Liz Baylis

We’re in Annapolis getting ready for the  Grade 1 BoatUS Santa Maria Cup (SMC). This is our 11th straight year competing  in this event which we won in 2003.  We’re hoping to get back atop the  podium this year which could be a tough task with some of the top teams in the  world competing:  World #1 Claire Leroy (FRA), 2006 SMC winner Katie  Spithill (AUS), and top US competitors - Genny Tulloch, Katy Lovell and Jo Ann  Fisher.  Our team for the event is Liz-driving, Carol Cronin-tactics,  Karina Shelton-trim, and Kim Couranz-bow.

This week in addition to  being the San Francisco Women’s Match Racing Team, we are representing the US  Sailing Center – Sheboygan. For those who are geographically challenged you  may wonder where Sheboygan is and how it is connected with San Francisco.   Sheboygan is in Wisconsin and is on Lake Michigan.  The USSCS is  the 4th US Sailing Center in the US and is dedicated to match  racing.

Today we borrowed our friend, Greg Fisher’s (North Sails –  Annapolis) boat and went out for a couple of practice sessions.  It was  light, hot, and humid, but we got some good light air boat handling practice  in.  Tomorrow we have the official practice time in the afternoon  followed by a “A la Mode Pro-Am fleet race” where the SMC fleet races with  some local teams. A la Mode is the name of lingerie shop owned by our hosts,  Sharon and Jeff Borland.  It was a pretty amusing couple of races last  year and we expect it will be the same this year!

Teams  Competing:

Leroy, Claire (FRA) (Elodie Bertrand, Claire Pruvot,  Marie Riou)
Baylis, Liz (USA) (Carol Cronin, Karina Shelton, Kim  Couranz)
Spithill, Katie (AUS) (Stacey Jackson, Jessica Eastwell,  Rayshele Martin)
Bossard, Julie (FRA) (Sophie d’Ortoli, Pauline Chalaux,  Morgane Gautier)
Lovell, Katy (USA) (Maegan Ruhlman, Lindsay Bartel, Amy  Gross-Kehoe)
Mariani, Lorenza (ITA) (Chiara Forcignano, Carmen Pardo,  Marcella Trioschi)
Fisher, JoAnn (USA) (Casey Williams, Debbie Probst,  Lynda Hiller)
Tulloch, Genny (USA)  (Liz Hall, Jamie Haines,  Elizabeth Kratzig)
Ramires, Maria (POR) (Flavia Contino, Ana Rocha,  Madalena Barbosa)
Senfft, Juliana (BRA) (Gabriela Sa, Marina Jardim,  Adhara Ginaid)

The daily results for the BoatU.S. Santa Maria Cup  can be found at: http://www.santamariacup.org/results.asp  and the daily images of the days race can be found at: http://drop.io/eycsantamariacup2009

The  weather forecasts:
http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/ofs/cbofs/wind_forecast.shtml
(To  find Annapolis: The latitude of Annapolis is 38.978N – between Washington and  Baltimore, but over to the right a little.)
Or
NOAA weather: http://tinyurl.com/4jugja

Thanks  for your encouragement!

Cheers,
Liz, Carol, Karina, and Kim
The  San Francisco Women’s Match Racing Team

The final day of the regatta brought new weather conditions – a light northeasterly and a little rain.  We finished our consolation semi-finals by beating Katy Lovell’s team 2-1 to advance to meet Deb Capozzi’s team in the sail-off for 5th.  We won the first match despite getting a penalty by forcing Deb into a penalty at the windward mark then sailing on to finish ahead.  The second and third matches didn’t go quite as well and we lost the series 1-2, thus finishing the regatta in 6th.

We came into this regatta with the mindset that the regatta was a continuation of the clinic and our primary goal was to continue to learn and take lessons away.  We definitely accomplished that goal and felt that we are still learning and we look forward to using some of the new techniques that we have learned against some teams that weren’t taught the same moves nor the defense against those moves!

The chief umpire said even though this was a grade three event on paper he felt that the match racing from top to bottom in this regatta was some of the highest level he had seen on the women’s circuit, even higher than many grade one events and comparable to the world championship level.

