Liz Baylis

The San Francisco Women’s Match Racing Team has achieved our goal for 2007 with a little room to spare! At the beginning of the year when we were ranked 27th in the World, we set our sights on reaching the top 12 on the ISAF World Match Racing Ranking List, so that we would receive an automatic invitation to the 2008 ISAF Women’s Match Racing World Championship in Auckland, New Zealand. The ranking list came out today and we have moved into the tenth spot! Today’s list is the one that counts – It will be used to issue the invitations to the 2008 Worlds, so we’re going to New Zealand in April! Yahoo!!!

We’re very excited and are making our training plans to prepare for the Worlds!

ISAF Match Racing Ranking - Women (Top 20) - Wednesday 24 October 2007

Pos Name Country Points

1 LEROY Claire FRA 11058

2 MELDGAARD PEDERSEN Lotte DEN 10801

3 SPITHILL Katie AUS 10127

4 PHILIPPE Christelle FRA 9103

5 BARKOW Sally USA 8927

6 HAHLBROCK Silke GER 8426

7 AXHEDE Jenny SWE 8381

8 ZUIDERBAAN Klaartje NED 8282

9 RAHM Linda SWE 8009

10 BAYLIS Elizabeth USA 7704

11 GIBSON Josephine GBR 7652

12 FARRELL Gemma GBR 7212

13 LEHTINEN Silja FIN 7188

14 GURIOLI Sabrina ITA 7026

15 ULRIKKEHOLM Camilla DEN 6841

16 LOVELL Katy USA 6636

17 HAYES Sandra USA 6620

18 CASAS Delphine FRA 6518

19 SOUTER Nicole AUS 6342

20 SMYTH Jessica NZL 5475

(Please click here to see the complete ranking list.)

Thanks for your continued support and encouragement! We could not have achieved our goals without you!

And last, but certainly not least, we would like to thank the Belvedere Cove Foundation (www.belvederecove.org) for their generous support of our team.

You will be hearing more from us soon as we finalize our plans (and our budget) for 2008!

Cheers,
The San Francisco Women’s Match Racing Team
(Liz, Lee, Karina, Suzy, Melinda, Pease, Ruth, Shala, Denise, Sue, Karyn, Aimee, Chafee, and Cory)

Sunday saw another day of breeze in St. Pete (the first time any of us remember four full days of racing here with breeze throughout). The four remaining teams headed out for the petit-finals (SFWMRT vs. Sally Barkow) and the finals (Katie Spithill vs. Giulia Conti). The format was “first to win three points” (or best of five) for both groups.

We split our first two matches with Sally, then had two more close matches that went Sally’s way, so Sally Barkow won the petit-finals 3-1. Katie Spithill dominated the finals, leading around every mark and winning the finals 3-0 over Giulia Conti.

The final results of the 2007 Rolex Osprey Cup:
1 Katie Spithill (AUS)
2 Giulia Conti (ITA)
3 Sally Barkow (USA)
4 Liz Baylis (USA)
5 Katy Lovell (USA)
6 Anna Tunnicliffe (USA)
7 Sabrina Gurioli (ITA)
8 Caroline Bejar (BRA)
9 Rachel Silverstein (USA)
10 Sandy Hayes (USA)

The depth in the fleet was remarkable (six teams ranked in the top 20 in the World Rankings, three teams will be going to the 2008 Olympics, and two former Match Racing World Champions) and the level of match racing was fantastic. Our team felt that even though we did not improve on last year’s placement, we sailed much better and took big strides in improving our match racing and team work. With the practicing we are planning over the winter, we feel we will be in a great position for next year’s racing program.

There should be some photos posted on the Rolex Osprey Cup homepage soon:
http://www.rolexwomensmatch.org/

The new ISAF World Match Racing Ranking List will be posted on Wednesday, October 24^th, so stay tuned for more news later this week!

We are looking forward to making our plans for the 2008 season including the 2008 World Championship in Auckland, New Zealand and we will be looking to you for your support. As you know we cannot do this without your support and the support from the Belvedere Cove Foundation (www.belvederecove.org) and we really appreciate your help!

Thanks again to all of our supporters, friends, and family.

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

This morning we finished up the three remaining races in the second round robin with a fun race with Katie Spithill that ended with an overlapped finish that we were at the wrong end of, so then we returned the favor to Anna Tunnicliffe where we did about the same thing to her that Katie had done to us (so, yes, you can teach an old dog). And in the other race this morning we beat Sally Barkow off the line and hung on for the win.

Then we came in for lunch and the RC sorted out the results and sent us out for the semi-finals. Katie Spithill won the round robin and was set up to sail against Sally Barkow who finished fourth, which left us to sail against Giulia Conti who finished the round robins in third. Katie took care of Sally in three matches (not all easy – a photo finish in one match and a red flag protest in another). We won the first two matches against Giulia, then things unraveled and we lost three to Giulia. So, tomorrow, Katie will be sailing Giulia for the championship and we will be sailing Sally for third. Not exactly what we had in mind, but we have made some strides this week and look forward to our events for next year and especially the Worlds in Auckland.

