As said in previous posts, the Canada’s Cup team has been training hard over the past months, and the countdown is on. With only a few more opportunities to have the A and B teams out practicing, here is some input from the ‘village’ team members who won’t be on Defiant on September 2nd.
There are many people behind the scenes—I’m Lianne Phillipson who has been writing these blog posts, interviewing Paul L’Heureux, David Howard and John Hele, Bob Hesse and shooting the videos to keep you updated. Sara Morton has been an integral behind-the-scenes member of the team organising who sails on which boat, on the off-training nights with members of the B team and the younger sailors on Thursdays.
Here is Sara’s experience from this season:
Just back from the Tokyo Olympics, Sarah Douglas was out on Tuesday night this past week and got to experience a keel boat with a whole lot more crew than she’s used to (and congratulations Sarah—you made Canada proud). Here she is with her experience on Vigilant.
Although she’s not out on the water, Paul’s partner, Stefanie Laurence brought back the batons from Newport on a recent trip, and she shared this photo and about her experience:
"They say it takes a village to raise a child. And we know that it takes a team to race a boat. But sometimes it takes the kindness of strangers to race a boat too."
The official race sails for Defiant were to make the journey from Newport to Toronto along with the battens, one of which is almost 9’ long. The plan was for Paul to bring them back when he was driving back from Newport, after a trip south of the border to put his cruising boat in the water after a year on the hard. But the land border remained closed and he ended up flying. So plan B was to ship them up to Toronto. The small hitch though, the shipping company would not take the battens.
No one at the airline, either in person or on the phone, could tell us if the longest batten would even fit in the hold of the CRJ9000 plane, since it far exceeded their listed allowable excess baggage size, and what would we do with them if they were refused at the airport?
Thankfully, after explaining what they were, and how important they were, the Air Canada agent even helped to securely wrap them in bubble wrap and called TSA to hand carry them for inspection instead of going on the luggage belt! I watched them be loaded as the last item into the cargo hold and be the first item off the plane in Toronto.
The final hurdle ... would they fit in the airport limo home? After they called for the largest SUV with seats folded down the battens squeaked in on a diagonal. The driver was even ready to poke them through the flap in his Covid screen if necessary.
All along the way, from the check-in staff to customs agents to airport staff and even other travellers, when they heard what was being carried the universal response was “Go Team Canada!”
So from all the strangers who were part of this journey to support our team, Go Canada!
Two B team members kindly offered their words of encouragement to the team and have had a tremendous experience out on the IC37s.
Tony Bowman Canada’s Cup winner from 2011 when the team won it back from the Americans, and involved in 2017 and now 2021 shared some inspiration too:
Scott Cuthbertson also asked to chime in too.
As you can see, the support for the team from far and wide exceeds what you see on the boat. It really does take a village.