From the NYYC Press Release:

Anna Tunnicliffe Wins NYYC Women’s Match Racing Regatta

The final day of the New York Yacht Club Women’s Match Racing Clinic & Regatta brought lighter and shiftier northeasterly winds and a variety of current conditions that challenged the sailors in the semi-finals and finals. Anna Tunnicliffe and Sally Barkow started the morning by closing out their semi-final series with their third straight wins over Lotte Pedersen and Genny Tulloch, respectively, to move into a much-awaited finals match-up. Barkow started strongly in the best-of-five finals with two convincing wins, controlling the side of the course with less current in both races. Tunnicliffe rallied back with a decisive win in the third race. In the fourth race, Barkow pushed Tunnicliffe over the line early and opened up a commanding lead. However, on the first run, she ran out of breeze, and Tunnicliffe brought up a new breeze line to close the gap and just get an inside overlap at the leeward mark and stole a comeback win. In the final race, the two were side by side around the first lap before Barkow was penalized for jibing too close at the end of the run. She was able to take her penalty and round right behind Tunnicliffe but wasn’t able to pass, and Tunnicliffe went on to win the finals by a 3-2 score.

Final Results:
1 - Anna Tunnicliffe (Molly Carapiet, Molly Vandemoer, Liz Bower)
2 - Sally Barkow
3 - Lotte Meldegaard Pedersen
4 - Genny Tulloch
5 - Debbie Capozzi
6 - Liz Baylis
7 - Katy Lovell
8 - Marie Klok Crump

More from Annapolis in a couple of days!

Cheers,
Liz, Carol, Jo Ann, and Kim
The San Francisco Women’s Match Racing Team

Sorry for the late update, but we did not get home until 11 and we crashed immediately.  Another Chamber of Commerce day in Newport with southwesterly 10-16 knot winds and sun. We had a better day of sailing and are looking forward more sailing today.  We’re sailing against Lovell in the consolation semis then one more round after that.

Here is the press release from NYYC:

Newport, RI (May 22, 2009) - Another spectacular sailing day greeted the sailors at the New York Yacht Club Women’s Match Racing Clinic & Regatta with a second straight day of steady southwesterly breeze. A complete second round-robin was completed, as well as the first two races in the best of five semi-finals and consolation semi-finals. Anna Tunnicliffe, with her crew of Liz Bower and the two Mollys (Carapiet and Vandemoer), finished on top after the second round-robin, winning a tie-breaker for the top seed over Sally Barkow, with her crew Nancy Haberland, Dawn Riley and Suzy Leech. Both finished with impressive 13-1 records. Genny Tulloch, with Liz Hall, Jamie Haines and Chafee Emory finished third at 10-4, while Lotte Meldegaard Pedersen, with Sille Christensen, Christina Refn and Mia Nielsen rounded out the top four with a 7-7 record.

In the semi-finals, Tunnicliffe leads Pedersen 2-0, while Barkow leads Tulloch also by 2-0. In the consolation semi-finals, 5th seed Debbie Capozzi and 8th seed Marie Crump are tied 1-1. 6th seed Liz Baylis leads 7th seed Katy Lovell 2-0.

Racing concludes on Saturday with the remaining semi-final racing, followed by the finals and petit-finals. The top U.S. team will qualify to sail in the ISAF World Cup event in Weymouth, UK in September.

Results after Round Robin 1 and 2
Round Robins W-L
Anna Tunnicliffe 13-1
Sally Barkow 13-1
Genny Tulloch 10-4
Lotte Pedersen 7-7
Debbie Capozzi 4-10
Liz Baylis 4-10
Katy Lovell 3-11
Marie Crump 2-12

Semi-Finals (first to 3 pts.)
SF1 1 vs. 4 Tunnicliffe leads Pedersen 2-0
SF2 2 vs. 3 Barkow leads Tulloch 2-0

Consolation Semi-Finals (first to 3 pts.)
SF3 5 vs. 8 Capozzi and Crump are tied 1-1
SF4 6 vs. 7 Baylis leads Lovell 2-0

More later!

Cheers,
Liz, Carol, Jo Ann, and Kim
The San Francisco Women’s Match Racing Team

Today we had “a classic Newport day” as the locals called it.  Clear skies and a nice southeasterly sea breeze all day starting around 12 knots and building to a peak around 18 to 20 and staying in the 12 to 18 range all afternoon.

