SailJuice Blog

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.… Read the rest

Interesting quote from Michele Ivaldi, the navigator on Torbjorn Tornqvist’s TP52 Artemis, about the difference between sailing with Russell Coutts and Paul Cayard, who’s Coutts’s stand-in at this week’s Audi MedCup in Cagliari.

“Paul is more analytical. He is more focussed on the numbers. We have established a good work on analysing the performance every day. Russell is a lot more instinctive. Russell’s style is very different and he talks a lot to Torbjorn, he has taught him a lot and made Torbjorn learn a lot, it is always great with Russell on board. Paul tends to let them (the crew) do the speed work themselves and talks a little less with Torbjorn.”

I’ve had some interesting chats with Cayard over the years. He has some great, simple advice. Here’s one on how to make difficult decisions quickly.… Read the rest