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Check back for daily updates, adventures, and unique perspectives from Katie, as she joins Quantum Racing as the newest crew member at the Audi MedCup. Hello, everyone! Well, it's been about a month since I was named the winner of Quantum's Live the Dream contest, and I am SO AMPED to go to Portugal on Thursday. Last week, I got to meet Terry Hutchinson, the helmsman of Quantum Racing's TP-52 and arguably the best helmsman in the world (I wasn't nervous at all, haha). We talked about the race, the boat, the contest, and my experiences in Iraq as a soldier in the United States Army. I think for every question I had about the MedCup, he had at least 3 about my experiences in the military. I never thought I was so interesting, but I guess a girl who knows how to rebuild diesel engines, fire a wide array of weapons, repel off towers, navigate her way through a forest with nothing but a map and compass, treat combat wounds, sail a boat from Point A to Point B, and still manage to throw in a pirouette on the dance floor every so often would have a few things to talk about. Of course, that's what got me to the here and now, at least. Living The Dream: August 13th, Departure Day Share Thursday, August 13, 2009 at 3:41pm Last minute thoughts: As my roommates were rushing out the door this morning to get to work, they paused to wish me luck and to tell me to stay safe. One of my roommates had made us coffee as we got ready for our day, and she was asking me a few last minute questions as we ran around. It's always funny to me to answer questions from people who don't have any experience with sailing, but then I realized that my roommates don't sail nor do they know anyone besides me who races sailboats. That being said, I just want to quickly stress how happy I am that Quantum is giving me the opportunity to be a forerunner in raising awareness of this sport in the United States. One question I always hate to answer is "What do you get when you win?". What an American ideal it is to automatically tack a tangible prize, most often a dollar amount, to a competition. I never know exactly how to answer this question because as crew on a boat, I've never really won anything tangible. I'm competitive enough to not need a dollar sign attached to my 1st place trophies in my extracurricular. I'm simply entertained with our Boat of the Day burgee, half the time. Those things are fun. Ok, so things are a lot different in the world of professional sailing, but maybe with a little more American knowledge of the sport, my conversations wouldn't go quickly from trying to explain sailboat racing to trying to explain the America's Cup because it's the only race anyone knows anything about. It makes no sense, really. Our sport has sponsorships and posters and the Olympics and campaigns and fundraisers and entire magazines and world rankings and uniforms and championships, yet my friends who don't sail are convinced I'm out for a leisurely stroll along the Chesapeake Bay when I'm really choreographing every move I make to try to get to each sheet and halyard and cleat in time to ensure our boat is fast enough to round the next mark first. We have specific gear; non-marking soles, padded hiking shorts, neoprene dinghy boots, foul weather gear, tech shirts ... but half the marine stores on the East Coast don't even carry anything for us except for gloves and belts with sailboats on them. That's fine though, I love my sailboat belt. This is one consideration about Quantum Sails that I've always liked; their ads have always portrayed the ATHLETICISM of the sport, which is an ideal Americans can relate to. Like the ad about the turtle. The turtle is my least favorite animal, too! I HATE slow! My driving record can prove it (hardee har har). Simply, I'm thrilled that I get to be a part of a team that is dedicated to illustrating the athleticism, sportsmanship, and competition that many people don't recognize with sailing, and hopefully people will recognize what we are doing out there on the water and relate to it with their own competitive drive. I know my family and friends will. See you guys in Portugal. Living The Dream: August 15, Morning Share Sat at 12:05pm Hey guys, we got here yesterday to Portugal. It was a long day of travel, so I didn't have a chance to write an update. We flew a total of 10 hours, with a layover where I met Terry, Greg, Jimbo, and Andrew for coffee and race banter. We landed in Faro, Portugal and took a cab from the airport to our hotel in Portimao. It's on the same harbor where the boats are docked, which is pretty convenient early in the morning. When I got here yesterday, the guys gave me a tour of the boat and Quantum “base” where we do our sailwork. I