We sailed the whole first round robin – 7 flights of four matches per flight – so all of the competitors sailed each other once. We had some ups and downs with only 2 wins and 5 losses, but we feel better than you might expect from the scorecard.  We came into this week with the plan to treat both the clinic and the regatta as training and learning experiences and it has definitely been that.  The learning curve is definitely still on the increase which is great!  It’s fun to keep finding new trick and actually having the opportunity to put them to work on the race course.

Results from Round Robin One:
Barkow 7-0
Tunnicliffe 6-1
Tulloch 5-2
Meldegaard Pedersen 3-4
Capozzi 3-4
Lovell 2-0
SFWMRT 2-0
Klock-Crump 0-7

Tomorrow we will sail the second round robin and keep working with the great coaches.

Now it’s time for some rest!

We‘ll update by email throughout the regatta and hopefully post the updates on http://lizbaylis.com.

Cheers,
Liz, Carol, Jo Ann, and Kim (and Karina next week)
San Francisco Women’s Match Racing Team

The San Francisco Women’s Match Racing Team (SFWMRT) is getting ready to kick off their 2009 Match Racing Season next week with two back to back events.

Next week, we will travel to Newport, Rhode Island for the New York Yacht Club Advanced Clinic and Regatta.  This event will be a high level training event and Grade 3 clinic with some of the best coaches and match racing rules gurus in the country: Dave Perry, Dave Dellenbaugh, Tony Rey, and Henry Menin.  The participants/competitors will also be top notch with some of the country’s best match racing skippers and teams showing up: Sally Barkow, Deb Capozzi, Anna Tunnicliffe-Funk, Genny Tulloch, Katy Lovell, and us.  We will be joined by two top Danish teams: Lotte Meldgaard Pedersen and Marie Klok-Crump.

From there we will travel to Annapolis, Maryland, for the Grade 1 BoatUS Santa Maria Cup (SMC). This is our 11th straight year competing in this event which we won in 2003.  We’re hoping to get back atop the podium this year which could be a tough task with some of the top teams in the world competing:  World #1 Claire Leroy (FRA), 2006 SMC winner Katie Spithill (AUS), and top US competitors - Genny Tulloch, Katy Lovell and Jo Ann Fisher.
Our team for the first event is Liz-driving, Carol Cronin-tactics, Kim Couranz-trimming, and Jo Ann Fisher-bow.  For Santa Maria Cup, Karina Shelton will join us and Jo Ann will step down as she will be skippering her own team and sailing against us.

Look for more updates in the coming days!  Until then - Fair winds!

Happy New Year!
Well, a little late for a New Year’s greeting, but the San Francisco Women’s Match Racing Team has already been busy and have more busy plans for 2009!

The SFWMRT will be doing fewer events this year, but that does not mean we will be less involved with the development of women’s match racing and progress towards the women’s match racing event in the 2012 Olympics.  Liz has been appointed to a 4-year term as the US representative to the Match Racing Committee for the International Sailing Federation (ISAF) and as part of that appointment has been appointed to the Match Race Ranking Sub-Committee and as Chair of the Nations Cup Working Party. These are all pretty big deals in the political realm of our sport and will mean that Liz will have a fair amount of influence in the direction match racing takes over the next few years.  Pretty exciting stuff.  She will also maintain her role as Executive Director of the Women’s International Match Racing Association (WIMRA) and in fact is flying off tonight to run a clinic in El Salvador for women sailors from El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala.  And, in the next month, will be conducting clinics in Mexico, New Orleans, and Texas.  Over the summer we will be involved with more clinics and also helping develop more match racing training and events in the US and abroad.

What does all this mean for the SFWMRT’s own racing program?  For 2009, we’ve decided to scale back a little and begin laying the groundwork for our run towards 2012.   We are planning on doing four events this year:  BoatUS Santa Maria Cup (Annapolis, MD) in May, Mayor’s Cup (Long Beach, CA) in July, Busan Cup (South Korea) in October, and Carlos Aguilar (St. Thomas, USVI) in December.  These events work well in our calendar and are events we enjoy while hopefully still helping maintain our ranking points on the World Ranking.  You’ll also see some of the team members popping up at different events to continue to hone our skills even if we are not there as a full team. For example, last month some SFWMRT team members (Katie Pettibone, Carol Cronin, JoAnn Fisher, Liz Baylis, Molly Carapiet, Jamie Haines, Dana Riley, Alice Manard) took part in the Rolex Miami Olympic Classes Regatta and the match racing clinics surrounding it.

