We are well underway on our training in Newport, RI!
Arriving in Newport after sailing for a week in Cleveland in heavy breeze and warm Lake Erie waters was a bit of a shock to the system. But we are young and can quickly adjust to what is waiting for us everywhere we go. Newport is an amazing city when it comes to sailing. The entire culture of the city is centered around the sport. I guess it is a left over from the days when Newport was the home of the America’s Cup and I have to tell you that the people here still live like sailing is the only sport to pay attention to.
USA 025 made the trip with no issues, it is so great to have a quality NACRA 17 that is easy to transport, setup and take down and that gives us the time to focus on our sailing so we can focus on quickly getting our teamwork and timing down and be ready for our training partners when they get back into town next week.
The past couple of days on the water while we have been working on our timing and understanding how we both move together in light breeze, we have been starting to focus on our communications as well. There is so much that happens while sailing a NACRA 17 and the speeds we are sailing at means that everything happens so quickly there is little time to think about what you are doing, let alone talk about it. To make sure everything is as smooth as possible, we have been focusing on talking about what is coming up, what is about to happen so that we are both on the same page and can execute our maneuvers more quickly and effectively. That sounds easy when you are reading it but trust me, at 15 knots we still only have a couple seconds to talk while we are working to keep our boatspeed up.
The breeze in Newport has been light so far. In fact, we have had to limit our time on the water because we have been dealing with a dying breeze each day. While the light breeze is good to focus on the things we need right now, it will be nice to be in a bit more predictable and heavier breeze. Tomorrow we are going to launch at sunrise to take advantage of the morning breeze that has been a bit stronger over the past week. We are hoping to do some high speed work and to make sure that we are ready for Jeremy and Louisa next week. We have a lot to learn, but since we are the only team training full-time for our campaign, we will be able to get everything down and to be highly competitive when we hit our first regatta this winter.
We are both focused on our singular goal, to win Olympic Gold in Rio. Since we have dedicated our lives to achieving this goal and are putting everything we have into making it happen we are confident that hard work, determination and dedication to continual growth in all areas of our campaign, we are sure to achieve our goal!
RI is an awesome place to be a sailor and our time here so far has proven to give us challenging conditions in which to foster growth and enable us to be competitive at the ISAF World Cup regatta in Miami next January. Keep watching us as we make huge gains towards #1! We are going to make it happen and with the support of our family and friends we know that things are always looking up. We really could not be doing this without you.
We are sailing in Newport because it is the home of Jessica. You can meet her and learn more on her about me pages!