Pre-Kiel Week Training At Chicago Match Race Center
June 14, 2010
Chicago, Il
We have just finished a four day training camp at the Chicago Match Race Center as our warm up training for the 6th stop on the ISAF Sailing World Cup, Kiel Week, in Kiel, Germany.
Dial Up (Pre-Start)
Photo: Anna Tunnicliffe-Funk, June 2010
We practiced with our USSTAG teammates, Genny Tulloch and team, and had Dave Perry as our clinic coach. We had a variety of conditions which allowed us to cover different moves in different circumstances. It was a very useful clinic and allowed us to focus in on our perceived areas of weakness.
We arrived Thursday morning, the morning after the Hawks won the Stanley Cup. The city was excited about the win and although we didn't get to see it, we heard, from a distance, the excitement as the Hawks showed off the Cup through Chicago on their victory parade.
On the first night of being here, we did a meet and greet with a couple local youth sailors. They got to ask us questions about campaigning, sailing, and training. We also got to ask them questions about their sailing, and other sports, and it was a great opportunity to encourage them to give match racing a try.
Close Hauled
Photo: Anna Tunnicliffe-Funk, June 2010
One of the sailors we met, Emily Vasiliou, came back over the weekend to watch us train since she really wants to get into the game. She came to all of our chalk talks, helped us rig and de-rig and although the wind and weather was pretty shaky when she was here, she got to do a bit of sailing in the boat with us.
The second night we participated in the evening match racing program run by the Chicago Match Race Center. This evening program is for local sailors to come down and match race the Tom 28's. The clinic on the evening we were there, was run by Dave, and Genny's and our teams rotated through with the local sailors to help where we could. The wind was fantastic that evening, and we had a good 2-hour training session with them working on pre-starts.
The weather turned a bit gloomy for the last two days of training with thunderstorms passing by, but for the most part, they missed us and we just got a little wet, so we were very lucky.
Tomorrow, we are off to Germany. The official practice day over there is on the 18th, so it will give us a day to get settled and get over jet lag. Racing starts on the 19th. It is shaping up to be a great event with a large number of the top teams in atendance again. Kiel Week, or Kieler Woche, is a huge two week festival in which the whole city participates. Our regatta is a small part of the huge celebration, but the great part, is the huge number of people who come by the boat park to see what is going on. You can check it out at the regatta website.
We would like to give a huge thanks to Jen Wilson for housing us this week, and to the Chicago Match Race Center for all of their help and assistance with us, and for holding a great clinic.
We would like to thank our sponsors Carmeuse and Trinity Yachts for their continued support of our campaign for the 2012 Olympics in London. We would also like to thank US Sailing Team AlphaGraphics (USSTAG) and their sponsors for their continued support.
Sail Hard,
Anna TeamTunnicliffe
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