Liz Baylis

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!

Todd and Erik completed the 2009 Boston Marathon in 4:14:10.  AWESOME!!!

Erik ran with his camera and put together a video of the day:

http://www.vimeo.com/4253033

Today Save The Bay launched a major campaign – The Bay vs. The Bag – to dramatically reduce plastic bag litter in San Francisco Bay and California’s waterways. To showcase this effort, we created an amazing movie and a new, multi-media website.

An estimated 3.8 billion plastic bags are used in the Bay Area every year. Millions end up in the Bay, polluting our water, smothering wetlands and killing animals. That’s why Save The Bay is helping cities in the Bay Area take a stand against plastic bag pollution.

Millions of plastic bags end up in our Bay, polluting water, smothering wetlands and harming wildlife. But the multi-billion dollar plastics industry is suing to stop local efforts to reduce bag use.

We need your help. This Earth Day, choose the Bay over the Bag and join Save The Bay’s fight to eliminate plastic bags in California! Please help us stand up to the plastics industry and reduce bag pollution by doing three things:

Watch our clever and fascinating video to see what could happen if we fail to cut our dependence on bags.
Take action to reduce preventable and costly plastic bag pollution.
Help spread the word – share this campaign with your friends!
Learn more at www.saveSFbay.org/bayvsbag.

Thank you for your ongoing support to help us protect and restore San Francisco Bay – our region’s great natural treasure.

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

Todd finished the California International Marathon yesterday in 3:58:54!  He qualified for the Boston Marathon!

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

Yesterday the top four sailed the semi-finals and we sailed against Sato for 5th.

In the first semi-final, Sally Barkow (USA) beat Susanne Ward (DEN) 3-0.  And in the second semi-final, Claire Leroy (FRA) beat Katie Spithill (AUS) 3-0, thus setting up the Franco-American finals of Barkow vs. Leroy.  The petit-finals will see Spithill vs. Ward.

In the lower places, we beat Sato (JPN) 3-0 to claim 5th and Tylinska (POL) beat Boyd (AUS) to take 7th.

Lower placings:
5th: Baylis (USA)
6th: Sato (JPN)
7th: Tylinska (POL)
8th: Boyd (AUS)
9th: Naik (IND)
10th: Li xue (CHN)
11th: Lim (KOR)

Our fifth place did earn us enough prize money to help defray most of our travel costs (even after the 27.5% !!! tax the Korean government is taking off the top), so that made our final finish position a little less disappointing.

For the finals today, Liz will be doing the live English commentary on the beach for the festival.  It’s a pretty big deal here which is really cool.

The event web site is http://www.bsaf.or.kr/event_eng/event_01.htm has a lot of photos posted now.  We have a bunch of photos as well and will try to post some soon on www.lizbaylis.com or on one of our Facebook pages.

Cheers,
Liz, Molly, Shala, Karen, and Sam
The San Francisco Women’s Match Racing Team