This is why I will return to sailing at the Women’s World Championship

By Sarah Barbarossa

And now I am here again, after several years, sailing on my snipe, which gave me a lot of satisfaction in the past. I thought that it was a finished experience, instead I am on stage again! Because I can’t lose this chance: the Women’s Championship in Italy again after 16 years! I went to Uruguay and Roquetas in Spainto participate in the Championship, and every time we were always the only Italian team in the foreign country. Now we are at home! We can sail near our family and our friends, let’s take this opportunity!

When we competed in Uruguay, we were supported by our family/friends using Skype and e-mail, and the organization was excellent. However, we were suddenly catapulted from a European winter, into a South American summer with 35°C days and scorching sun causing headaches that wouldn’t let us sleep during night because of the tremendous thirst. Now the climate change doesn’t hurt us!

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I partecipated in several Olympic Classes World’s Championship, and I immediatly noted the difference between Snipe’s Championship: to be part of a big family – friendly greetings, people helping each other for the location and for the charter boat tuning, things which didn’t happen at the Europe Class World’s. But during the races I saw aggressive and competitive snipe sailors, people who attended and won Olympic Games (A. Tunnicliffe for example, who arrived from China to Spain in 2008 with the gold medal on her neck or the Chilean skipper, another olympic sailor, who sailed with her daugther as crew).

This is the reason I’ll come back sailing in the Women’s World Championship, because I don’t want to lose all of this, because in the future, I want one of my daughters to attend the Worlds (if she wants and if she doesn’t prefer doing another sport like dance…), because I just want to try to improve previous 4th places, because the important thing isn’t just to partcipate, but doing the best sailing and in the Championship organization.

This is a chance to improve the Snipe Class. If we fail, this will be a defeat for every one, for the International Class, for the Italian class, for Men and Women snipe sailors…so, Women sailors join the Worlds togeheter!!!