Going for gold

TheDailySail talks to two of the US Olympic representives

TheDailySail was at Key Biscayne Yacht Club, 20 minutes south of Miami, on Sunday afternoon, the final day of the US Olympic trials, and to spoke with the winners of the Yngling and 49er classes. They will now be representing their country at this summer’s Olympic games in Athens.

Carol Cronin was the unexpected winning skipper of the Yngling against some fierce competition, in what is arguably the most competitive national fleet within this class.

TheDailySail: How did you approach the final day today?

Carol Cronin: Today we figured out the points. We had a lot of time ashore this morning, because we delayed and we figured out the points and realised that if we won the first race today we wouldn’t have to do the second race. And it’s been a long week and that was a real treat and so we worked to do that, we had a great start and led around the windward mark and had to work hard to stay ahead of the group as always because it’s a tough group.

TDS: Was it any easier for you today?

CC: It wasn’t a relaxing day today. It’s been a pretty stressful week but it’s been a great week because one of goals has been to get better each day and work on the basics and not get carried away with all the hoopla because it’s so easy to psyche yourself out and we worked really hard at that, as a crew, and we did a really got job at that – except the last run today when we were all a little wound up!


Carol (centre) and her crew.

TDS: Who are your crew?

CC: Liz Filter is my middle crew she’s been with me since 2001, when we started all this crazy thing, and Nancey Haberland who joined me just before Cadiz last year and she’s been a huge a addition and we couldn’t have won this regatta without her.

TDS: What do your see your strengths are as a crew?

CC: I think we’re all tactically strong which is nice as we don’t have to talk a lot about what the plan is. We all kind of understand what we’re trying to do, we talk about the details but the big picture we don’t have to - so it frees us up to talk about the options and the communication is one of the big things we have been working on, over the past months.

TDS: What is your background?

CC: I have spent a lot of time in Snipes and did a lot of matchracing. When the medal was announced in 2000 I decided it was time to do my own campaign - I have been sailing with other people up until that point. I have my own business which is currently kind of on hold - it’s graphic design and writing specialising in the marine industry. So I have always been involved in boats and spent a lot of time sailing and then when this came along it really turned into a full time campaign.

TDS: What is your sponsorship by Atkins about?

CC: Liz actually put that together with Atkins Nutritional. She just worked really hard on it. It is a good fit for them as because we’re representative of their target audience and we have to weigh in everyday. They have been wonderfully supportive and we wouldn’t have won this regatta without them.

They understand that we need to concentrate on what we need to do now and not be distracted and they said 'Do what you need to do to win the trials, then we’ll sit down and talk'. And that’s been a huge help, as we haven’t had to do much media stuff and a lot of people talk about sponsors as if they are a pain as much as they are a plus - because they are a distraction. We haven’t had that at all. Atkins really allowed us to step up our game to our full potential, I don’t think we would have been there with out them.

TDS: What are your celebration plans tonight?

CC: Our original plan was to gloat for 12 hours or so! But in turns out that we have to load our container tomorrow at 8am, so that’s going to cut into our gloating time a little bit.

TDS: Then what happens?

CC: We’ll get that done and then sit back and re-group and figure out what our schedule is. We are planning to taking some time off in March, because we have been pretty much full at it since Cadiz in September. It’s been a lot of fun and a great experience, but its also been a lot of time away from home. We spent a lot of time in Europe last summer and we’re looking forward to going back.

TDS: Is this the highlight of your sailing career?

CC: Oh by far. It’s great to do it as a team. As a former crew I really know what it takes to crew, and it’s not an easy job. There’s no way the crew get enough credit.

TDS: You came into these trials as the underdog, did that actually help?

CC: I think it took some of the pressure off us. Going into the regatta we concentrated on just sailing our best and not worrying on how we did, but knowing that we could win if we sailed our best, but not getting caught up on expectations. I think that was the downfall of a lot of our team members because there was a lot of pressure on some of the others and we escaped that. And it also helped frankly to be behind for the first third of the regatta. The attitude for us was to sail our best and see what happens.

TDS: What are your opinions on the winner-takes-all format of US Trials?

CC: We were actually talking about that on the way in. I think it’s a really good thing as it simulates the Olympic pressure. Sure someone can win Keil and SPA but that doesn’t simulate the same atmosphere as a winner-takes-all event. It also means that everyone is on the same playing field compared to the European regatta by regatta approach, which means you are sailing against people where it doesn’t mean anything to them.


Tim Wadlow and Pete Spaulding

On the final day of the 49ers Tim Wadlow and Pete Spaulding scored a 1,2 to give them the class win with a race to spare.

TDS: How have you approached this competition?

Pete Spaulding: I think at the beginning of the regatta we felt there were two other teams that would fast enough and have the skills to compete for the winning spot. So right off the back we had in mind that if those guys were behind us that we made sure that we were with them and covered them.

TDS: Have you had any shaky moments?

Tim Wadlow: We had two days at the end when we had a bit of a lead and the first two races of the day we lost a bit of our lead overall - had rough races. At the end of the regatta there were two teams who were match racing us at the start and tacking on us during the racing, it was kind of tough. But fortunately we won both the races each afternoon so we came off the water feeling much stronger.

TDS: What are your plans now?

TW: We have about three weeks off now and then we go to Athens for training. The world championships are in April in Athens so that’s the lead up to that. After the worlds, there are lot of training events and the Europeans in July.

TDS: How much time have you spent in Athens so far?

TW: We spent a month there last August. We had some pretty good luck, with a pretty strong land breeze for almost half the time we were there. We sailed a lot of days in 15 to 20 knots and we had an equal amount of lighter sea breeze days.

TDS: How would you say conditions there compare to the selection trials?

TW: It’s a bit different - the light sea breeze days are a lot wavier than they are in Miami, because of the fetch. The shifty land breeze is much like we have here. We didn’t have much of that in the racing but during the training time we have seen that, when it blows from the north and the west it’s very much like Athens.

TDS: What is your focus on now?

TW: I think the most important thing for us is to race against the good guys. So we’re going to be travelling around Europe to the big events to make sure were getting as much racing in as possible. We have spent a lot of the winter practising and tuning and working on our skills, so we want to race as much as possible. It’s now back to racing and see how we stack up against the top guys so we know what we have to work on.

TDS: How do you manage the costs of your campaign?

TW: There are a lot of companies that give us free product - Keanon, Gill, Harken, McLube. But it’s mostly private individuals that help us out. We get money from US Sailing and the US Olympic Committee, but that’s probably only 20 or 30% of our budget.