It’s an exciting time for women’s match racing and we hope you will be part of the development and continue to support our team!

As always, you can follow what we’re up to on www.LizBaylis.com as well as follow the development of women’s match racing at www.wimra.org.  If you would like to help, both the Belvedere Cove Foundation (www.belvederecove.org) and WIMRA (www.wimra.org) are 501(c)3 Non-Profit Organizations and can always use your financial support!  Liz would be more than happy to assist you if you have any questions about contributing! (-;

We’ll keep updating you with team news as it becomes news!

Cheers,
Liz Baylis and the San Francisco Women’s Match Racing Team

We’re on the plane headed back to the mainland, leaving the blue water and white beaches behind (and planning the return trip!).

Today we finished up the regatta with the semi-finals and finals for both the Open and Women’s Divisions.  The pairings were:

Open: Taylor Canfield vs. Chris Haycroft and William Bailey vs. Alex Anderson.
Women: Genny Tulloch vs. Lee Icyda and Anna Tunnicliffe vs. SFWMRT

In the Open division, Canfield won his semi 2-0, Bailey won his 2-1.  And Canfield went on to win the Finals 3-1.

Women’s Division semis:  We won our semi with two wins against  Anna Tunnicliffe, but of course, it wasn’t as simple as that!  We had two great matches with lead changes and good match racing and excitement.  The course area was very close to the bulkhead in downtown Charlotte Amalie where they had set up a viewing pavilion complete with announcer.  At times the spectators probably could have touched boats tacking off the wall.  They really enjoyed our close races. (And where else can you race where you have to say “I have to tack now because the seaplane is landing”?) It was some fun sailing and not just because we won both matches.  Genny Tulloch won two against Lee Icyda, so we met Genny and team in the finals.

The finals were not quite as much fun for us as we found ourselves behind with no passing opportunities. It was lighter and the “helicopter puffs” didn’t seem to be spinning our way. We lost the final 3-0 which was a bit of a down way to finish the regatta.  Genny and her crew (Sally Barkow, Jen Glass, and Liz Hall) sailed a really good regatta – congratulations to them!

We had a great time and felt we sailed pretty well, but not quite well enough!  So, we have some more work to do, so we can come down here next year and stand atop the podium.

The event was fantastic – the organization, the venue, the hospitality, the weather were all incredible!  A big thank you to our hosts – Lawrence, Lisa, and Maia Aqui who put us up in their lovely home. It was great to feel at home in a new place.

The event was hosted by the St. Thomas Yacht Club and their web site is http://www.styc.net/index.php  There may be some photos posted there.

Thanks again to all of you for supporting our match racing, it’s been a great year and we could not have done it without your support!

Cheers,
Liz, Pease, Cory, and Jo Ann
The San Francisco Women’s Match Racing Team

In case anyone didn’t catch it yesterday - the Virgin Islands are AWESOME!!!

We started right off this morning with the women’s second round robin.  And it appears the San Francisco Women’s Match Racing Team likes sailing in the morning!  We started off with two wins against Icyda and Tunnicliffe.  Followed that with an unfortunate loss to Hayes. But came right back with wins against Bienvenu and Tulloch.  The wins didn’t come without a bit of excitement!  Many of the matches had lots of lead changes and good close match racing.  (And one of the matches involved a little collision which was unfortunate, but our competitor was found at fault.)  So, it was a better day for us and we will be moving on to the semi-finals tomorrow.  The winner of the round robins, Genny Tulloch, will get to choose her competitor in the morning.

Scores after the round robins:
Tulloch: 8-2 (*won tie break)
Tunnicliffe: 8-2
SFWMRT: 6-4
Icyda: 4-6 (*won tie break)
Hayes: 4-6
Bienvenu: 0-10 (-1 point for damage)

Tomorrow the open and women’s semi-finals and finals will be sailed together – skipper’s briefing at 0745 and first start at 0900.  Racing will be done by 1300.

