Fall: The Buildup
After such an incredible summer, I could hardly believe the year could get any better. Spoiler alert: it did.
The beginning of August, or what we in the Bay Area like to call “Fogust”, was kicked off with a squad training camp at Crissy Field. The bay is where I first started racing and where my love for the sport began; it is always a pleasure to return to my home waters and remember how far I’ve come.
The training camp came with the usual summer-in-the-bay conditions: 20-25 knots every afternoon, gusts into the high 20’s, huge ebb tide chop, and that famous San Francisco fog. What’s better than that?! These are my favorite conditions, and I thrived in getting to practice and race on small kites. I learned new techniques and strategies for setting up mark roundings, and found new passing lanes on the course through better execution of these maneuvers. At the end of the camp, we raced in the US Open Sailing Series event sponsored by West Marine.
Immediately after my last race, I packed up and drove straight to the airport to fly to Aarhus for the Denmark SailGP event. It was really cool to be back at the venue of the 2018 World Championships, where I won my third title. The city was just as I remembered, with conditions just as gnarly as memory served. On one practice day, sailing in gusts over 30 knots, our team hit a top speed of 52.3 knots. Of course, the Brits just HAD to one-up us with a top speed of 53.2, but I was just stoked to be on the boat and along for the ride. Speaking of the ride, it was a very bumpy one. Literally. Running across a 30-foot wide platform with nothing to hold onto when it’s going that fast on water is not easy!
Following a very intense week in Aarhus, I traveled back to Hyeres, France to train with the French team in preparation for the European Championships in Montpellier. It was a great couple weeks of kiting in different conditions and time spent stretching in and testing the new quiver of kites I would be racing on for the Europeans and Worlds. I finished testing and tuning my kites in time to drive a few hours west to Montpellier, the 2021 European Championships venue.
This was a very important event for me because it was a sort of “dress rehearsal” for the World Championships the following month - equipment was inspected, the new formula kite elimination-style format was used, and stress levels were high. It was also the first Formula Kite event of the 2024 Olympic quadrennium, and my first time racing in a separate women’s fleet in two years. It was because of these reasons that I decided to compete at this event rather than attend the SailGP event in St Tropez which was happening the same weekend.
Although we only had 3 days of racing in a 5 day regatta, my coach Charlie McKee, my training partner Markus Edegran, and I made the most of every race and learned a lot about what it takes to succeed in this format of racing. Competitors are split into 2 even fleets for the first 2 days of the qualifying series. On day 3, the top half of the fleet goes into gold fleet and the second half into silver. The top 2 finishers automatically proceed into the Final on day 4, while places 3 through 14 enter a semi final. The top 2 finishers of the semi final then continue to the Final. The first competitor to win 3 races in the final wins the regatta. If you enter the final in first place, you are given 2 points, and only need to win one more race to win the regatta. 2nd place goes into the final with 1 point (needing 2 more bullets), and 3rd and 4th place go in with zero points.
At the Europeans, a lack of wind prevented racing on day 2 and 3, meaning your results from the 5 races on day 1 determined whether you made it into gold fleet. I had put up very consistent scores on day 1, winning all but 1 race, which propelled me to the top of the leaderboard in gold fleet. Although I won all races that day in gold fleet, I was always coming into the first mark behind first place. This was great practice for overtaking later in the race, however, I identified some of my weaknesses on the start line and first leg, and finally in the last race of the day rounded the top mark with a healthy lead that I extended through the whole race.
Next came finals day. Knowing I had to win only one more race definitely put me under some pressure, but I gladly embraced the stress as it would prepare me for the real show that would happen at World’s next month. I carefully watched the course during the semi-finals, trying to glean as much information as possible. It was a relatively open course, and in the 6-boat semis, riders began starting on port to minimize maneuvers.
The first race of my final did not go as planned. I miscalculated my time and distance and was very late to the start. I managed to come back and finish second, however winning races is what puts points on the scoreboard. But I still just had to win one more race to win the whole thing. I cleaned up my start and nailed my first lay line. I rounded the top mark in second, but my lay line call had set me up for a better mark rounding, and I took the lead around that mark. From there I continued to extend my lead, and crossed the finish line as the 2021 Open European Champion.
This could not have been possible without my enormous support team - thank you to everyone that makes this possible every day and has believed in me since the beginning. To my friends and family, sponsors, coaches, teammates - thank you.