More men than women attended a Women’s Match Racing Clinic at Richmond Yacht Club on July 10-12. Both were equally aggressive and knowledgeable. Former world match racing champ Liz Baylis and sailmaker Jocelyn Nash were coaches and on-the-water umpires. Liz critiqued each practice start. The sailing was followed by a Professor Baylis white board session back at RYC.

Match racing concentrates rules, boat speed, team coordination and execution. That was abundantly clear in Liz Baylis' post-race post-mortems.

When it came to match racing lexicon you better not waive your right to

consecutive translation. And don't blink - it all goes so fast on the water.

And good lord you'd better know the rules, and in particular the match

racing amendments, or you'll be the lunch not the shark. The following glossary picked by our source “could be horribly wrong.”

Hooking  

Get in the controlling position behind and overlapped to leeward.

Dial up 

Port tack boat goes head to wind and holds position, forcing the starboard tack boat to do the same.

Bambi 

Hunting is not only allowed but is mandatory.

Steel Balls

Get a hook immediately after a dial up, probably by the foredeck manipulating the jib, sliding down the competitors side, and coming up and hooking them.

Swoop and Lock

At the starting line, cross over the top of the competition, jibe and round up with a overlap (hook) on the competition.

Hollywood 

Snow the umpires to an incident (which they probably didn't see) by getting them to declare a penalty on your competition by over the top, over acting, carpet chewing by your crew.”

For more on women’s match racing, see www.wimra.org.