Liz Baylis

The note tonight is going to be brief!

The team had a good day today. After a two hour postponement on shore waiting for the wind to come up, we went out and sailed in a nice 5-10 knot southerly for about eight hours. We sailed SEVEN flights (out of 9) of round robin one. It was a good day for us, we won all of our matches and ended the day with seven wins and no losses. Sally Barkow and her team also had seven wins today. We face each other in the first match of the day tomorrow which should be fun.

For more details, check out the event web site: www.santamariacup.org

Okay, that’s it for now, it’s nearly 9 o’clock and we are just getting ready for dinner then off to bed!

Thanks for your support!

Cheers,
The San Francisco Women’s Match Racing Team
Liz, Karina, Suzy, and Lee

The plan for today was to practice. The weather cooperated and we had breeze in the morning, a little scare at midday when it faded away, then a pleasant surprise when it came back in the afternoon.

This morning we were fortunate enough to borrow a boat from our friend, Greg Fisher, North Sails Chesapeake. (Thanks you, Greg, you’re a star!) We worked on our boat handling for a few hours which was great. Then after a nice break for lunch, we headed back out for the “official” practice time from 2 ‘til 5. We worked a little more on our boat handling then did a few practice starts with Katy Lovell and then Katie Spithill.

We just learned that the organizers are adding a new feature to the web site this year: Live commentary and race updates from the course! The link should be on the results page of the website:
http://www.santamariacup.org/results.asp
(Check it out and I’ll pass along any feedback you have.)

Ok, if you looked at the 2^nd weather link we gave you yesterday, you may have noticed that the link was for the “Nowcast”. In case you want to look at the “Forecast”, here’s the link:
http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/ofs/cbofs/wind_forecast.shtml

As in the past years, we are staying with our friends the Borlands – Jeff and Sharon and their great yellow lab, Sadie! Jeff has us all “geeked up” with WiFi and four laptops running whenever we’re home. And Sadie keeps us all amused and makes Liz take her jogging every morning (after the Peet’s coffee, of course).

Okay, that’s it for now. The first briefing is at 0800 tomorrow, so an early night tonight.

Cheers,
The San Francisco Women’s Match Racing Team
Liz, Karina, Suzy, and Lee

The San Francisco Women’s Match Racing Team is in Annapolis gearing up for the 2007 BoatUS Santa Maria Cup. This is the second Grade 1 event for the team this year ad we’re excited to get back on the water. The team for this event is Liz Baylis, driver; Lee Icyda, tactician/main trimmer; Karina Shelton, jib and spinnaker trimmer; and Suzy Leech, bow – the same team we had when we won the Rolex Women’s Match in February.

The other competitors are Claire Leroy (FRA) – Ranked number 1 on the ISAF Ranking List; Katie Spithill (AUS); Christelle Philippe (FRA); Nicky Souter (AUS); Sally Barkow (USA); Katy Pilley-Lovell (USA); Lorenza Mariani (ITA); Liz Hjorth (USA); and Jo Ann Fisher (USA). If you have been following our team for a while you will recognize some of these name and also know that this is a pretty good group of competitors!

(For crew details and skipper profiles you can click: http://www.santamariacup.org/competitors.asp)

Today we were organized to spar with our friend (and teammate last year), Jo Ann Fisher, and her team from Annapolis. But, as happens sometimes in Annapolis, we spent all day waiting on shore for the wind to fill in enough to sail. Despite our patience, the wind never came and we never went sailing!

Tomorrow is another day! We plan to go out in the morning for some practice on our own before we join the other boats for the “official” practice session in the afternoon. Hopefully, we’ll have a little bit of breeze.

The website for the event:
http://www.santamariacup.org/

The weather:
http://tinyurl.com/2sf9zq

Or:
http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/ofs/cbofs/wind_nowcast.shtml
(A hint: Annapolis forms a triangle to the east of Baltimore and Washington)

Until tomorrow!

Cheers,
The San Francisco Women’s Match Racing Team
Liz, Karina, Suzy, and Lee

Our friends at Latitude 38 magazine are showing the SFWMRT a little love:

ISAF released the new World Match Racing Rankings today and the San Francisco Women’s Match Racing Team has taken great strides in achieving one of our main goals – reaching the top 12 before the end of the year to receive an automatic invitation to the 2008 World Championships. In the new ranking list we have moved up from 27^th to 20^th overall and from 4^th American team to top American team!

You can check out the ISAF article:
http://www.sailing.org/default.asp?ID=j6qFnA~B8&format=popup

And the full ranking list:
http://tinyurl.com/2gwp89

We’re excited about the prospect of moving further up the list when we compete in our next Grade 1 event, the BoatUS Santa Maria Cup, in three weeks in Annapolis.

Thank you for all of your continued support and encouragement!

Cheers,
Liz, Lee, Karina, Melinda, and Suzy
The 2007 San Francisco Women’s Match Racing Team

If you haven’t done so already, I would encourage you to visit their web site LIVESTRONG and do what you can to support them and the work they do.

You will be seeing the SFWMRT wearing theirs in upcoming events as we have made a donation and purchased more for our team members.