T-2 Days Until the Olympic Trials Begin

The time has come! The Olympic Trials officially start in just 2 days!  9 boats total, 14 races scheduled over the course of 7 days of racing with one reserve day. 9 boats To follow along with the event results click here. We will likely not be too active on social media during this time, but you can easily follow along with what's going on during the event by following the @ussailingteam on Instagram and Facebook!

Before the regatta is underway I wanted to share one last update with you all leading into the event. I mentioned in my last newsletter that we have some exciting news to share and it is finally here... we have launched our new boat!

It was no easy feat to acquire, but now we can proudly say we have a brand new boat for the Trials! We could not have done this alone and have so many people to thank for making this a reality.

We christened her on January 1st, starting the New Year off with some Ziegelmayer champagne surrounded by friends and family. A massive shoutout to our dear friend, Daniela Moroz, who did the honor of christening our boat, Rumble!

Last week we hosted a coffee chat at the US Sailing Center in Martin County. It was an amazing opportunity to share some stories and reflect on what an amazing experience we have had sailing 470s these past few years. For both Trevor and I, our sailing careers largely started at the sailing center, and so it felt quite full circle to be able to come back and share our stories. Thank you to everyone who made the event a huge success, especially Beth Whitmire who has been a huge mentor to us throughout this past year and made this event possible. The USSCMC has been a key element in our support system during this Olympic campaign and we are very proud to be sailing under their club for the Olympic trials.

Now it's time. All of the hours on the water, in the gym, in the books, all of it comes down to this event. We are excited for this opportunity to race in such a high pressure event and look forward to showing the progress we have made. Massive thank you to everyone who has been following along with us and supporting our journey, especially our families and friends. It means the world.

2023 - A Year of Action

Happy holidays from NB 470 Racing! As this year comes to a close, we reflect back on what a year we've had. For those who have been following along with us, you know, it has been a whirlwind of a year. We have come so far, and we are coming down to the culminating event of the season, the US Olympic trials, and we couldn't be more excited.  

The trials are taking place out in the ocean off of Miami Yacht Club from January 6-13. As it stands there are 9 mixed 470 teams registered, and there are 14 total races scheduled across 7 days of racing, and one reserve day. The team that wins the trials event in January will be selected team for the Paris 2024 Games, however, because the US has not yet qualified for an Olympic slot, the winner of the US trials will also need to qualify the country at the upcoming 470 World Championships in Palma, Spain. To learn more about the selection process click here.

Since returning from our long stint in Europe, we have been hard at work getting ourselves and our equipment ready for the trials. Ultimately we know that we've already put the work in, and this final week before the trials is all about ticking the boxes, final gym sessions, boat work, equipment testing, and getting ourselves mentally prepared to perform. We are lucky that the trials is taking place here in Miami, a place that feels like home for both Trevor and I. With close friends and family around us, we are very grateful to have such supportive community to back us. A special thank you to our supporters at Engineered Yacht Solutions, who we had the pleasure of visiting prior to the holidays. Additionally, a massive shoutout to Bill Harvey who has put up with housing Louisa and our coach Steve during this past month!

This year we have grown immensely both as athletes and individuals, faced hardship, setbacks, failures, yet we have persisted nonetheless and come out on the other side. I can say that regardless of what happens at the upcoming trials, we know we've done all that we can, and that is something no on can take away from us. We've had a lot of great conversations with mentors recently, and reflected on this journey we have been on. Olympic campaigning is so much more than just sailing. It is a top-level education in "figuring it out". Fundraising, logistics, accounting, marketing, management, etc... these are not things that are openly taught in a course to all sailors interested in pursuing the Olympics! We've had to learn all of these things ourselves, or seek out the right people to advise us in the process. It is not something we could have done on our own, that's for sure, and it's something that I've reiterated in many additions of these team updates I send out. We have so many people to thank for helping us get into the position we are today.

