Destination Florence: on stage with Womanzeta!

I’ve been back home in the US now for ten days after a month in Brittany, France, for UpWind by MerConcept. And I got to go sailing! But more of that in a moment …

It was amazing to be in Concarneau, to meet the 16 shortlisted candidates from around the world, and to hear more about their lives and experiences in sailing. I’m so proud of all of them for applying, for putting themselves out there, and throwing everything they had into four days of selection trials. It was a really tough decision, so much so that we chose seven rather than the original plan of six. I’m really looking forward to sailing with our squad over the coming season Ocean Fifty racing. 

And I went sailing! When I tore my ACL just six weeks ago, there were some dark days when I thought I might not be able to sail at all this year. But with a bionic knee brace, some careful movement around the boat, and a lot of PT, my knee has, so far held up.

The team at MerConcept has done a brilliant job refitting the boat over the winter and the Ocean Fifty looks beautiful. I’m really looking forward to going racing at the end of May.

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Before I headed back home to the US I did a quick trip to Florence, Italy, invited as a guest of Womanzeta, an incredible organization that brings together women for a conference all about personal and business growth. 

Their mission is to create an event that is built by women, for women, and to share ideas and knowledge that women can bring to their own lives and work. It was great to be surrounded by women from all over Italy and from all kinds of work. There were lots of discussions on the differences between men and women and how to be aware of and work together with these different functions, to run projects well and create the most successful team. Having just come from the UpWind trials it was inspiring to hear wisdom from all around the room of over 300 people - and with such an incredible vibe.

The audience was quite young and Rachel, the organizer, created the event to empower women to feel safe and therefore give them the confidence to open up. Having been to conferences where it feels like you are the only woman in the room and how this can impact how you behave, whether you speak or not, and how you interact with a predominantly male audience, it was really exciting to see and feel the energy in the room.

I went on stage and was asked to share my experience in The Ocean Race, as well as my new partnership with 11th Hour Racing. It was a very proud moment to be able to share the great work 11th Hour Racing is doing in both climate and social sustainability, and their commitment to broaden their work creating more equity in the sport that I love. 

A big part of what I spoke about was what I call the Risk/Reward: how to manage risky situations, and still be successful.

Sailing has tons of similarities with both business and life overall, we do hard things, in hard environments, and the goal is to be successful and come back home safely each and every time. 

One of the biggest pieces of advice I gave to the audience was to think about preparation because if preparation is done well, then the risk is more manageable. Sport, business, and life all have inherent risk factors but we can minimize them by working on our preparation, protocols, and training, and then embracing that risk and using it as a tool to stay focused in the hard moments.

Other speakers like Mara Santangelo (former Pro tennis player), Flavia Carieri (Real Estate expert), Michelle Piters (professional motivational speaker), and more shared their experiences in life, and business and gave motivational speeches.

It was amazing to be able to have lunch with some of the attendees and I got a lot of questions about offshore sailing, how it is to be a woman in such a male-driven sport, and how the new project with Upwind will promote more equity in the sport.

I really enjoy sharing my experience and stories with a big audience and get real energy from it. At Womanzeta there were people who came from so many different backgrounds and most had never heard about sailing before. I received a lot of nice words of encouragement for the months ahead and hopefully more followers of the sport!!

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Next up, I’m back to Concarneau for a month with UpWind, culminating in our first event in St Malo. I can’t wait to be back out sailing regularly again.