Anna Tunnicliffe - Calling Tactics for a change

by Anna Tunnicliffe on 26 May 2010
This past weekend, I took a break from skippering and hopped to the front of a boat to crew for my husband, Brad Funk, at the US Match Race Championships: Area D/F Quarter-Finals. It was Brad's first match race event and he asked me to be tactition for him. It was a great experience for me to be at the other end of the boat. He did very well, and we ended up winning the event and advancing to the Semi's which will be held in two weeks in St. Petersburg.

We were sailing on Lake Virginia in Orlando, FL. It isn't the biggest of lakes, about half a mile across and three-quarters of a mile long. To our surprise and delight, the wind was very good and mostly steady, considering it is a lake. We were sailing Gearny 18's, a boat that I had never sailed before. It is a boat that reminded me of crafts from the early 1900's, but they were all even, and therefore, made for great match racing. We sailed with Eric Rodriguez from Ft. Lauderdale, who did jib and spinnaker during the event. There were four teams competing with the top two advancing. The original schedule was to race for two days, but we decided that if we could complete in one day then we would, and despite it making for a late getting off the water on Saturday, we finished up the one round robin and the finals.

The first three races were the round robin. Brad was a bit nervous, so this was a great chance to get his nerves out of the way, and to get used to the boats and how they moved, and also to give Eric and me a chance to figure out the race course so as to be able to get Brad around it the fastest way possible. Brad did a great job in all of the starts; we led off the line and went on to win all of the races to win the round robin with a 3-0 record.

During a short lunch break ashore, the wind picked up a bit to a more consistent 6-10kts. We were matched up against Zach Kelchner, also from Ft. Lauderdale, in the finals, and had some great matches against him and his team. The first race, we led off the line and held on to the end. In the next race, Zach got the left shift first and led at the top mark. We clawed our way back and closed the six boat-length lead he had on the last leg, to lose the race by about six inches. It was a good race, and it got us excited for the next one. In the next pre-start, our watch stopped, consequently we didn't get the start we wanted. We ended up losing the race and knew that we had to win the next two in order to win the regatta. After a good chat about what we needed to do, we got our heads together again and back in the game. At the first mark, the boats came together even, and we pulled a move on him to force him to slow his boat too much. We got ahead and held onto the lead for the rest of the race. In the last race, Brad did a great job in the pre-start and we led Zach off the line by quite a bit and went on to win the race and take the series 3-2.

The overall finishing results for the event were:
> first. Brad Funk
> second. Zachery Kelchner, ODU
> third. Jerry Butz
> fourth. Marcella Butz, USF

It was a great event all around. For Brad and Eric, it was good for them to get a feel for match racing, and for me, it was good to see the game from a different perspective. The next event for Brad and Eric is the Semi's on June 11-13 in St. Petersburg in Sonars. My next event is the Santa Maria Cup in Annapolis on June 1-5.

I would like to thank our sponsors Carmeuse and Trinity Yacths for their continued support of our, Team Tunnicliffe's, campaign for the 2012 Olympics in London. We would also like to thank USSTAG for their continued support.

Sail Hard,

Anna
Team Tunnicliffe - http://www.teamtunnicliffe.com