Anna Tunnicliffe on her Rolex OCR Quarter Finals Women's Match Race

by Anna Tunnicliffe / Team Tunnicliffe on 29 Jan 2010 Racing was tight today at the 2010 Rolex Miami OCR. We finished up the Gold fleet races and went 1-1. With this added to yesterday's 2-0, we finished the round in second with a 3-2 record. Then, it was on to the Quarter finals round, against Lucinda Whitty from Australia. At the end of the day, we were up 2-0 in a first-to-three-point series.

Our first Gold fleet race today was against the reigning ISAF Women's Match Racing champion, Nicky Souter. We led her off the line, but made a small mistake upwind, put ourselves behind, and were unable to catch up.

In the second and final race of the Gold fleet, we were matched up against our fellow Americans, Sally Barkow and team. It was a great race all around the race course. At the second windward mark, we got into a luffing situation that ran into the press boats. Luckily they got out of the way just in time so they didn't intefere with the race. On the downwind leg, we got into a short gybing duel.

We gybed away and managed to hold her off by about half a boat length at the finish to take the win. That win put us in second overall in the round behind GBR's, Lucy MacGregor. Because we finished second in the Gold fleet, for the Quarter finals round (now a knock-out format), we are matched up against the winner of the repecharge, Lucinda Whitty (AUS).

We had some really good races with the Aussies. The first race started with us ahead, but them passing us downwind. We had room on them at the leeward mark, but were not given it, so they were given a penalty. They spun their penalty, and we extended on them to take the win. The second race was much closer all around the course, but we held them off to the end and took the second race. The series is first-to-three-points, so we need to win one more tomorrow morning to advance to the Semi finals round.

We are learning a lot as a team and about working together, and we are having fun on top of that. This is a great event for us, being able to match up against all the top ranked sailors; the racing is close, and keeps us on our toes from start to finish.

I would like to thank Carmeuse for their continued support of our campaign for the 2012 Olympics in London, England. I would also like to thank USSTAG for their support.

www.annatunnicliffe.com
Event site: http://rmocr.ussailing.org