Bayport two-time Olympian Debbie Capozzi and her Womens Match Racing team extended their win lead to 5-2 as of this morning in racing , beating Finland and France yesterday and New Zealand in their first match this morning.
The team, with a record of 4-2 yesterday, was in a three-way tie for third place with Russia and Great Britain in the round robin portion of the racing event. Australia is in the lead, not having lost one race.
Here are the highlights of yesterday's racing, according to the Daily Report provided daily by the U.S. Olympic Sailing Team
“The race against Finland was fantastic,” said Capozzi. “They got the start we wanted, and it was a grind fest up the first beat. We were able to pass them on the first downwind, hold them off to the second upwind mark. I cannot tell you how many times the lead changed on the last downwind. I think we beat them by an inch. It’s always fun to race against them. We train against them all the time.”
In a blog on the Team Maclaren website, Tunniclifee writes the following about yesterday's action:
We started the day with a very tight race against our training partners Team Finland. The race lead changed multiple times during the race. Team FIN led the first upwind leg after pinning us out to the port layline. But downwind we used the waves to help us make the pass by rolling over the top of them and rounding the bottom mark first. We held the lead up the second beat and around the top mark. The last downwind, however, got very exciting. We gybed to starboard, they crossed our line and gybed just to leeward of us. They sailed back up to our line and then started to affect our breeze as the wind shifted to the right. We gybed. They matched our gybe and slowly rolled over us. We held the overlap with them for a few seconds forcing the race to the right hand side of the course. They eventually broke the overlap and we had to head to the finishline. They gybed. We gbyed on their breeze. They gybed away and then back in quick succession to free up their wind and we took another step down to their line to hit them again. At this point we were able to affect their wind just enough to cross the line inches ahead of them.
We then sat a race out before getting back into the boats and matching up with the French. Again this was another close battle. We had a slight advantage up the first beat but they was able to draw a penalty on us at the top of the beat. We were able to set up on the second beat to burn it and stay ahead on the second downwind leg to take the win.
We are very happy with the day and are again looking for two more races tomorrow.
