Team Australia Challenge was able to gain a highly valuable entry in the inaugural Women’s Foiling Gold Cup in Lake Garda on the 69F mono hull at the end of August, enabling 5 female athletes who were currently in European competition to come together as a team for Australia in this competition. The athletes reported it was an incredible experience, competing against 9 teams from 8 nations who are mostly also fielding women’s America’s Cup teams in Barcelona 2024.
Australian sailors Olivia Price, Tash Bryant, Lucy Copeland, Zoe Thomson and Lisa Darmanin represented Team Australia Challenge competing against teams from New Zealand, USA, Germany, Canada, Italy, France, Spain and the Netherlands.
Australia champion sailor Lisa Darmanin summed up some of the experience for the team:
“The opportunity to sail the 69f in Garda was super exciting, it was first time we came together as a group towards the big goal next year and feels like the start of something big.
It was fantastic to sail with all the other girls and discover all our strengths and weakness and learn off each other as best we can.
The 69f was a great boat to kick off our foiling experience as a team, coming from different backgrounds we had a lot of learning to do but the reaching starts were fantastic and the team-work required to get the most out of the boat was critical. We had big developments in communication and what we want to work on moving forward – can’t wait to take these learnings into the AC40 simulator and do more foiling racing with the other great Australian female sailors.”
Lucy Copeland said the Lake Garda experience was a lot of fun and learning:
“It was the first time any of us had been on the boat and the first time any of us had sailed together which brought some exciting elements to the regatta. Learning to sail a new boat meant a lot of problem solving between each training session and race to better our performances and I think as a team we came together to improve over the regatta. It was really nice to sail in a bunch of different pairings and learn each other’s strengths and styles of sailing.”
Carolyn Grant
