Liz Baylis

A short note as we are just on our way out sailing. We’ve been in Sydney this week training at the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron (RSYS) in their Elliot 6s in preparation for next week’s ISAF Women’s Match Racing World Championship in Auckland, New Zealand. You might ask why are we in Sydney, Australia if the Worlds are in Auckland, New Zealand. Well, the boats that we will be sailing in for the Worlds are only in a couple places – Sydney, Auckland, and Wellington. So, we’re here in Sydney and having some great sailing. We sailed three days out of RSYS working on boathandling. Today we start a small regatta at the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia (CYCA).

The weather here: http://www.seabreeze.com.au/graphs/nsw.asp

The regatta web site: http://www.cyca.com.au/editorial.asp?key=1440

More later!

Cheers,

Liz, Karina, Lee, and Suzy

The San Francisco Women’s Match Racing Team

The results don’t tell the whole story (thank goodness).

The main goal of our trip to New Zealand for the New Zealand Women’s Match Racing Championship was to learn as much as we could about the boats and the conditions before the World Championships in Auckland next month.  That goal was achieved with flying colors!  The practice day and regatta were plagued with very light winds and strong currents, so we spent most of the regatta learning as we were going – not the best scenario for trying to win a regatta, but a very good scenario for the purpose of our trip – a training event.  The day after the regatta we spent training with Katie Spithill and her team and coach, Traks Gordon, in some fantastic sailing conditions.  That day was worth its weight in gold as Karina and I came away with pages of notes and a very good sense of how to make the boats go.

Our whole Worlds team will be gathering in Sydney, Australia the week before the Worlds to train in the same type of boats for a week and do another practice regatta.  Our experience this past week will allow us to start off that training at a much higher level which should show dividends at the Worlds – when it really matters!

Thanks for your continued support and encouragement!

Cheers,
Liz, Karina, Lee, Suzy, Taylor and Hannah

The San Francisco Women’s Match Racing Team

It’s been a while since you heard from the San Francisco Women’s Match Racing Team, but it is not for lack of activity! We’ve been busy making plans and training for the upcoming ISAF Women’s Match Racing World Championship and the remainder of the 2008 match racing season.

We just finished a very productive week of training in Tiburon, California using the boats and wonderful facilities provided by Peter and Kristen Lane in Paradise Cay. Suzy Leech and Lee Icyda flew in from the East and Karina Shelton drove up from Watsonville for what proved to be a productive albeit light air week of sailing. We brought in Sally Barkow and Annie Lush to head up our sparring partner boat that had a rotating crew of Katie Pettibone, Kristen Lane, Genny Tulloch, Molly Carapiet, and Mark Ivey. We also had fantastic coaching from Jeff Madrigali and Mark Ivey. (Thank you again to all who participated!)

Today, Karina and I will be flying to New Zealand to race in the New Zealand Women’s Match Racing Championships with Taylor Holland and Hannah Morris. Taylor and Hannah are in the RNZYS Youth Training Squad and sail the Elliot 6s (the same boats we will sail in the Worlds) all of the time, so Karina and I are looking forward to gaining knowledge about the characteristics of these boats before the Worlds next month.

The competition for this Grade 2 is looking very competitive:

Final list of competitors (in ranking order);

1. Claire Leroy (FRA)

2. Katie Spithill (AUS)

3. Liz Baylis (USA)

4. Nicky Souter (AUS)

5. Jess Smyth (NZL)

6. Sam Boyd (NZL)

7. Lucinda Whitty (NZL)

8. Sam Osborne (NZL)

9. Jan Dawson (NZL)

10. Annemarie Waugh (NZL)

Our tentative schedule for the remainder of 2008:

March 6-10 : New Zealand Women’s Match Racing Championships - Auckland, New Zealand
March 24-28 : Practice session - Sydney, Australia
March 29-30 : Marinassess Women’s Match Racing Regatta - Sydney, Australia

April 1-6 : ISAF Women’s Match Racing World Championship - Auckland, New Zealand
May 28-31 : BoatUS Santa Maria Cup - Annapolis, MD
July 9-13 : Mayor’s Cup - Long Beach, CA
July 26-29 : Training in Copenhagen, Denmark

July 30 - Aug 4 : Lysekil Women’s Match Race - Gullmar, Sweden
Sept 10-14 : US Women’s Match Race Championship - Rochester, NY
Oct 15-19 : Rolex Osprey Cup - St. Petersburg, FL
December 5-7 : Carlos Aguilar Memorial Match Race Championship - St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands

It’s a busy schedule and like last year we will be utilizing the whole breadth of our team to field a competitive team for each regatta.

We would like to thank the Belvedere Cove Foundation (www.belvederecove.org) and those of you who have donated to BCF for your generous support of our team. We encourage you to continue the generosity! (-;

Stay tuned as we will be sending reports from the NZ Nationals this coming weekend.