Attacks of the Big Green Monsters

by Anna Tunnicliffe on 25 Jun 2008 Anna Tunnicliffe reports from Kiel, Germany at the conclusion of her training camp.

Hello Everyone,

This report covers two continents, from Qingdao where I wrapped up a two-week training camp, to Kiel, Germany, where I’m preparing to race at the annual Grade One Kieler Woche Regatta.

Training in Qingdao went well, with sunny and foggy days and plenty of attacks from the 'big green sea monsters' – whole islands of seaweed scattered around Fusan Bay. Seaweed harvesting is big business along the coast and it seems that offshore storms pushed the weed into the waters from the eastern end of the course to the Olympic venue.

There are many companies here that process seaweed. Just one, the Qingdao Gather Great Ocean Seaweed Industry Co., Ltd., is the largest comprehensive seaweed-processing private enterprise in China, producing hundreds of tons of sodium alginate, iodine, carrageenin, alginic acid, and seaweed fertilizer every year.

For a week, the boats collecting the weed were everywhere, working in groups of five to seven, raking the weed alongside, and hoisting it aboard. The dock where they landed it was just outside the harbor and the boats would wait there patiently until it was their turn to enter the dropoff area.
[Sorry, this content could not be displayed]
The boats had very loud diesel engines. We had one practice near the harbor entrance because the fog limited visibility to 30 meters. The whole time we could hear the thudding of diesels that contributed to the headaches we were getting from the light, choppy conditions. Actually it was good practice for the helicopters we can expect during the Olympics.

My training over the last seven days was great. I did some one-on-one stuff with coaches Luther Carpenter and Mitch Brindley and training partner Brad Funk, also some great training with my group plus Lisa Ross from Canada and Tania Calles from Mexico We also joined in some racing with the French team, the British team, the German team, the Italian, Greek, and one or two more. I got out of it what I had hoped to get out of it and feel much more comfortable now in those conditions, leading into the games.

With training wrapped up in China, Mitch and I got on a plane on June 21, headed here to Kiel. We flew to from Beijing to Frankfurt, where we unexpectedly met up with Tania, who apparently had missed her flight the day before due to a delay by one of her airplanes.

From Frankfurt, we flew to Hamburg where my British cousin Harriette Trumble and her boyfriend Johnny picked us up and drove all three of us up to Kiel, a 45-minute drive north of Hamburg on the Baltic Sea. Harriette had done a great job and found us an apartment about 40 yards from the venue. After a long night’s sleep we had a relaxing day, checking out the venue and taking a 40 minute run along the harbor’s edge. Then I helped Mitch with dinner which was pasta, veggies and fish.

The plan for today is to relax again and sort out the coach boat for Mitch. My Laser arrives tonight so I will get that tomorrow morning. Then I am doing a TV shoot with Zach Railey, our USA Olympic representative in the Finn, for Tiva TV. They are doing an Olympic series where they are focusing on different athletes from different sports and doing a short video journal. As soon as I get the link to its finished product, I’ll forward it on to everyone.

Racing starts on Wednesday. There are three races a day scheduled with a medal race on the last day for a total of 13 races. Right now the forecast looks great for the week so I’m very excited to compete. I will have nightly updates during the event, and you can also follow along here.

I would like to thank my sponsor Carmeuse for their continued support in my campaign for the Olympic Gold. You can see their website at www.carmeusena.com. My website is www.annatunnicliffe.com.

Sail hard,
Anna