US National Sailing Team

US SAILING NAMES 2005 US NATIONAL SAILING TEAM

Here are the Laserites--ladies first.

Laser Radial
1. Paige Railey (Clearwater, Fla.)
2. Anna Tunnicliffe (Norfolk, Va.)
3. Leah Hoepfner (Corpus Christi, TX)
4. Lindsay Buchan (Seattle, Wash.)
5. Stephanie Roble (East Troy, Wis.)
Laser
1. Brad Funk (Belleair Bluffs, Fla.)
2. Andrew Campbell (San Diego, Calif.)
3. John Pearce (Ithaca, N.Y.)
4. Ryan Minth (New York, N.Y.)
5. Matthew Sterett (Corpus Christi, TX)

Last but not least is our very own Matthew Sterett, who frequently posts at TLF. Congratulations, Matt! Thanks for hanging out and giving us excellent advice. Please keep it coming.

In fact, would you mind gving us a bit of your sailing history, training and fitness regimen, and the like? Anything to help us poor beginners along.

Fair winds and best of luck on the US Sailing Team!

Merrily and TLF


P.S. Ryan Minth has posted in the past, as well. He is simply known as "Ryan."

I would like to point out that while making the sailing team is an accomplishment, I made it in an off year.

"sailing history, training and fitness regimen, and the like? Anything to help us poor beginners along"

I raced optis, laser radials, and bytes from age 11. I did not begin to race relatively competitively until the summer of 2002. I sailed radials unitl I hit the 165-185 lbs range in 2004.

I could be in much better shape and I am undersized at 168 lbs. If I go through a couple of weeks where I do little sailing, then I try to stay physically active by biking and basketball. In Corpus Christi Texas, we have over 15 knots of wind about 14 out of every 15 days, and it gets too cold to sail maybe two weeks a year, so sailing is a good and frequent workout.

I have had probably the best coach possible in Todd Fedyszyn; I don't there is any substitute for his coaching - at the beginning of 2002, I couldn't sail wind shifts up a race course.

Advice - Coaching, videos, and articles on laser sailing all make a huge difference. For sailors without coaching, go to clinics. One piece of information that I got off the Rooster Sailing site that I try to apply in almost every regatta is to sail the shifts over clear lanes. I find that avoiding the ends of the starting line allows you to do this best.