Going fast downwind in 25 knots, Cadiz, Spain

At a training camp with the Polish youth team from Sopot. We've seen almost every kind of condition this week, from this windy extreme to very light wind and sunny weather.

Time zones, logistics, budgets, and Garmin GPS

Life would be a lot easier if someone took over the responsibility of planning my campaign, and all I had to worry about was training and racing. However, like the majority of Olympic hopefuls who don't have a team of support personnel, planning, logistics, and budget management falls squarely onto my shoulders.

Without missing a beat, the day after the Rolex Miami OCR, I attended a USSTAG meeting to learn about what they had planned for us regarding training camps, logistics, and coaching. As is the norm, the boards are the least-funded Olympic class, and only $10,000 is allocated for our coaching budget, a total of two regattas for both men and women RS:X sailors. (All the other boat classes have coaches for most of the World Cup events.) With this shortcoming in mind, I set to work raising money for my own program.

Most Olympic-class sailors are well-aware that full-time coaching is an absolute necessity. Without constant feedback, analysis, and support on the water, jumping into Olympic-level training and competition is frustrating and difficult. All the top teams have a fully-planned schedule with a national coach, and most sailors wouldn't think of heading out to a serious training session without this support. In order to compete with the best, my resources must be at the same level, or better, in an innovative way. Both coaching and the logistics of including a coach are expensive and time-consuming, and I can't say that I've exactly found the most innovative solution for myself, but that the resources have come slowly together over the past few years and I'm now in a position to have a coaching program for the spring World Cup regattas.

After the Miami OCR, I spent the entire month of February pushing single-mindedly to get funding. I've applied for a few more grants, and spent a lot of time following up with prospective donors. In some ways, I'm "counting chickens before they're hatched" in that I don't have my full budget, but I'm expecting my efforts to pay off, and put me in the best position possible to make good results for the USA at the early World Cup events, our first Olympic Trials event, and score the boards more funding for the 2016 quadrennium.

Apart from fund raising, my next challenge was organizing a coach boat, transport, housing, and other necessities for three months in Europe. Appraising my budget, the first glaring expense was coach boat charters - almost $30,000 a year to charter a boat at each event, plus a major hassle sourcing these boats. Through creative financing / deficit spending, I've been able to acquire a coach boat for this season. Given the fact that a boat costs much less than $30,000, and finding boats can be stressful, buying a boat was almost a no-brainer, although very difficult, decision. Being a frugal person by nature, I'm tortured by expensive decisions!

I was very pressed for time in February from all the fund raising, some training in St. Petersburg with our youth team, and getting very sick for a week. This made it necessary to acquire the boat sight-unseen in the UK, and prepare my van, also in the UK, from afar. This required some acrobatics. Luckily, a very generous friend from Hayling Island, UK, picked up my van from Weymouth, had the oil changed, and installed a tow bar. The friend also inspected a boat I found online, approved it, delivered it, and found a really nice trailer and covers for it. I'm really excited about my boat, which is a Solent RIB, made by a local company for the south coast of the UK. Not to mention, it has a nice, efficient engine, and very pretty colors!

Very happy about the new boat

After picking up the boat and running around for a few days at Hayling Island to insure and register it, I was ready for the road. One ferry ride and 1,500 miles later, van, boat, and I were safely at our next destination in Cadiz, Spain, where I will be training for the next two weeks with a few teams from Poland. Driving 1,500 miles in the US is relatively easy on our interstate system, but over here, the same distance takes almost twice as long. Slower speeds, toll highways, winding roads and massive hills make driving much more difficult (and expensive!). Luckily, I was still adjusting to the time difference, so it was easier to stay awake at night. Adding to the ordeal was my GPS, which took me on a few boondoggles, and had me in hysterics with its arrogant directives and mispronunciations of place names. A few lessons my dad taught me about vehicles came to good use on this trip: drive slowly and gently, check the oil and fluids at every stop, and check over the rig carefully. Although I was obsessively careful, my hard-working, 14-year-old minivan suffered; the transmission is definitely on its way out and it's riding pretty rough. With a little TLC it should at least live through the season. It's survived multiple trips across, up, and down both coasts of the USA, and laps around North Europe...it can't quit on me now!

