantle, AUS

Our original scheduled start time of 3:15pm was pushed back quite quickly today as the wind took its time to fill. Eventually, two hours later than planned, racing got underway for group B to finish their round robin and for us to start the first series in the gold round. By 5pm we were in the boats getting ready to race the second place finisher of group B which turned out to be Team Mulder from The Netherlands. We had a good series with them and managed to come out on top winning 2-1.

Team Maclaren

Photo: copyright Mark Dadswell/Getty Images AsiaPac

Our first race of the series went to them. We earned a penalty in the pre-start for not completing a tack. She had asked for room to tack at an obstruction and both boats crossed head to wind, but never completed the tack. Eventually she lost her bow and drifted into us, but because we were still a tacking boat and she was not on a tack, we earned a penalty. This ruling took us by surprise, and got us off our game a little. Off the line, she took the right side and we struggled to get around her on the left. She grew her lead and despite our efforts to catch up, we couldn't quite get there.

Race 2 went much smoother for us. We won the right side off the line and forced her to the left obstruction. From then on, we were able to pick our way around the course and grow our lead to win the race and tie the series 1-1.

The last race was a close race. She earned a penalty in the pre-start for a port-starboard incident, and we were able to pin her against the committee boat at the gun to gain a 4 length lead immediately. She did a great job of closing the gauge on the upwind leg to be about one length behind at the top mark. Downwind, we held her off and pinned her to the right of the leeward mark. She took the opportunity to spin her penalty turn, but in doing so she lost some distance and we legged out a couple of lengths on her. Again, the upwind was very tricky, but we were able to hold the lead at the top mark and despite a big push from her downwind, we maintained our position to win the series 2-1.

Team Maclaren

Channel 10 Recording Boat Preparation Before Leaving Harbor

Photo: Dana Paxton/US Sailing 2011

This win means we now race the winner of the other series, Team Leroy from France, for the 1,2 seeding spot going into the quarterfinals. At this time, we are not sure when we are racing again, but some time soon the race committee will fit in our series amongst the repecharge series; a 16-boat round robin to determine the other four quarterfinals' teams.

You can check on the regatta website for results and a live blog: Perth 2011 ISAF Sailing World Championships (http://www.perth2011.com/) (FYI: Perth/Freemantle is 13hr ahead of EST in the States or UTC+8hr)

We would very much like to thank our Title Sponsor, Maclaren, our Gold Level Sponsors 11th Hour Racing and Laser Performance, and our Bronze Level Sponsors Carmeuse, Trinity Yachts, Chicago Match Race Center and Sperry Top-Siderfor their continued support of our campaign for the 2012 Olympic Games. We would also like to thank US Sailing Team AlphaGraphics (USSTAG) and its sponsors for their continued 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 either The Sailing Foundation of New York (tax deductible) memo'd Anna Tunnicliffe, or to Anna Tunnicliffe.

Sail Hard,

Anna

Team Maclaren

And as usual, don't forget, email us your questions and comments. We love getting them and sharing our love of sailing and women's match racing.

Anna: 4D's: "Dream,Desire,Dedication,Discipline" TM

Team Maclaren: 3P's: Passion...Performance...Perfection...TM