Taking A Breather During A Windy Session. Image copyright John Payne, March 2010.
by Anna Tunnicliffe
Team Tunnicliffe has just wrapped up almost two weeks of travel, speaking and training. During the past 14 days, we participated in the kickoff of the USSTAG National Speaking Tour in Conneticut and Massachusetts, the Rolex US Yachtswoman of the Year Awards luncheon in New York, and training here in Miami.
After we got back to Florida from the USSTAG National Speaking Tour, we were scheduled to do three days of training, before heading back up to New York for the Rolex Yachtswoman/man Of The Year Awards luncheon. We had two fantastic days of practice, the first day in light air by ourselves, and the second day with another boat, helping us focus on boat speed.
At The Rolex Yachtswoman/man Of The Year Awards, New York Yacht Club, NY. Image copyright Joanna Tunnicliffe, February 2010.
After this second great day of sailing, we received an email informing us that our flights for the following evening up to New York had been cancelled, owing to the snow storm scheduled to hit the north east area. After a quick panic of what we were going to do about the flight, we ended up at the airport getting our flights rescheduled for first thing the next day, Thursday; unfortunately this meant having to miss our third day of training.
Up in New York, we had a great time. After arriving early into the city, Debbie decided to head home for the rest of the day, and Molly, Brad, and I walked around Times Square to check it out. Despite getting thoroughly cold and wet, it was raining/sleeting/snowing, we had a good time visiting the M&M shop, the Hershey shop, and then, warming up at Starbucks. My parents arrived later in the afternoon and we met up with them for dinner.
Friday morning, Molly, Brad, my mum and I had tickets to the Good Morning America show. Very early, we woke up to a white New York City, a result of which, luckily for us, kept the crowds away and from coming out to the morning shows. Because the crowd at GMA was small, we were given the full tour of the studio, and even got a shout out and camera time for being on the USSTAG. It was great to meet the presenters and to see the workings of the show.
GMA Studio, Anna, Robin Roberts and Molly. Image copyright Joanna Tunnicliffe, February 2010.
After GMA, I headed back to my hotel to get ready for the luncheon, and to practice my acceptance speech. We arrived at the New York Yacht Club around 11am and the program started around 11:30am. It was a very gracious affair, MC'd by Gary Jobson. He and his crew had put together a video that introduced Bora Gulari (the male recipient of the award) and me. After that, and a tasty lunch, Dean Brenner gave a very kind and thoughtful introduction of me. I accepted my award, and then gave my speech, a bit nervous, but got through it. After a nice afternoon and evening with my teammates (including Liz Bower) and family, we headed to bed early so we could start training again on Saturday afternoon.
Molly, Debbie, Liz and I flew back to Florida. Our coach, Dave Dellenbaugh was on our flight down, and we met Maegan Ruhlman, and Tim Wadlow down in Miami. We had three good days of sailing where we were able to work all day long on match racing skills, from 10am through 11pm. We practiced small moves, up to full pre-starts. We learned a great deal during the three days and are happy with where our program is going. Alice Manard joined us on Monday morning to sail with us too. Maegan and Tim had to leave Monday night. The last couple of days we supposed to practice too, but were blown out. Instead we did a lot of discussing on land and made the best of it as we could.
Team Tunnicliffe and Coach Dave Dellenbaugh. Image copyright John Payne, March 2010.
We would like to give a huge thank you to Tim, Alice, and Maegan for coming down to train with us, and to Dave for coaching us.
We have a couple of weeks off before we head to Colorado Springs for a USSTAG Physical Camp, and then back here to Miami for a four-day training session with the girls from New Zealand. From there we head to Palma, Spain for the Princess Sofia Trofeo, the next stop on the ISAF Sailing World Cup series.
Team Tunnicliffe
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