Delta Lloyd Regatta - Team Maclaren ready

by Anna Tunnicliffe on 24 May 2011 Delta Lloyd Regatta welcomes the arrival of Team Maclaren in Medeblik. Anna Tunnicliffe shares her thoughts on the team's journey thus far.

We arrived in Amsterdam yesterday around 2:00pm and then drove the 45 minutes it takes to get to the venue of the fifth leg of the ISAF Sailing World Cup, the Delta Lloyd Regatta here in Medemblik.

The Team flew together after stopping in at our new Title Sponsor's, Maclaren's, headquarters in Norwalk, CT on Friday to meet the office team. It was great to meet everyone with whom we are now involved. We took the opportunity to get to know them and their products, and they had the chance to chat with us and get to know a bit more about our sport.

The flight yesterday was quite easy, trip-wise; we flew into Dublin, then across to Amsterdam. We had an Irish breakfast in Dublin to help us stay awake for the next flight. Once on the second flight, I don't think any of us made it two minutes past sitting down before we were asleep. Needless to say, we were all a bit goofy and extremely tired once we landed in Amsterdam, having slept very few hours that night.

But eventually we made it to our housing, checked in, then went to the sailing center to find our coach boat. After that, we forced ourselves to stay awake for a couple more hours before heading out for dinner. I think by 9:00pm, all of us were asleep and resting up for this morning's practice.

We were assigned the morning practice slot with our training partners, Team Finland. The wind was anywhere from 8-18kts and very shifty from the shore. It felt good to get back in the boat and get comfortable with the conditions.

We start racing tomorrow morning at 10am. There are only 19 teams at this event, so the format is different than usual, ie. only two groups instead of three. I think there will be live coverage of the racing on the regatta website.

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, and Chicago Match Race Center for 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 Team Maclaren website