Hello,
I’m here in Brazil. Its beautiful here…the weather and the water. We are staying at the hotel right at the
regatta site. The day we arrived, we got our boats and checked them out for damage. They were pretty
beat up from the two regattas they had just sailed, but nothing that wasn’t repairable. The next day we went
out for a short practice. We sailed for about two hours just to get used to the conditions because the next
day we had a regatta…the Brazilian State Championships. We all used this regatta as a warm up for the
main event. There were seven races over the three days of racing…two the first day, three the next, and
then two yesterday. Until yesterday I had a rough time on the downwinds, but I figured it out and had some
good races yesterday. I only sailed two of the three race on Saturday because it was training and didn’t
want to overdo the training, so I had to count all of my results of the races I sailed. I finished 6th overall and
was 2nd woman. I would have easily finished better if I sailed all of the races, but no worries, I’m saving
the big results for the main show!!!!!
We are taking tomorrow off and then training hard for two days after that. I’ll write an update right before the
event starts and then updates during the event too.
Until then,
Sail hard
Anna
November 19
Hello
We Won!!!
We had light air and managed to get off four races total. We finished the round robin and one race into the
finals before the wind completely died out. We lost the first race of the day, but after that rallied back strong
and knocked out Lis Baylis in the Semi's and advanced to meet Katy Lovell in the Finals. We won the one
race we sailed against Katy and then unfortunately couldn't do any more races.
No matters. We qualified to sail the Nations Cup qualifier in the Virgin Islands in June as a chance to
represent North America in at the Nations Cup...an event where every Nation sends its best team to prove
which nation is the best at match racing.
Anyway, its off to Brazil on Tuesday. I have heard that I can get internet down there, but we'll see. If so, I'll
write updates throughout the event...if not, I'll write a detailed update when I get back.
Thanks for everyones support through this event and wish me luck at the World Championships.
Sail hard,
Anna
November 18
Hello everyone,
Unfortunately we did not have any breeze today so no racing was done. We did go out for about an hour
hopeful, but too hopeful as it turned out. Instead, after racing was cancelled for the day at 2:30 we headed
to the gym for a good workout. The forecast is looking a little better for tomorrow so hopefully we will be
able to finish the semi finals and the finals tomorrow. I'll email tomorrow how the event ended up for us.
Thanks for every ones support,
Sail hard,
Anna
November 17
Hello all,
Today was another excellent day. We got 9 races off in 10-12kts. We went 9-0 today to move to 14-0
overall. Tomorrow we will start the semi-final rounds. We will race the number 4 team...Liz Baylis...in a
best of five series (the first to three). The other teams racing off in the semi's are Betsy Allison and Katy
Lovell. The winds are forecasted to be lighter tomorrow, so we will still hopefully sail as well as we have
been doing. I will report back tomorrow on how we do in the semi's.
Sail hard,
Anna
November 16
Hello everyone,
Today we had 5 races in breeze from 13 in the morning down to 5 at the end of the day. There are two
more races in the first round robin, our hardest two races of the round. The breeze was shifty all day long,
and towards the end of the day the shifts got pretty big...including a couple of autotacks.
To sum up, we had a great day today. We are tied with one other team as undefeated, and we will race
them tomorrow morning, before rolling into the next round robin.
Hopefully we will have more good news to report tomorrow.
Sail hard,
Anna
November 15
Hello,
I know this is earlier than I said it would be, but no matter right. We have the ability to be online at the club
and at a coffee shop near by, so I thought I would try and give you all daily updates of our regatta.
Today was the practice day. We all got to Dallas/Fort Worth fairly early in a hopes to get out on the water
and practice today, but the wind was blowing 25 kts with gusts to 32 kts. Our team decided that it would be
best for us not to bother going out and risk breaking anything, plus with us missing one of our crew
members who wasn't showing up until tonight, we would struggle with only three people on board.
The racing starts tomorrow. You can follow how we are doing at the event website. There are also a
couple of pictures up on my website under the results and photos page.
I will try and give an update tomorrow on how we are doing...wish us luck!!!!
Sail hard,
Anna
November 13
Hi all,
We just finished our training camp. We started out in Clearwater, Fl where we joined in the Radial
Invitational Regatta. There were 13 boats, mostly juniors, but Lisa (one of the Canadians) and I battled for
first place in the regatta. The winds were light out of the NE swinging around to a light sea breeze from the
NW, but there were no waves. We did five races. I won the first race and Lisa won the next two. So after
the first day I was one point out of first behind Lisa. The next day we sailed two races which I won and beat
Lisa by one point overall. It was a fun regatta, but we needed to practice in wind and waves, so on Sunday
night we packed up our boats and drove over to Ft. Lauderdale on Monday morning in hopes to find more
wind and waves. We did find what we wanted. We sailed for a couple of hours on Monday. Tommy, the
Canadian coach, arrived on Tuesday and then we sailed hard through Saturday in big breeze and waves...
perfect conditions to mimic Brazil. Yesterday, (Saturday), we did a long downwind sail from Ft. Lauderdale
to Miami. The sail was about 30 miles and took just under 6 hours dock to dock. The sail was well worth
while, but it was very long and was hard to stay focused the whole time, but after it was over we knew that it
was a great idea to have done.