also got to meet everyone else on the team, and had dinner with some of the guys on the shore crew: Marty, Chris, Gerry, and Chimo. Chimo actually built the boat, so it was really cool to meet him and get the ultimate insider look on things. I'm not going to lie, I'm a little overwhelmed! Everything is so much more advanced here than anything I've ever gotten to do! I'm pretty excited about going out for a practice today and seeing how everything works. I got to do a little work with the sails and battens yesterday with Skip and Marty, our sail maker, to see how the sails are made. It's really interesting, and when we're out there sailing it'll be a little more fluid for me as I now know more about the technology behind the boat. I'm definitely looking forward to it, and I'm looking forward to being able to share my experience with you guys. And it's going to be a lot of fun! Hopefully you'll get to see more coverage of us out here as we get internet access; we have none yet, so I'm doing this from an iphone! Good talking to you guys- I'm heading over to the boat to go out for practice and I'll give you another update later. Bye! Katie Living The Dream: Portugal, Day 1.5 – My TP-52 Debut Share Yesterday at 7:14am So, the guys on the Quantum team are not at all arrogant about being the bomb. They have incredibly low-key and accessible personalities, and I am often put at ease and made to feel as if I belong, not that I'm just some girl who won some contest. Each sailor on the team is strikingly accomplished; it is significant and opportunistic to learn from them. I am going to be a MUCH better sailor when I leave here, for sure. Today I learned how to do the woolies (yarn ties) on their spinnakers with Phil Jameson, who was on the winning boat of the Volvo Ocean Race this year, and Greg Gendell, who is also a Whitbread and America's cups under his belt. I feel a little foolish working next to people who could do this kind of stuff ten times over in the time it takes me to do it once, but I'm glad for the training and experience. These guys are really quite unpretentious. I don't know, but if I competed in races like the Volvo Ocean Race and the America's Cup, I'd probably plaster my name in giant letters on everything. I'd also bring back Hammer Pants in the United States, because oh yes, they are back in style over here in Europe. If you think I'm lying, guess what? I'm not. The boat is AWESOME, by the way - I'm in love! Actually, I was a little nervous to go for my first sail on the TP-52, but it turned out to be a good day to get acclimated to the boat, simply because the lack of wind allowed me to see how the systems work in slow motion. I at least got a sense of movement, for when the wind does decide to show its pretty face here in Portimao. Minimally, getting out on the water today showed me that a boat is a boat, and I shouldn't be nervous. The team doesn't intend to leave me ill prepared or displaced, and I've already learned what not to step on and where not to put my hands - I do tend to learn those things pretty fast, anyways. Until next time- KB Hey everyone – Well, the last 2 days have been spent watching for breeze; we went out to the shore to look for it, we went up the rig to look for it, we took the power boat out to look for it. Basically, we sat on the edge of our seats waiting for any little inclination of just enough wind to get some good practice. While we waited for wind, we did sail work, boat work, cleaning, and I waited patiently for my combat-veteran laptop (I'm not the only combat veteran out here, you know) to pick up the highly anticipated wireless internet so I can send all of you updates. So here goes: Yesterday, we went out in the late afternoon to get some quick practice starts in and hoist some sails. The wind was slight, but we at least had a chance to do some starts and I at least had the opportunity to get me more acclimated to the boat. It's so funny that I keep talking about “getting acclimated to the boat”, but I really don't have any other way to express myself. In the Army, I was always getting acclimated to a new environment, a new unit, a new rank, a new situation, a new tactical procedure, a new element, a new manual, a new vehicle, a new regulation, a new uniform … even a new chain of command required acclimation. So, when I step onto a new boat, I have to at least think of things in terms of getting acclimated. It really doesn't take me as long as I talk about it; simply, halyards here, sheets there, backstay whatnot, don't jump over the tiller, watch the grinders, the spin sheets run fast, and don't get in the way of the instruments. Other than that, I can't mess up as long as I listen carefully for crew weight and don't get my fingers caught up in any