Team WinWard

Team WinWard

Our training adventures in St. Pete, FL

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2010 Miami OCR

After a 3rd place in the Alex Caviglia Regatta, Team WinWard came back strong winning the Miami OCR with a 7 point lead over newcomers, Jen French and JP Craginou of the US.  Canadians John Mcroberts and Brenda Hopkin took third after a battle in the protest room with Great Britain for one point.  We sailed well and had good speed, but on the fourth day the winds were really shifty and it was a game of chance.  We were out of phase a coulpe times, missing some great shifts and ended up with a few second places. Coming into the last day we knew that if we got a first or second place in the first race it was over and we wouldn't have to sail the last race.  The gun went off and the individual flag went up, meaning boats were over early. So just to be safe, we ducked back under the line and fought our way back up the race course. As we sailed upwind we noticed that the flag did not come down. Next another US boat ducked the line and the flag still stayed up. After a few more minutes Great Britain popped their spinnaker and sailed downwind to duck the line and the flag still stayed flying! So at this point we thought, either we didn't duck the line well enough or one of the three boats in front of us was over.  Sara Skeels and Bob Jones, of the US, the Canadians and Jen and Jp were all ahead of us. We had wheels going upwind and battled back downwind catching the Canadians and finishing a close second behind Jen and JP.
As we crossed the finish line we immediately headed over to our coach to find out who was over...and it was Jen and JP. So our second become a first, but we would have won either way.   After a good start in the last race we had the entire fleet pinned to the left and instead of ruining the other teams chance to place we tacked off and sailed off on our own. We popped the kite and headed back down to get much needed dock space, foregoing the rest of the race. So once again it was a great regatta.  We got a first at the first world cup event of 2010 and we our first on the US Sailing team. More firsts to come!
The week also started well as Scott and I received the US Sailing Team Alphagraphics team of the year. This was a huge honor and we were the first to get a Charlie Leighton, Executive Director of US Sailing, bobble head. Very cool.
We are off to St.Pete for a couple more weeks of training and sailing, we will keep you posted and thanks for reading.
Team WinWard
Julia-

 

Our Goal

After an impressive second place finish at the 2008 trials and a silver medal at the Qingdao Test Event, the team of Scott Whitman and Julia Dorsett have decided to continue on to 2012!   Our goal is to win the US Paralympic Trails and represent the USA at the 2012 Paralympic Games, in Weymouth, England. We will start training and racing this winter in Miami. Stay up to date with our blogs.