So, send us some good vibes for tomorrow and we’ll go out and sail our best!

Another beautiful day in St. Petersburg. The race committee ran eight races (with a break for lunch ashore) in 4 to 12 knots of breeze. We finished the last two races of the first round robin and got through the first six matches of the second round robin. We lost one of our remaining RR1 matches in a tight one with Sally Barkow (multiple lead changes and an overlapped finish) and lost one other match in the afternoon to Katy Lovell. So, for the day we went 6-2. With the results of the day by everyone else, we are assured of a spot in the semi-finals, so goal number one – making the next round - was achieved and new our goal is to improve our placement in the next round with the three remaining races.

We’re not sure of all of the scores, but we remember these from the debrief:
Katie Spithill (AUS) 12 wins
Sally Barkow (USA) 11 wins
SFWMRT 11 wins
Giulia Conti (ITA) 10 wins

The plan for tomorrow is to finish the second round robin and then roll into the consolation rounds and the semi-finals. The forecast for the morning isn’t so great, but should be okay in the afternoon.

A rare thing happened today in St. Petersburg – there was wind and we had no postponements! The race committee got off seven flights today in a fairly steady 5-10 knots of breeze. We started on a pretty good roll before lunch with 4 wins (some of them quite close nail-biters) against Sandy Hayes (USA), Rachael Silverstein (USA), Sabrina Gurioli (ITA), and Katy Lovell (USA). Then after lunch we beat Giulia Conti (ITA) and had a very exciting match with 3 penalties (two against us) with Caroline Bejar (BRA) which we ultimately lost and then a not-so-exciting match with Katie Spithill (AUS) that we lost. So, at the end of the day we are sitting at 5 wins and 2 losses (tied with Caroline Bejar, Katie Spithill, and Sally Barkow (USA)). We have two more matches against Sally Barkow and Anna Tunnicliffe (USA) to finish the round robin, then we will probably roll into the second round robin.

If you want to take a look at the venue and the event site:

St. Petersburg Yacht Club homepage:

http://www.spyc.org/Club/Scripts/Home/home.asp

Rolex Osprey Cup homepage:

http://www.rolexwomensmatch.org/

St. Pete weather:

http://tinyurl.com/34s4hq

In addition to the daily emails, we will be updating the San Francisco Women’s Match Racing homepage (http://lizbaylis.com/home/sfwmrt/) and the San Francisco Women’s Match Racing blog (http://lizbaylis.com/category/sfwmrt/) with those same updates as well as, hopefully, some other notes and photos.

Okay, time for bed!

Thanks again to all of our supporters, friends, and family.

Cheers,

Liz, Lee, Karina, and Suzy

The San Francisco Women’s Match Racing Team

The San Francisco Women’s Match Racing Team is getting ready to finish off our 2007 campaign with the Grade 1 Rolex Osprey Cup in St. Petersburg, Florida.

We started off our season in St. Pete with a victory at the Rolex Women’s Match and are returning there this week with the same team that was so successful in April – Liz driving, Lee Icyda doing tactics, Karina Shelton trimming and Suzy Leech doing bow.

The competition is going to be tough, but we feel we are up for the task! The field includes: #3 in the World – Katie Spithill and her Team Acuity from Australia (runner-up at this year’s world championship); #4 in the World – Sally Barkow and her Team Seven from the US (two-time world champion); Anna Tunnicliffe (USA) – fresh from winning the Laser Radial berth for the 2008 Olympics; Guilia Conti (ITA) – Italian 470 representative for the 2008 Olympics. For a complete preview of the event, please see the press release at http://www.rolexwomensmatch.org/

In addition to the daily emails, we will be updating the San Francisco Women’s Match Racing homepage (http://lizbaylis.com/home/sfwmrt/) and the San Francisco Women’s Match Racing blog (http://lizbaylis.com/category/sfwmrt/) with those same updates as well as, hopefully, some other notes and photos.

If you want to take a look at the venue and the event site:

St. Petersburg Yacht Club homepage:

http://www.spyc.org/Club/Scripts/Home/home.asp

Rolex Osprey Cup homepage:

http://www.rolexwomensmatch.org/ROC/2007/OSPREYHOME.html

St. Pete weather:

http://tinyurl.com/34s4hq

We will again be hosted by our friends, Ethan and Trudy Bixby. Ethan owns the North Sails Gulf Coast Loft in St. Pete.

Also – In case you haven’t already seen it – we recommend going out and buying the October issue of Sailing Magazine (the big one) and checking out the article “Addicted to Adrenaline” by Betsy Crowfoot on pages 51-54. (It’s an article about the 2007 Long Beach Mayor’s Cup and WIMRA (the Women’s International Match Racing Association)). A great read! Here’s a preview of the first page of the article to whet your appetite:

matchrace_1007-page1.pdf

Thanks again to all of our practice partners, supporters, friends, and family.

Cheers,

Liz, Lee, Karina, and Suzy

The San Francisco Women’s Match Racing Team

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