Van and boat, on a bigger boat

"Roll on, eighteen-wheeler..."

Bridges through the Pyrenees

Although I had a rough drive, the Polish drove almost twice as far and arrived in Cadiz, in the middle of the night, like the walking dead. During that night, a huge party (for Carnaval) raged through the marina and a few drunken revelers decided it would be a good idea to take bikes from their trailer and ride them around. Luckily, the police were on hand to apprehend the thieves and the bicycles!

I'm really excited to be here in a very beautiful town with an impressive sailing facility, training with an excellent team. I'm working with one of the coaches from the Sopot Sailing Club, and some fast younger sailors. Joining us will be some of the women on the Polish National Team and their coach. I'm looking forward to some pretty intense on-the-water sessions and being around a great group of people I consider to be my teammates.

A hard-earned result for the Miami OCR

The Miami Olympic Classes Regatta is the most important regatta annually for American Olympic aspirants. It is one of the first World Cup ranking regattas on the circuit, and it is also a chance for teams and individual sailors to get a spot on the US Sailing Team. Not only did I again earn my #1 spot on the team, but I also had the best regatta of my life.

Pre-race: chilly weather calls for layers of clothing (Event photo)

Miami is never a predictable place for racing. For the past two years, it has been a light-wind venue, but this year we had more wind than normal and even one day of planing races. The week saw a full, fairly classic frontal rotation of the wind from east to northwest, with a different direction every day. The one constant of Miami racing is that the wind will always be shifty and puffy, and there will always be weeds (shedding Florida seagrass and algae) to drag around the course on your fin.

The first few days of racing passed easily, as the wind direction was easterly, giving us cleaner and stronger wind. The second day of racing saw planing conditions in a southeast 15 knot breeze. We easily managed two races in warm, cloudy, fast conditions. I had good starts and since my pointing is a lot better, I had some good finishes. However, the third day proved to be the toughest of the regatta. Any easterly direction pushes a lot of weeds onto the course, so that by the third day, the weeds were floating around in huge lines, ready to trap sailors. The wind was a shifty, very gusty southwest as cloud lines marking the beginning of a front rolled through. These conditions are very difficult because sailors must be very good at transitions, tactics, and making minute adjustments to technique in every gust or lull. My first race was the best of the series, but my second race was the worst. As the breeze died, the weeds and general Miami debris became more and more of a menace to being able to plane. Every sailor had to clear weeds several times during the racing. My Canadian friend, Dominique Vallee, had a piece of cardboard get stuck in her daggerboard well; she had to stop to physically jump in and pull it out so she could put the board up. I tacked going downwind rather than jibing - it was still faster than dragging weeds! I've never sailed anywhere else in the world that has as many obstacles in the water.

Racing in marginal conditions (Event photo)

The wind failed to materialize on the fourth day, and after a long wait on the water, we went in without racing. The front finally filled in for the fifth and last day of racing. We again had two races in puffy, dying northwest frontal breeze coming down from the cityfront. Racing was a little tougher for me today as I was nervous going into the first start, fouled someone, and fell trying to do my penalty turn. I played catch-up for the rest of the race, and was actually pleased with the finish. The long courses and dying breeze of the regatta's final days made for some really long and difficult racing.

I'm really excited about what a 12th place finish in a fairly competitive fleet means. I know the results have come from finally developing the techniques that have frustrated me for years, with the help of consistent coaching from Britt Viehman for the past month. I have been really aggressive about learning skills step by step, and creating lists of short goals. I now have a new list of skills to develop, and am looking forward to February's plan, and March's training and racing in Europe. It will once again be a tough fight to get the resources together to make a comprehensive plan. However, I've already proven that I have unlimited quantities of willpower and fight for the final push to the Olympic qualifier regattas, and much more.

I want to thank my sponsor, Compass Marketing, for making this effort achievable. Compass has shown unwavering support of my Olympic campaign since 2008.

