July 4th, 2011
Marstrand, Sweden

Happy 4th everyone!  Hope everyone has had an enjoyable and safe July 4th weekend.

Racing started today at the Stena Women's Match Cup. It was a great day of sailing; the wind was funnnelling down between two rocky islands making conditions puffy and shifty. Add in a bit of wind swirl as it came around the two rocky points and you have the makings of a race track that was different every race. We completed five races today finishing 4-1 for the day.

Our first race of the day was our closest race. Off the line, we got a penalty for a windward/leeward contact. We had a great start though and got a good lead up the first leg and decided that it was a good time to spin the penalty. We did and came out ahead but now the gap was much closer. Downwind Team Kjellberg got to our left and tried to double gybe to gain luffing rights so as to be able to sail us past the mark. But we did a good job responding and prevented her second gybe and rounded the leeward mark ahead. Up the second beat she worked very hard at keeping the race close, but unfortunately for them, one of their crew fell out of the boat on a tack and we were able to pull enough ahead and won the race.

There are five flights left for racing tomorrow of which we will be sailing four. You can check the results on the regatta website: http://www.matchcupsweden.com/en/

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 Tunnicliffe.

Sail Hard,

And as usual, don't forget, email us your questions and comments.  We love getting them and sharing our love of sailing and women's match racing.