Summer 2021: Making Gains
I’ll pick back up from where my last post left off - June 2021. I spent the majority of this month at home in San Francisco training with the rest of the US Kite Squad at Sherman Island, and also threw in learning to sail a WASZP to improve my sailing skills and expand my foiling knowledge that could be applied to the SailGP F50.
Training with the kite squad at Sherman was an awesome experience. I embraced van life, camping in my parents’ Ford Transit for the week, and very much enjoyed living in a van down by the river with the team. Our coach, Charlie McKee, ran us through different starting drills and practice races to find new techniques and strategies that allow us to navigate different situations on the course. We got to practice these new techniques a week later at the Kite Foil League Delta Pro. It was great small fleet practice racing where I developed some skills I would use at the Kite Foil World Series the following month.
I finished off June with a week of WASZP sailing, coached by Hoel Menard out of Richmond Yacht Club. It was quite the learning experience as I had never done any single handed sailing before, so watching me learn to use a tiller must have been very entertaining for Hoel. I am proud to say that I was comfortably foiling in both directions, and could do some small upwind and downwind legs around the Richmond channel by the end of the week. Thank you to Hoel for taking the time to teach me to sail this boat! It was so much fun.
Amongst all of this, I was also taking summer classes at University of Hawaii on zoom. I completed (and passed!) my finals at the end of June, and flew straight to Italy for the first stop of the 2021 Kite Foil World Series in Gizzeria. This is one of my favorite racing venues. Not only do you get amazing coffee and gelato on the daily, but the wind is extremely consistent, providing high quality racing with a big, competitive mixed fleet. This year we had 100 riders randomly split into 2 fleets of 50. I love the Kite Foil World Series events because we race in a mixed fleet, so I get to line up with (and try to beat) the men. I always learn so much and come away having improved so many skills. I finished 31st overall and 1st in women’s. I believe results are just one aspect of a performance, and in this case, I will say that it was not my best result overall. However, I was extremely proud of the improvements I made throughout the week and the gains I made in my skill set.
Straight from Gizzeria, I flew to the UK for the third stop of SailGP season two in Plymouth. It is safe to say that I could not believe I was actually in the UK - it was warm and sunny every single day of the week! Although there was light wind all week, I got to spend some time grinding on the F50 in position 2. I also learned more about the different roles on board and how each position has to work together in order to make the boat go fast. Coming from single handed racing, this is a very new aspect of sailing for me, and I look forward to more team sailing experiences.
Following Plymouth, I spent a couple weeks training in France in different conditions. It was exciting and inspiring to follow the Olympics at the same time and cheer on the team. This certainly fueled my fire and motivated me to continue working hard and making consistent improvements in all aspects of the game.
A huge thank you to my family, friends, sponsors, and supporters for making this all possible and not only allowing me, but also encouraging and motivating me to chase my crazy dream life. This journey and experience it provides is unlike anything I could have imagined, and I am thankful every day to be on this ride.
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