We are excited to put our skills to the test, and give it all we've got. We are confident in the work that we've put in this past year, and we know that will show through in our performance. Thank you for following along with us up to this point, it is because of people like you reading this that we are able to pursue our passion and chase our dreams. We hope to make you proud.

Exciting news to come this week... stay tuned!

Here are some of our favorite memories from this year:

Racing at the US Open Series in Clearwater, FL in February

Rigging up in Palma, Spain for the Princess Sofia Regatta in April

Beautiful conditions in Spain! We managed to scrape together equipment last minute to be able to attend this event, largely thanks to our dear friends in the 470 fleet! We were beaming to be able to sail the event.

Thanks to our USST photographer, Allison Chenard, this photo of us can now be seen at your local West Marine! Modeling the new Gill Marine collection. Pretty cool!

Prepping the boat in Aregai, Italy for the 470 European Championship

Cycling training in Italy with our teammate, Lara Dallman Weis

Stormy racing conditions!

Moments before our rig snapped in half during racing

Unloading our 470 with a tractor at Warborne Farm!

Alice under sail! The beautiful boat Trevor and I lived aboard during our training camp with the British sailing team in Hayling Island, UK.

Training at the Olympic venue in July.

Pre- shearing sheep at Warborne Farm

Drone shot from above at the World Championships in The Hague, Netherlands in August

Training in Hamble, UK with our training partners Vita & Twiggy in September.

Training run views in Portland, UK! 2012 Olympic waters in October.

Friendsgiving dinner with our dear friends in Vilamoura, Portugal in November

Light wind training days, ending with team tow foiling for sunset with our Norwegian training partners in November.

Training at the trials venue, just off of South Beach in Miami, FL! Rocket ship!

More memories to be made in 2024...

Vilamoura Team Update: Happy Thanksgiving!

We are so incredibly grateful to all of you... our dearest subscribers for following and supporting our journey!

A bit of a team update...

For the past few months we have been hard at work chipping away at hours on the water. We spent a lot of time training in the breeze in Weymouth, UK as you could see per our last email. We headed off to Vilamoura, Portugal for a final training block overseas. A 2 day ferry crossing and a long drive later, we were met in Vilamoura by some very light winds, which proved to be fruitful conditions to contrast our breezy training in the UK.

Massive thanks to our training partners and coach, Carl Fock!

We were very happy to have our friends and training partners over for dinner on our final night to host a Friendsgiving, and show them what an American Thanksgiving is all about! Most importantly to be able to thank them all for the friendship and kindness they have all given us throughout this past year. We showed up earlier this year to Palma with a bare bone hull, no tools, no sails... and thanks to these guys we were able to make things work, and then some! We've been away from home a lot this year. Louisa's been overseas since April! This is one of the most challenging parts of doing an Olympic campaign, but we are lucky enough to have made such great friends abroad. Special thank you to these guys for making us feel at home regardless of what country we train in, especially the Heathcote family who has basically taken us in as their own in between training blocks at the Warborne farm in the UK.

A final goodbye to the chickens before heading back to the States!

Now after transporting our kit back North for storage over the winter, we have finally returned home! Incredibly grateful to make it home in time to spend Thanksgiving with our families before returning to training in Miami-- our final push before the US Olympic trials in January!

This period is necessary to gain familiarity with our trials venue, and also do some in-person fundraising to help us cover the costs of our new boat we are recieving for the trials! We are excited to be "home" and get all of our ducks in a row before the big event. We will be hosting some in-person fundraisers very soon, and once we know all of the final details we will be sure to share! Stay tuned!

In the meantime, if you'd like to support our efforts please consider donating to our GoFundMe page directly, or making a tax deductible donation via the Sailing Foundation of New York. Every bit helps at the moment! We have some big costs upcoming in preparation for the trials.. new boat, new sails, coaching, housing, etc.

Additionally if you or your company would like to sponsor us, and have your logo printed on our sails for the trials please reach out to us!

Thank you to the St. Francis Sailing Foundation and Sailing Foundation of New York for supporting athletes like us in following our dreams. More to come!