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With racing at the Weymouth Sail for Gold Regatta starting tomorrow (today now!), I wanted to check-in and recap the very full summer I’ve had since the last mailing. After winning the US Women’s MR Champs over competitor Sally Barkow’s team, I then spent the following week and weekend calling tactics and trimming main on a Tom 28 with Sally in the Chicago Match Race Center summer series. We won the weekend, having finished 2nd in the first event behind Bill Hardesty and then winning the second event. I flew back for two days at home to regroup and repack before heading over to a month in Europe!
First I was off to Valencia doing some commentary work with BMW Oracle during their Media and TV Trials, where I got to see (and comment on) some awesome, very close match racing both in mono and multihulls. There were pretty interesting ideas being thrown around involving race courses, rules, types of boats, and ways to portray sailing best to the media. It was also extraordinary to see some of the footage they were able to come up with using hi-def cameras and interesting on-board angles: you can check it all out here, and with more info about the trials here.
From there it was straight to Weymouth, where we’ve had 12 great days of training at the venue for the Olympic Games. I’m in a different position than usual here—trimming main and calling tactics with Sally Barkow again, but this time on the Elliots, the Olympic class boats. I’m learning a lot that will help my sailing as a skipper; with boat-handling, tactics, and communication, as well as the wind and weather variables at the Olympic venue. We’ve been training with our American teammates as well as the top British team-who are currently ranked the top team in the world. Needless to say, we’ve trained hard and are ready and psyched for racing to start! Results can be found on the regatta website here: www.skandiasailforgoldregatta.co.uk
Wish us luck!
Genny Tulloch
getsailing.org
