Canadian Yingling teams contest Rolex Miami OCR

by Lynn Fitzpatrick on 31 Jan 2008 The Yngling World Championships are just around the corner and some teams have their work cut out for them. Canada, which has not yet qualified for the Olympics, has two teams registered for the 28-boat Rolex Miami Olympic Classes Regatta, the Grade 1 event that is the prelude to the Yngling World Championship that will be held on Biscayne Bay from February 8-15.

That’s right! It has been years since there has been an Yngling fleet approaching that size gathered in North America. The unanticipated entry is that of Tine Moberg-Parker, Sarah Marshall and Cressida Robson. Moberg-Parker and Marshall are coming out of Olympic class retirement to sail their first Yngling regatta together. Tine Moberg-Parker was Canada’s single-handed Europe Dinghy sailor at the 1996 Olympics and Sarah Marshall was the crew of the Marshall/Stamper Women’s 470 team at the 1992 Olympics.

What has happened since 1996, and why has this interesting trio come together over the past four months in Miami? All of the women sailed throughout the 1990’s and into the 21st century, although jobs, families, life and a bit of elite sailing have kept them away from Olympic class competition. Cressida Robson, the bow woman, was the one who seeded the idea months ago and made it happen. Robson has been sailing the Yngling for the past eighteen months with a different driver and middle person. Her sister, Genevieve Robson, has been managing logistics throughout the campaign. Robson, who is a marketing director at an international Public relations firm, is determined to achieve her dream of going to the Olympics.

Moberg-Parker and Marshall, committed mothers and Canadian women’s keelboat champions, reorganized their lives during January and February so that they could learn how to sail the Yngling, satisfy their hardly dormant passion for competitive sailing and assist their driven kindred spirit in attaining her Olympic goal. The team has had three separate weeklong training sessions in Miami and recently and added fellow North America, Elizabeth Kratzig to their coaching staff. They are looking forward to the Rolex Miami OCR to see how much they have to tweak the formula during this regatta and during the days right before the 2008 Yngling World Championships. One thing that they don’t want to have happen is for Robson to tweak her already fragile back.

However, if that happens, their backup plan is to have Gen jump from the coach boat to the bow and into the hobbles and the harness. After all, she has been helping her sister every step of the way. “I am completely comfortable with putting her on the bow even though she hasn’t set foot in the boat. She has been here every step of the way. She knows what she is doing and has been observing us as if we were under a microscope this entire practice session,” said Cressida.

The women look relaxed and all set to go after having climbed a steep learning curve. Moberg-Parker and Marshall have a different perspective on the next two weeks than many of the Yngling teams that were formed over the past three and a half years. They are excited to get an opportunity to get back into high-performance sailing in their backyard. Family, friends, career associates and other mothers, whether they are career moms or in the job pool will be keeping tabs on this team. It will be interesting to watch both Canadian teams’ efforts to become one of the final 4 Yngling teams to qualify for the 15-boat fleet at the 2008 Olympics.

After their first three days of racing together, Sarah Marshall commented, “we’re really happy with our upwind speed. We’re slow off the wind, but we’re learning a lot.” So far, the team has accomplished much of what they have set out to do and they still have plenty of time to figure out how to go fast off the breeze.