April 5, 2012
Palma, Spain

It was a very successful day for Team Maclaren as we won all of our races, but most importantly, we won the three races needed to advance out of the quarterfinals and into the semi-finals tomorrow.

First thing today was the wrap-up of the gold fleet round robin. After going 2-1 yesterday, our two wins this morning took our record to 4-1, seeding us second going into the quarters and matched us up against the repechage winner, Team Skudina (RUS).

Our first two races against Team Skudina were close up the first beat but we were able to extend our lead on the second beat to take the wins. Our third race, however, was much tighter the whole way around.

We were a little early in the pre-start for the pin end of the line which was favored and had to tack away right before the gun. When we came back together, she had a three length lead over us. We split tacks again and were able to close up the distance on the first leg to round right behind her at the top mark. Downwind we were able to make a pass after rolling her on starboard and were just able to soak into the [mark rounding] zone to make it around the mark on the inside. Despite now being in a strong position right at the mark, we had a problem with our kite on the douse and were a little slow so she was able to sail through to leeward of us and eventually pinch us off. We tacked away and waited for a little pressure to head back towards her. We were just able to hold onto having a small piece of her and managed to force her to tack away back towards the approaching port layline. After one more intersection, we were able to force her away again, we tacked on layline and headed towards the mark with a length lead. Around the top mark, we gybed immediately whilst she continued to extended out on port. We had a gybing dual downwind back and forth with us defending to keep our breeze clear on starboard gybe. Eventually we crossed her bow and took the inside of her. We did a few more gybes towards each other as we approached the finish. Our last gybe was right on the pin layline. She gybed at us, then gybed back on our breeze. We gybed away and were able to cross the line on port with her half a length back.

The conditions were very tricky and no lead was ever safe today. It was a constant battle to try to always extend; the wind was very shifty and quite hard to read in the swell and chop. Molly and Debbie did a great job getting us around the course as fast as possible. We are very excited to race in the semi's tomorrow. We are paired up against Team Price (AUS); the other semi-final match-up is against Team Leroy (FRA) and Team Echegoyan (ESP).

You can follow the racing and results online at the regatta website (http://www.trofeoprincesasofia.org/) or on Match Racing Results Service - Trofeo Princesa Sofia (http://www.matchracingresults.com/2012/trofeo-princesa-sofia/).

We would very much like to thank our Title Sponsor, Maclaren, our Gold Level Sponsors 11th Hour Racingand Laser Performance, and our Bronze Level Sponsors Carmeuse, Trinity Yachts, Chicago Match Race Center, and Sperry Top-Sider for their continued support of our campaign for the 2012 Olympic Games. We would also like to thank St Francis Sailing Foundation, and 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.