Off to Oman!!

Mantra 11. Invent your Own Language: “Sing your World Into Existence”  – All Blacks

Our Dublin, Ireland and Marseille, France Camps by the numbers:

• 16 Days Sailed
• 30 Days in Europe
• 421.82 Miles
• 40.3 Hours
• 656 Gybes Completed
• 576 Tacks Completed
• 2 Irish Training Partners
• 2024 Olympic Sailing Venue – Marseille, France

Our last European training block before we head to Oman for the 2021 49er World Championships is in the books! We sailed for a total of 16 days in a wide range of conditions and in two completely different sailing venues. Our original goal for this training block was to train and compete in the rescheduled Princess Sofia Regatta in Palma, Spain. However, within days of beginning our trip to Spain, the organizing committee in Palma made a final decision to, unfortunately, cancel the event for the second year in a row! So, we had to pivot our plans quickly and found ourselves off to Dublin, Ireland instead!

The Irish 49er Sailing Team was so welcoming and our training camp was awesome! Since training all summer with the U.S. Development Team, this was our first opportunity since June to go head to head with some top 49er teams and we were stoked! We were able to push incredibly hard on the water for 10 days and sailed in conditions from light and flat water to big waves and great breeze! The Irish Sailing Team have an amazing sailing base, and the weather honestly could not have been any better! We look forward to going back sometime soon!

During our training camp with the Irish, we heard that the French 49er Sailing Team were looking to host a training camp and coaches regatta in Marseille, France during the original dates of the Princess Sofia Regatta. Since we were still looking for a way to compete one last time before heading to Oman, and with this new information in mind, we decided to pack up our equipment and send it down to Marseille, France. Marseille is slated to be the 2024 Olympic Sailing venue for the Paris Olympics and we were both really excited to see what this venue is all about and Marseille definitely let us know! During our stay in Marseille, we observed the incredibly windy, 30 – 50 knot, Mistral, twice, as well as numerous days of absolutely no wind! Marseille definitely is a venue of polar opposites. Overall, we were able to get 4 days of coaching racing and 2 days of training in and we came away feeling very confident about our speed, boat handling and sailing strategy. We feel ready and confident! Box checked!

This block of training gave us the opportunity to invent our own language. One of the most important parts of double- handed sailing is communication. Communication creates understanding, understanding creates confidence and confidence is the key to success on the race course. A common vocabulary and shared set of beliefs glue a team together and that is what inventing our own language is all about. These final sailing days in Europe were great for finalizing what our racing language will be at the 49er World Championships and really start to build our confidence and momentum going into Oman.

The 2021 49er World Championships begin in 22 days! Our bags are packed, our tickets are booked and our equipment is set to arrive at the end of this week! We have been training all year for this opportunity to race on the 49er world stage and we look forward to the challenges that this championship will present and look forward to facing them head on! Next Stop, Oman!

We would like to give a big thank you to our U.S. squad coach, Mark Asquith, for continuing to really push us to focus on all the right things that will move us into the next level in our sailing! We would like to thank the Irish Olympic Sailing Team, specifically the Irish 49er Sailing Team, for all the logistical help and support and for generously allowing us to train from their Olympic Training Center! We had an awesome time and can’t wait to come back to train again in the future! Thank you! We would also like to thank the organizing committee in Marseille, France for welcoming us to the 2024 Olympic Sailing Venue and giving us a taste of what it will be like to compete at the 2024 Olympic Games! Thank you! We would like to thank the Windmark Sailing Foundation, specifically Bam Miller and Yevgeniy Burmatnov, for all the generous help and support while we have been training abroad! We would not have been able to do this without you! Thank you! Finally, we would like to thank the St. Francis Sailing Foundation for your continued generous support and belief in us, our goals and dream! Thank you so much!

We arrive in Oman on Oct. 28th and plan to start training on November 1st for our final lead up to the 2021 49er Worlds Championships which begin on November 16th! Stay tune for more updates and photos! both on facebook, @barrowshenkenracing, and on instagram, @hanshenken, #49erUSSkiffSquad and @us49ersquad!