Isigungu Tacks Away in Key Biscayne

The all-women’s sailing team Isigungu skipper Dominique Provoyeur is at the US Sailing Centre on South Bayshore Drive, in Miami, Florida, and writes in about the team’s most recent escapades:

Hello All,

Time flies, and already Day 1 of the Yngling Woman’s Worlds is over! The regatta tension has been taking its toll on many participants, as this event is the second and final chance for some nations to qualify their country for the last four spots, to participate in the Olympic Games in China, Qingdoa in just 6 months time.

There are eight nations fighting, and in a few days we will know who our final four competitors will be. In the last month we have seen new teams step into the Yngling class, crews from the same nation swap teams, fire of skippers, change coaches, and some teams breakdown.

All this brought about by the massive glory that participating in the Olympic Games will bring to the 400 sailors that will eventually compete in August.

The first day of racing got underway in 18 – 22knots of wind ranging between 35 – 75 degrees. Key Biscayne is only a maximum of 12 feet deep, so the Miami chop is pretty famous for picking up fairly quickly with any amount of breeze.

There is always a toss up on how flat you are able to make the sails vs how much power you need to get through the messy seas, which could make or break your race.

In the first race, we came off the line going pretty fast, maybe even a little too fast, as our coach Dayne thought we may have been OCS (on course side) at the start, but we weren’t called back.

We stayed on the left of the fleet, and with the breeze changing so much, sometimes we looked like heroes and other times not!

We got to the last 100m of the beat, approaching the starboard layline on port and under-tacked a group of boats, but with the dirty air and chop pushing everyone down, we couldn’t lay the mark. After ducking and diving, we eventually rounded with only five boats behind.

Knock Knock, whose there?….. ha, FIGHTING SPIRIT, come on IN!! 22nd to 16th to finish 11th.

After start 1, we must have been a bit cautious, which didn’t help matters as we got buried at the start. Instead of just cracking off and going for speed below the one or two boats that were to lee of us (realising that it was a long starboard hand and going back into the pack would mean ducking plenty of boats), we threw in a 100 tacks to get out of the mess.

Again we caught up a few boats, only to lose most of them on the last beat by getting ourselves too far out to the right of the course, and separated from the bunch. We ended the day with a 20th place and I believe we are in 17th overall.

Some work to do for the medal race, but there is plenty of racing to do and with 15 – 20 knots predicted until Wednesday, I am confident we will get our chances.

For more information and full results, have a look at the US Sailing website.