Race day 4 was the first day of final racing and due to not finishing 3 races in the big breeze we were starting in Silver fleet. It was not what we came here for or what we showed we were able to do in the training but simply the result of 3 days of really windy and on the edge conditions. Finally the wind was a bit more manageable though and we finished the first race in 5th. The second race was also looking really good until we broke our tackline inside the spinnaker pole on the second downwind and had to finish the race without the spinnaker. The result was a 42nd place finish that should have been a Top Ten finish. We rushed back to the beach and gathered all the tools that we needed to repair the tackline. Unfortunately we did not manage to fix the tackline in time to start the fourth race but it was a good experience to learn and deal with breakage during an event like the World Championship.
On the last day it was very windy again! By the time we reached the top mark bearing away had become very difficult yet again and we saw boats capsize left and right. But we took our time and bore away safely and then tried a new safety mode that Lars and Olin had told us about a couple of days earlier – sailing downwind with the spinnaker up but the crew sitting on the boat rather than being on the trapeze. That way I was able to play the spinnaker to help prevent pitchpoling. We finished the race in 22nd as one of the last teams who finished that race.
For the second race the breeze and waves continued to build and we finally felt the fatigue from one of the windiest regattas that I had done in a long time and not wanting to risk injury or damage to the boat due to fatigue we decided not to race the last race.
Racing as an all female team at the F18 World Championship taught us invaluable lessons in leadership, racing and managing our own sailing program. We came out as more confident and more experienced sailors – certainly in the windy stuff! And we hope that by being the first all female team that took part in an F18 World Championship in at least a decade we were able to inspire our fellow female sailors to believe in themselves and that they too can take part in big events like this with and all female team.
As a bonus we were awarded a gold medal for the „Women Title“ – my first title at a Sailing World Championship!
I would like to thank the US Sailing Foundation for supporting this project financially, as well as Nacra Sailing for supplying us with a boat and Ravi for being a coach and mentor through the whole process. Finally, I would like to thank the sailors of the F18 class for giving us a warm welcome into the class. I am very much looking forward to the next adventures that the F18 class holds for us!
In the meantime, Ravi recovered well from his surgery and should be back on the boat soon. I cannot wait to hop on an F18 again together with him and start training for the next F18 Worlds in the Netherlands. For us it will be kind of a home event since our partner Nacra Sailing is based there. We are aiming to take the overall win this year which would mean that I’d become the first woman to ever win the F18 World Championship. I’f you are interested in supporting us on this journey we are currently looking for Sponsors. So feel free to reach out to me via my Email address or on LinkedIn!
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