Miami OCR 2011: Day 1

Already the biggest regatta of the winter season is upon us. Today was the first day of the Miami Olympic Classes Regatta, the qualifier for the 2011 US Sailing Team. There are 29 girls registered in the RS:X fleet, the biggest in three years. In attendance are some of the best sailors from Spain (Marina Alabau and Blanca Manchon; both have European and World titles), Great Britain (Bryony Shaw, 2008 Silver medalist), and the French national team. Also competing are some excellent sailors from Canada, Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina.

Britt Viehman is again coaching me. Over the past month, I've made a detailed, day-by-day plan that has included some of his youth team training camps, several days of private coaching, and lots of video. The coaching has helped immensely, especially the video, and this winter's endeavors are beginning to pay off.

Ready to catch a tuning session on video

My focus for this regatta is to incorporate the new techniques I've learned in an actual World Cup regatta, and emphasize executing each component of a race. Execution met with success today in a fine opening day's 12-14 knots of breeze. The first race exemplified my day. I had a clean start, but got rolled by a couple fast girls going low. I had to tack out, but got out into clear air, good pressure and hit the port-tack layline railing fast. I rounded in 10th and maintained the position until the last downwind, when I got passed by one sailor. I finished 11th, one of my best finishes ever in a fleet this size.

Results

Alex Caviglia Bluewater Classic

The Alex Caviglia Bluewater Classic is a regatta held annually at Shake-A-Leg Miami, a well-known and organized facility focused on providing access to sailing and the water to disabled folks and less-advantaged community members. The proceeds benefit the Caviglia Bluewater Foundation, which assists the families of victims of traumatic brain injury using sailing as a medium. The Caviglia regatta is attended annually by international RS:X sailors training for the Miami OCR. For the past two years, I sailed Formula at this regatta, but in preparation for the critical 2011 season, I used the regatta as a test to see how well my newly acquired light wind technique held up against some of the world's best women's RS:X sailors, including the British silver medalist and Spanish world champion.

Caviglia Foundation mission, printed on the regatta T-shirt

The focus of the regatta was reinforcing the skills I learned over the past month in a competitive setting. My goal was to break down each race and apply the new pumping and pointing techniques as much as possible and treat the regatta as a training camp. We had light and marginal wind for all three days of the event, conditions normally seen also at the OCR. I was really pleased at the way I am now keeping up better with the faster sailors in the lighter conditions. I'm definitely more in the game than I've ever been, and I'm happy with the results of the hard work I've put in over the last months. With only about seven or eight days of coaching, I've been able to correct things that have frustrated me for years, and I'm looking forward to applying my new experience at the OCR.

Winter Update and the Clever Pig Sailing Team

I'm really pleased to announce that I'm now a part of the "Clever Pig Sailing Team," a group of sailors who have been awarded grants by the Southport Sailing Foundation (SSF). The SSF is an enthusiastic and active non-profit organization dedicated to helping youth and young adult sailors achieve their competitive sailing goals. They also aim to help these sailors put together more professional campaigns through their website, into which they have put considerable effort.

The Clever Pig Sailing Team includes Rachel Bryer (Laser Radial), Jennifer French and Jean-Paul Creignou (SKUD), Kyle Larsen (Laser 4.7); Sarah Lihan, a Laser Radial sailor on the US Sailing Team, and myself. I am very happy to be the recipient of the SSF's grant. I feel that the foundation has genuine and passionate members who are eager to do what they can to promote competitive sailing. Their quick response and readiness to give advice, help, and promotion to interested sailors signifies commitment to their cause and a true team approach, which is very refreshing. I am proud to represent this wholesome group and will endeavor to do my best to be an ideal ambassador.

Miami training session

Life is progressing fairly smoothly here in south Florida, and I've been doing my best to create a good training schedule. I decided to stay local once again to conserve money for the spring European season, which means my resources are now going to new equipment and coaching in preparation for the Miami Olympic Classes Regatta (OCR). This important regatta determines 2011 US Sailing Team rankings and is the focus of all my resources this month.

My goal this month is to obtain as much focused training as possible, with coaching and video. I am accomplishing this by working with the developmental group of windsurfers as much as possible, under the guidance of Britt Viehman, their coach and friend of mine from St. Petersburg, FL. I attended two of the development camps in Miami and Cocoa Beach, FL, and am also working with Britt individually in Miami leading up to the OCR.

