Number 5: The 2021 World Championships

Wow. Where do I even begin? This event came up so quick, and I have to give huge credit to the US Kite Squad and so many others for constantly helping me prepare all year: Charlie McKee, Leandro Spina, and Dane Wilson for coaching throughout the year; Kai Calder, Evan Heffernan, Markus Edegran, Noah Zittrer, Will Cyr, Noah Runciman, Johnny Heineken, and Mike Martin (just to name a few!) for pushing me on the water all year; my close personal support team made up of my parents and close friends for always being there for me; Stan Keusch from SK Shapes - I would not have been able to go as fast as I did if it wasn’t for Stan helping out on the beach so much, he helped me with all my rigging, cleaned my foil, and was a huge help on shore; Flysurfer Kiteboarding, Levitaz Hydrofoils, Sailmon Instruments, Tarifa Foil Boards, Robline Ropes, and SK Shapes for providing me with the best and most reliable gear to train and race on - I am so grateful to be part of these teams and for the incredible relationships I’ve built with these brands; and last but not least, the much larger community of people that make it possible and provide so much support along the way - the St Francis Sailing Foundation, St Francis Yacht Club, my family and friends back at home and around the world, and all the new friends made along the way.

THANK YOU.

Now, let’s get to the story.

After the European Championships, I traveled back to San Francisco, where I picked up my parents’ van and immediately drove 6 hours south to Long Beach, where the squad was getting together for a pre-worlds training camp. We spent the week running many different drills that simulated different racing scenarios, and I walked away feeling extremely prepared and fast. In addition to kiting, there were morning surf sessions at Seal Beach (of course), lots of Whole Foods breakfast and lunch runs, burritos from Sancho’s, and hours spent watching video footage in my bed in the van trying to find new things I could improve before World’s.

I flew to Sardinia 10 days before the beginning of the event to give me plenty of time to get adjusted to the venue at Torregrande on the west coast of the island. The weather patterns we observed allowed us to better understand what kind of wind we would get and how that would impact the race course. Registration and equipment inspection day quickly came around. I was happy to be stress-free these days because I had attended the European Championships and knew how those days are run and what the technical committee looks for. Small things like having the right stickers in the right places, the right high-visibility colored helmet, and gear tuned and ready allowed me to relax while others were scrambling last minute to avoid potential penalties. In addition, some riders had chosen to race in the Kite Foil World Series event in Cagliari the previous week. Cagliari tends to be a very intense venue with long races in the offshore mistral breeze. I chose to focus on preparing at the World’s venue rather than use up energy and potentially break equipment or get injured while racing in Cagliari. 

I also made sure to finish all my school work and my last midterm exam the night before racing began. I had started my 3rd year of college in late August with synchronous classes on zoom. The 12-hour time difference between Europe and the University of Hawaii kept me up late plenty of nights, which was not easy, but I was happy to take advantage of zoom school and be able to do my assignments and exams from anywhere in the world - this semester that included Denmark during SailGP, France during the European Championships, Long Beach during training, and now Sardinia for the World Championships. This week was no different, and I was relieved to finish the exam before racing began. (And I passed!)

I usually get quite nervous the night before racing begins. I feel the butterflies and always take some time to myself to just relax and stay calm. But on this night, I didn’t feel any nerves. I was so confident in the work and training and preparation I had done that I knew, whatever the regatta brought, I would be able to deliver my personal best performance. This is very different from knowing you can win or expecting to win, and I have worked hard this year to adjust my mindset from being result-based to more process-oriented. Although this was a World Championships, it is still only a small part of a long journey. I often say the goal is gold, and to me, this does not mean a gold medal, but rather achieving the level of commitment, grit, positivity, confidence, and resilience it takes to win a gold medal. It’s a process, and one I am enjoying very much at the moment.

Qualifying series kicked off with light, side-onshore wind. There were 3 races run for the women, and I focused on getting some consistent finishes in the results. 3 bullets brought me to the top of the leaderboard on day 1. The next day, a strong, gusty, offshore wind came to play. There were huge shifts on the course, and it became a game of recognizing and taking advantage of the different shifts. I won the first 2 races. In the third race of the day, I rounded the top mark in 3rd, and a huge gust caused the wingtips on my 15m kite to collapse, and although I stayed foiling, I was overtaken on the reach as I wrestled to get the kite stable. I came back on the next lap, rounding the top mark in second with a small gap to first, however I crashed a gybe set and fell back to 4th. After finishing the race, I was sitting on the coach boat when my kite fell out of the sky in a lull. Unable to relaunch right away, I drifted into a fish farm downwind of the course. By the time we got the kite untangled and out of the fish farm, the next race had started and my scoreline finished with a DNS. It certainly kept things interesting and taught us some good lessons about how to untangle a kite if it’s stuck in a fish farm (among other things). Hopefully I won’t have to use those lessons anytime soon.

Day 3, the final day of qualifying series, was sailed in more gusty and shifty conditions from a northwest mistral. I was extremely conservative on the line, but was tactically on point. I finished the day with 3 bullets and a 2nd. Day 4 was the final day of the qualifying series where the top half of the fleet goes into gold fleet and the second half into silver. I stayed consistent with 3 bullets and a 2nd, keeping me in the lead, and propelling me straight into the final; I only needed to win one more race to claim my 5th world championship win.

The final day was extremely light and shifty. Each race of the semi-finals was very different, and you had to make decisions based on what you saw and felt rather than what happened in the previous lap or race. My plan was to start on starboard and cover anyone tacking out to the right corner. Off the line, the 3 other boats tacked out to port and I followed. There were big right shifts in play, and as I approached the starboard lay line, I had to decide whether to duck the rider coming on starboard and call my own lay line or lee bow and be shallow on lay line and potentially not make the mark. As the other two boats were caught up deeper in the bottom right corner of the course, I decided to lee bow and focus on making the mark. Seeing as we were quite underlaid, I committed to a higher and slower mode while Lauriane Nolot overtook me from windward. Although I rounded in 2nd, my lower exit angle allowed me to control the first gybe. I called the maneuver and was coming into the starboard lay line where I would have to gybe onto starboard going straight into the bottom mark rounding. It is a difficult maneuver, and one that we had practiced a lot with the team throughout the year. And although I rounded behind Lauriane, I had a higher exit lane, again putting me in control and giving me the lead going into the second lap. From there I continued to cover, and my slightly faster boat speed and better maneuvers allowed me to extend my lead. I sailed across the finish line in first, winning my 5th consecutive World Championship.

Words cannot express what this means to me and my team. I am so grateful to be able to do this and to have all of your support. Number 5 was certainly one I won’t forget. I want to extend a huge congratulations to all the girls that competed in this event, it was really tough out there and it’s incredible to see how much higher the level has gone over the last few years. Also a massive congrats to the men’s winner and my Flysurfer teammate Theo de Ramecourt, along with the rest of the fleet for continuing to push the boundaries of this sport every day. It is such a unique community of people, and I am honored and humbled to be a part of it.