blocks. Simple enough. There is a lot of room on the boat to move around and not get in each other's way too much, so that is good. Today, Monday, we went out in the late afternoon to do some practice races with the other teams. Our official practice race is tomorrow, but it never hurts to set up some friendly matches. I loved our set-up; we would do 3 practice starts, and on our 3rd start we would all race to a windward mark about 2 miles up, and then come back down for a finish. We did this program 3 times, and it worked well because we got some repetitive practice with one of the trickiest parts of sailboat racing: the start. You can never go wrong with practicing starts. So now we have a collective 12 practice starts and 4 practice races, some time raising various sails and figuring out which ones will work best for us out here, and some good team-building (and a lot of figuring out where I fit best); we are set to go out for our practice race tomorrow and see what racing in Portugal really has to offer. I hear that the breeze is supposed to come in nicely for us on Wednesday, which will be great since that is the 1st day of actual racing. Personally, I am hoping for at least 1 day of good, strong wind so I can really see what the boat has to offer, but so far I have absolutely zero complaints; even in what wind we have had, it has been a lot of fun. Oh, and the rail is pretty sweet; I could hang off it all day. Why aren't there more boats out there like this one?! Katlyn Burns "Behind me the world, ahead of me my world." -Mourid Barghouti Ok, so I know that my written updates have been sparse since I got here, but the fact is that in the last week I have been swept up into the world of professional sailboat racing in such a way that I hardly have the words to describe my experience. “Whoah” may not be the best word, but it's the first one that comes to mind, anyways. After getting some good practice in, our official races began on Wednesday, with a great day out on the water for us. We finished first overall for the day! However, the wind didn't work in our favor the next day, and in our first race we got stuck out on the wrong side of a wind shift. That's ok, we came back the next race with a solid performance, scoring third place, sailing at about 18 knots on our downwind legs. Sailing 18 knots is fun in its own right, so performing well at 18 knots is a blast, and rightfully so! Today was our coastal race. Our course was laid with a total distance of 27 miles, which included 8 legs, each leg offering different variables of direction and wind angles. Although I spent the majority of the race hiking, it was awesome to round each mark and do something completely different on the new leg. We put up all kinds of sails and used all kinds of tactics to fight for each mark rounding. And fight we did, as we came out of our first leeward (downwind) mark behind many of the other boats. We were able to press on the other boats on our reaches (the legs where we sailed across the wind as opposed to up or down), picking up speed with our “Code Zero” deployed, which is a headsail that extends all the way from the masthead to the bow of the boat, maximizing sail area and maintaining the ability to sail in the direction of the mark as fast as possible. Now, I'm paraphrasing this for all the non sailors, but that is pretty much how it works. On our final leg, we sailed along the coastline … it was so cool to see the cliffs up close. We could actually look into the caves as we were hiking out on the rail. The water here is such a vibrant sapphire color that it hardly gets old staring at it as it rushes by below me, but a change of scenery after 20 something miles was more than welcome. Finishing the coastal race, although a relatively short distance race, was a great feeling. We sailed for 3 hours on that course, but because we were fighting so hard and because the course was varied, it really didn't feel like that long. We were really thirsty, though, for sure! Now we are in third place overall for the regatta, and hope to come back tomorrow with a really good day to get further up in the rankings. We have five more races to go in the next two days, and I am amped to get out there and sail fast as much as possible before I have to leave. Right now, I am sitting on the balcony of my hotel room, which is right on the docks where all the MedCup boats are. It is so nice out tonight, and the marina is gorgeous. Someone is playing Celine Dion very loudly on their boat, and I mean Celine Dion as in the Titanic theme song era. I haven't heard Celine Dion in years. In closing, I've made a list of advice for anyone who is interested in professional sailing. Here it is:

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