Having focused goals means that I selected just a few aspects of my sailing to improve. In this case, using Britt means I can work on the most "developmental" and basic part of my sailing: pointing upwind in light wind. This seems very basic, but for me, because of too many variations in instruction or having no instruction at all, I have always struggled with light wind concepts. "Pointing upwind" also includes work on pumping, acceleration, steering, and other more minute details. We are making good progress, and slowly eliminating one of the weakest areas of my sailing. I am happy that I can finally begin to put my fitness to good use, and I'm looking forward to finally out-pumping my competitors at the Miami OCR.

Repairing equipment

Long Road to Miami

After bouncing around Florida for a few weeks, I've finally found an apartment and am settled in Miami for training. This winter (blame it on the economy), short-term housing has been really difficult to find. Most places are either extremely expensive, unfurnished, or in the "hood." In Coconut Grove, which contains most of Miami's sailing scene, wealthy neighborhoods border lower-income areas by the width of a city back yard....and I've looked at housing in both. I've lived at various friends' places in Miami, Stuart, and St Petersburg, while keeping the car packed and training at the same time. The past month has been a familiar, wearisome adventure that has lasted a bit longer than I wanted it to.

The hassle of finding housing in Miami is a familiar one to many sailors, and our main concern is getting our belongings out of the car and into a safe place. Although we have a free place to store gear and train at the US Sailing Center here, the parking lot has been targeted by thieves for many years. It's tempting to leave your life locked in the car, but the car is the most unsafe place for computers, wallets, and sailing gear. On Sunday, before I moved into my new place, thieves broke two windows of my van and stole a gym bag with wallet, cash, toiletries and clothes. It cost $750 to replace the windows, four hours to clean all the glass out of the car and door interiors, and as a result, my life was disrupted for an additional few days. The money is almost easier to sacrifice then the time lost and stress.

Although my car was the target (along with two other vehicles) this week, my feelings were validated by some experiences related to me by one of the women's 470 teams, who had their vehicles broken into three times. In one incident, their entire car was stolen, dragged away with their tools and a brand-new set of sails inside. The theft was a devastating setback to their campaign. The team has also experienced some difficulties finding housing, and one sailor is cycling daily from Miami Beach, 10 miles away. Miami is a difficult place for everyone, and removing theft and crime, locals and visitors still have to deal with frustrating traffic and angry drivers, poor urban planning and ugly, soulless sprawl, sky-high taxes, and the general insanity created by people of every desperate race and culture crushed together in too small a space. From the outside, Miami is an incredibly beautiful place to live, but on the inside, it is glaringly ugly and superficial, identities crushed together to breed a war for money and materialism. The city is a true paradise wasted, and one of the most troubled, confused, chaotic places I've ever traveled to.

Although the city in general disgusts me, the water is entirely another world. On Biscayne Bay or the ocean, sailors can escape the demented crush of humanity and re-orient to their true purpose for being here. Miami is a fantastic place to sail, and there is plenty of sailing to do. Training so far is going well. Over Thanksgiving, I did a US Sailing Development Team (USSDT) clinic with Britt Viehman's youth team. It is great to see how well all the sailors are progressing. The girls in particular are taking windsurfing very seriously, and are learning new things very quickly. For me it was a good chance to revisit the basic things I never learned as a beginner...like pointing upwind. I made some big strides forward with Britt's help (and some video) and now have a few techniques to work on daily.

I must be describing something in Britt's video

It is great to see the windsurfers included in the USSDT camp, although it was not without a fight that they were able to get in. Britt's persuasion was a major influence, and windsurfing has an inside advocate, Leandro Spina, a salaried US Sailing Team skiff coach who also trains some Bic Techno sailors at the Miami Yacht Club. Leandro has been pushing hard for windsurfing's inclusion, which is something sorely needed inside US Sailing. If not for Britt and Leandro, windsurfing would never have a chance for success under the current US Sailing Team leadership.

The beginning of the winter sailing season has brought lots to fight for. It's a good thing I have an endless reserve of determination and the ability to fight, both on the water and on dry land.

Thanks again to my sponsor, Compass Marketing, and for so much community support of my Olympic campaign.