Rolex International Women's Keelboat Championshipd racing

by KPMS on 10 Oct 2009
In a cruel twist of circumstances for the 35 teams competing in US Sailing's Rolex International Women's Keelboat Championship, today's weather was a complete 180 from Wednesday's severe storms and 40-plus knot wind. With less than five knots of wind on Lake Ontario, and even less-stable conditions forecast for the rest of the day, the Rochester Yacht Club race committee cautiously sent the fleet out to the race course.

But, after spending time reviewing the situation and not much hope for consistently suitable breeze, the RC made the call to end the waiting at 12:00.

'There wasn't much to do out there other than waiting for something to happen,' said Dominique Provoyeur (Cape Town, South Africa), currently in third place overall, about the wait on the water. 'It didn't look like there would be much breeze. We were looking at the clouds moving in different directions, so there was wind high and wind low, which means the breeze was fighting. We just tried to stay focused and relaxed; it's a pity nothing happened, but we are looking forward to tomorrow.'

Like Provoyeur, approximately half of the teams competing here are from out of town, with one team who flew in from Hawaii, and seven teams traveling from outside the country. The Dutch team, lead by skipper Marieke Poulie (Maarssen, N.A.), had a stressful situation this morning with crew member Petronella de Jong suffering from vertigo this morning and almost had to make a last-minute crew substitution. 'She (Petronella) needs a lot of balance to be on the bow,' said Poulie. 'We would have swapped her position in the jibing, but in the end we decided we didn't need to. When we left the dock we were hopeful to get in some racing, and we knew the forecast was light. We are disappointed we didn't get any sailing in, since we flew here from Europe.' Poulie and her team are in tenth overall.

Three races were completed yesterday with US Sailing Team AlphaGraphics member and US Olympic Gold Medalist Anna Tunnicliffe (Plantation, Fla.) currently in the overall lead, followed by Jennifer Provan's Sunrise team from Toronto, Ontario, Canada in second.

Racing will continue tomorrow for the series final day, followed by the Rolex Gala and Awards Ceremony where the winning team will be awarded the Bengt Julin Trophy and a Rolex timepiece will be awarded to the winning skipper.

Full results are online.

For more information, visit the event website www.riwkc.com
www.ussailing.org.

Rolex Watch U.S.A. is the title sponsor with national sponsorship from Atlantis, Dry Creek Vineyard, Kattack and PredictWind. Other sponsors to date include: Shumway Marine, Home Care of Rochester, Triliant Jewelers, Monroe County Sports Commission, Lake Beverage, West Marine and North Sails. The Rolex IWKC is a US SAILING Championship and hosted by the Rochester Yacht Club.