The event is being hosted by the St. Thomas Yacht Club and their web site is http://www.styc.net/index.php  Hopefully, there will be information posted there during the week.

The weather link: http://www.wunderground.com/US/VI/Saint_Thomas.html

Again a reminder that we will be posting these (and future) reports on Liz’s web site as well: http://lizbaylis.com/

Thanks for the support!  Keep the good cheer rolling our way!

Hopefully we’ll have more good news after racing tomorrow!

Cheers,
Liz, Pease, Cory, and Jo Ann
The San Francisco Women’s Match Racing Team

In case anyone was wondering, the Virgin Islands are AWESOME!!!

Yesterday we had what was meant to be a quiet 2 hour practice session in the morning followed by a relaxing afternoon exploring some of the finer beaches on St. Thomas. Well… Best laid plans… We left the dock at 10 and sailed down to the course area off “downtown” and set a leeward mark then sailed toward the seawall on starboard and tacked on to port and “BANG” the port chainplate blows out and we tack immediately onto starboard but not before the mast had buckled just above the boom.  It didn’t come down, but it was broken.  We sailed a few feet over to the seawall and tied up and called the yacht club.  Rough start of the regatta. They gave us another boat and off we went for the next session – which was pleasantly uneventful.

Today, the men’s event (which is running parallel with ours with eight teams) had their first round robin in the morning.  We sat on the seawall and watched.  It was great – the racing comes right up to the seawall downtown and is great for spectating. The boys were done at about one and it was the girls’ turn.  With six teams (Anna Tunnicliffe, Genny Tulloch, SFWMRT, Sandy Hayes,Louise Bienvenu, and Lee Icyda)  our round robin would take 5 flights.  It was really shifty and puffy and the runs turned into beats and immediately back into runs with sea planes landing in the pre-start area.  Does this paint a good picture?

A highlight of our day was our starts – we won all of them and lead at 90% of the first windward marks.  That’s where some of difficulties began!  We had a little trouble with the “get ahead and stay ahead” philosophy today. We had a couple of boathandling issues and a couple of unfortunate shifts, but overall we felt that we sailed better than our scorecard of 2-3 shows for the day.

Tomorrow is another round robin in the morning – skipper’s briefing at 0745 and first start at 0900.  A new start to the day!

Scores after the first round robin (from memory):
Tunnicliffe: 5-0
Tulloch: 4-1
Icyda: 2-3
SFWMRT: 2-3
Hayes: 2-3
Bienvenu: 0-5

The event is being hosted by the St. Thomas Yacht Club and their web site is http://www.styc.net/index.php  Hopefully, there will be information posted there during the week.

The weather link: http://www.wunderground.com/US/VI/Saint_Thomas.html

Again a reminder that we will be posting these (and future) reports on Liz’s web site as well: http://lizbaylis.com/

Thanks for the support!  Keep the good cheer rolling our way!

More news tomorrow!

Cheers,
Liz, Pease, Cory, and Jo Ann
The San Francisco Women’s Match Racing Team

Hi,

The San Francisco Women’s Match Racing Team (SFWMRT) heads to St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, for the inaugural Carlos Aguilar Memorial Match Race Regatta tomorrow.  This will be the last event in our 2008 season so we are looking to have some fun and end the year on a high note with a win!  The team for this event brings together a mix of great sailors who have been a part of the SFWMRT over the years: Liz will take her normal position in the back of the boat; Pease Glaser calling tactics and trimming the main; Cory Sertl trimming the jib and spinnaker; and Jo Ann Fisher running around on the bow.

We will be sailing a boat that is somewhat unique to the Virgin Islands: An IC 24 – this is a J/24 hull and rig that has had the deck removed and replaced with a more “user-friendly” deck layout like the Melges 24.  We’ll try to post some photos or get some links so you can see what they are like.

The event is being hosted by the St. Thomas Yacht Club and their web site is http://www.styc.net/index.php  Hopefully, there will be information posted there during the week.

The weather link: http://www.wunderground.com/US/VI/Saint_Thomas.html

In case we again have trouble with our mailing list (hopefully the gremlins are gone), we will be posting our reports on Liz’s web site as well: http://lizbaylis.com/

More soon!

Cheers,
Liz, Pease, Cory, and Jo Ann
The San Francisco Women’s Match Racing Team