SailJuice Blog

© Audi MedCup: Katie Burns in front of her latest bit of military hardware

Katie Burns is sailing on board the TP52 Quantum Racing at the Audi MedCup regatta in Portugal this week.

She has never raced with Terry Hutchinson and Co. before, and she has only club level racing experience. So why’s she sailing on the reigning World Champion boat? Because the 24-year-old won Quantum Sails’  ‘Living the Dream’ contest.

Burns only recently left the US military, so she’s used to stressful conditions, but she was still nervous as she said in this piece from the official Audi MedCup website:

Any challenge by fire was not from stress or activity pressed on to Burns but from from the fierce sunshine on the relatively still waters off Praia da Rocha

She signed up for military service as an 18 year old, straight from school, and saw active service in Iraq. Her winning short, pithy essay came out on top of nearly 900 entries with a high percentage of the public vote. Her account of life on the front line in Iraq was a sharp reminder of action under real pressure, and how it is still possible to raise a smile, even when you are under mortar attack.

http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=119952156338&ref=mf (Katie’s Essay)

Katie (or Big Cup Katie as she’s known to her sizeable fan base in the USA) took her first baby steps on Quantum Racing on Saturday.

“ I’ve just been learning the lines, the drills and what is going to be expected of me, where I am going to be sitting.” She smiled after a gentle day sail testing off Portimao, “ So far what I think my objective is mostly to just be here and to share the experience, to come off the boat and raise awareness of the sport and the team. Obviously not everyone is ever going to get this opportunity and hope I can share it with everyone.”

“ My first impression is of the camaraderie which is evident on the team. Everyone knows each other, their families, and knows everything which is going on with each other. It builds better team cohesion, simply because they know each other so well and how every person ticks. You see that a lot in the military.”

For the rest of the Katie Burns interview, CLICK HERE…

Talking of camaraderie, Hutchinson is very big on communication and team cohesion, and we’ve done a number of interviews with Terry on the sister site to SailJuice Blog.

You can find a selection of Terry’s insights by CLICKING HERE…

Some of it is open access and some of it is members only.

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