One thing that made it so nice was that Lake Garda is particularly beautiful, with valleys, mountains thousands of feet high, and teal waters that are probably as deep as the mountains are tall. It was also partly because the other nine members of the team and my coach Ben Williams were really fun to be around and gave me a good challenge to sail against. A bunch of times our team joined up with the Danish, Swiss or Polish teams for practicing starts or races. I have a lot of good memories from the practice days, including eating margarita pizza at my favorite waterside restaurant, watching a waterfall in a cave from our Optis, and sailing underneath the mountains beside the lake.
The wind did the same thing every day, staying at about seven knots from the North until around twelve o’clock as we headed out, then doing a sudden 180 degree shift to the south, picking up to about ten or fifteen knots within an hour.
About 830 sailors participated in the Championship. The first three days were the “qualifying series,” with all boats put into four different color streamers (consisting of about 200 per fleet). On the last day, we were broken up into four fleets – Gold, Silver, Bronze and Emerald. Four of the U.S.A. sailors made it into the Gold Fleet (including myself), four made it into Silver and two into Bronze.
I finished second American overall – first American girl! – placing 85th in Gold. I had so much fun spending a lot of time with my teammates on and off the water. Some really fun things I’ll remember were watching the sunrise while sailing on the lake, eating gelato almost every night (Ben), driving our rental car smack through the middle of a piazza, and making many new friends. Whether we were driving four hours in the wrong direction to the Milan airport (trying desperately to read Italian road signs!) or eating pizza on the water for the first time, it all seemed so memorable. I would like to thank Ben Williams, my coach for this regatta, and all of my teammates and the parents for helping me along the way! ✦
Cally Tullo, 14, sails with Team LOST in Long Beach Island, NJ in the summer, sometimes coached by her two brothers. During the winter, spring, and fall, she practices every weekend with LISOT.