So my Radial sailing is done now until I leave for Brazil. I have to take some time off so that I can work on
my weight gain and mental game. I leave Tuesday for Texas to do the U.S. Women's Match Racing
Championships. I will put a link on my website so that you can follow the results. I am crewing for Sally
Barkow, with crew of Debbie Capozzi, and Lee Icyda.
I will write an update again l before I leave for Brazil and give an update on the match racing regatta.
Sail Hard,
Anna
November 2nd
Hello everyone,
Again, more great news to share...
My keel boat team and I recently sailed the 2005 Rolex Osprey Cup. This regatta is a ISAF Grade 1 Match
Racing event. Grade 1 means it is a high class regatta. Match racing is racing your boat against one other
boat at a time. This was our teams first match racing event ever, so we were along to learn as much as
possible and do as well as we could, but was not expecting anything big. My team is Ali Sharp, Janet
Thacker, and Genoa Griffin.
The event ran from Oct 26 - 30. We did a round robin where we sailed every team once. Due to lack of
winds on the first two days we could only get one round robin in. This round ended on Saturday morning
and from there the top four would move to the semi finals. If you finished 5th in the rankings, you would
race 6th and if you finished 7th you would race 8th. Anyway, going into the last two races of the round robin
on Saturday, we knew we were tied with the Czech team on record for 4th place. Luckily for us, we beat
them in our head to head match so we needed at worst to tie with them at the end of the round robin for us
to advance to the semi finals. However, we had to race the French team who is ranked #1 in the world as
one of our races. As it turned out, we lost the race to the French, but beat the other team we had to sail.
Our record at the end was 5-4. We were really disappointed because we thought the Czech team had won
both of their races that morning to finish with a 6-3 record to advance on. But, on the sail in for lunch at the
completion of the round robin, the Czech team congratulated us for making the semi's. At first we were
confused and they told us that they had lost one of their races to day too so we tied on records and we win
the tie breaker. Wow we were excited.
That afternoon the semi finals started. But just our luck...who were we match up against, but the French.
No worries though, because we knew we had good starting maneuvers and could at least put up a good
fight. On the first start against them, they drew a penalty against us in the first 10 seconds of the start. (In
match racing, you are not allowed to take a penalty until after the start, and you only have to do it
immediately if you have two penalties against you. A penalty in match racing requires doing a gybe if you
are sailing up wind and a tack if you are sailing down wind.) Anyway, we beat the French off the line and
just covered them the whole first beat of the race. We stayed ahead of them on the down wind leg and
extended a little on the second upwind. We extended enough so as we could burn our outstanding penalty
upwind and still stay ahead of them. This we did and rounded the mark still in the lead. The downwind
leg, the French caught up to us a little, but we managed to beat them across the line by half a boat length to
take the first race against them. What a race...I was so nervous and excited that we had just beaten them,
that I knew then that we could beat them if we wanted to...which we did!! Race two started and we drew a
penalty against them during the start and again beat them off the line. We won this race a little more
comfortably. So now we were up 2-0 in the first to 3 series. The next race, we had a disastrous start. We
had two penalties against us in the start so we had to burn on immediately. We were behind this whole
race, but we were catching up the French the whole time too which kept our confidence up. In the last race,
we again beat them off the line and covered them the whole way to take the series 3-1 and to advance to
the finals where we would meet the Italians. To have just beaten the team that was ranked #1 in the world
was quite an awesome feeling.
The finals were held on Sunday in a little more breeze that we had seen on Saturday. The breeze wasn't a
problem until the race 5. Again we were sailing a first to win three series. We lost the first two races
against the Italians, but came back to win the next two. Race 5 had the wind up to 20kts which was fun, but
the Italian team had better boat handling than we did, and although we had a pretty close race with them all
around, they managed to stay ahead of us across the finish line.
But we were in no way disappointed with our finish. With this being our first match racing event and us not
being ranked at all, we turned some heads and showed everyone who we are and that we mean
business.
After the Rolex Osprey Cup awards were done, I had to go to the airport to fly to San Diego for a two day
training seminar in Chula Vista at the US Olympic Training Center as a requirement for being on the U.S.
Sailing Team. Whilst we were there we met with all the staff which gave us more insight into what we are
doing right in our programs and where we need to make some changes. It was a worth while experience, I
only wished it could have been a little longer to take a full advantage of the training center. No worries
though, next time!!
Up next is full training for Worlds!!! I have a training camp starting Friday and running through the following
Sunday (10 days) in Clearwater, Fl with the Canadian team. After that I am taking four days off to sail the U.
S. Women's Match Racing Championships with Sally Barkow (2005 Women's Match Racing World
Champion). Then its off to Brazil where we will train for 7-8 days before the Regatta starts.
I am very excited with how everything is going. I'm gaining the weight I need for worlds (slowly, but gaining)
and next weeks training is going to be so much fun and hard work.
I'll write another update before worlds.
Until then,
Stay warm (if your in the north) and sail hard
Anna