Harken: Yngling Speedteam

Is there a mentor, role model or some other key figure in your life who has significantly impacted your sailing?
Maria Klemetz: My entire family has a sailing background and encouraged my sailing throughout my life. I cruised with my parents, and raced with my two brothers and occasionally my cousins. When I was a kid, my cousins sailed a 470 in the 1988 Pusan Olympics. They finished 4th, missing the bronze medal by less than a point.

Livia Väresmaa: I also come from a sailing family and spent my summers with them cruising around the Baltic Sea. I started my active racing career in 2000 when I met my husband Ville who is now my coach.

Silja Lehtinen: My whole family, especially my dad, has influenced my sailing career, supporting and coaching me as well as coming up with new ideas and plans. I started sailing/cruising in the Finnish archipelago with my family. Gold Medallist Thomas Johansson has been a big role model for me. I also look up to my dad and uncle Eero because of their offshore racing experience.

How did you learn the racing game?
Maria: when I was small, sailing was about being on the water and having fun. I raced Optimists, but I didn’t care about the results. I was just happy to be on the water. The serious racing started in 1994 when I was in a sailing school in France. It was there I started training in earnest. It opened my eyes to the whole game.

Livia: I’ve always been interested in the rules and the tactical game. When I discovered match racing in 2000, I started to take the challenge of the game more seriously.

Silja: I started sailing in Opti’s and have been racing steadily ever since.

Do you have any rigging tricks you could share with us?
Livia: . I think it’s about understanding and reacting to what’s in the boat.

How do you physically and mentally prepare for a race?
Maria: I try to take time in the morning to sail one start and the first beat in my mind. Music helps sometimes, and being alone helps me to focus. That part is not so easy with three on the team and a coach. If I can fit it in the schedule, I warm up by running for 20 minutes. The hardest part is to prepare for the second race of the day because we generally do better in the first race.

Livia: If there’s time, I like to warm up with a workout. If not, my priority is getting the boat ready without stress. I’m more of the meditating sort, so I like to have plenty of time on shore to go through the trims and get everything ready for racing.

Silja: It’s good to have time for myself the night before a race, and in the morning to prepare mentally. Listening to music puts me in the right mood, jogging and stretching works well too.

How do you deal with the stress of racing?
Maria: I love the element of competition. The stressful part is lack of confidence in certain areas. Nevertheless, we have a good plan for eliminating these factors before the Olympics.

Livia: The racing itself doesn’t usually stress me – the racing is what I love and what it’s all about! But if something breaks on the boat and I have to spend the evenings and mornings repairing stuff, the days can get stressful.

Silja: It’s supposed to be exciting. Otherwise, why do I want to race all the time? That’s what I tell to myself when things get a bit too exciting. I try to put things in perspective.

How do you prepare your boat for racing?
Maria: We wash the boat, wax it, and finish it with McLube. Each of us makes sure the blocks and tracks work for the trim lines. I sometimes McLube the jib so there is less friction when we hoist the kite.

Livia: You can usually solve problems or prevent them with McLube! I usually go around the boat with the bottle and make sure everything works.

Silja: I’m the one with goggles and earplugs on in the morning because my job is to clean the bottom of the boat. On deck, I make sure everything from “my area” to the back of the boat is ok.

Do you have any interesting ways to use McLube™ on your Yngling?
Silja: The newest McLube™ gel version smells good. Otherwise, the way we use it is pretty conventional.

What would you miss most on your boat if you forgot it?
Maria: My Harken gloves and a bottle of water.

Livia: The gloves and my sunglasses

Silja: At home in late autumn, I would miss the woollen pants I wear under my foul weather gear. Outside of Finland, I would miss my surfboard-shaped sunscreen bottle.

You do a lot of match racing. How do these events influence your sailing?
Maria: Match racing is great. You just show up and race—no boat work, just the fun part of sailing. I hope they work out a good format for the 2012 Women’s Olympics.

Livia: Well, I love it! There’s nothing like the challenge of a tight match! It’s good practice for both tactics and boat handling. And as Maria said – no boat work!

Silja: It’s fun, exciting, and intense! It’s a nice change from fleet racing and gives me the confidence to beat a boat when boat-to-boat situations develop in fleet racing.

What is your favorite boat to sail?
Maria: I’d like to do more windsurfing, but there never seems to be time for it. I did some 49er racing with Silja. It was a whole lot of fun, but very hard work. Tactically I was useless.

Livia: I like small keelboats like the Yngling that I can trim by hand. I’m not really a dinghy sailor, but I have a Laser and it’s lots of fun.

Silja: So far, I have enjoyed sailing 49ers the most. But I haven’t tried a Moth yet.

Do you have a favorite place to sail?
Maria: Crewing in Ynglings gets awfully cold sometimes, so any place warm is good. Miami is a nice place for flat-water sailing. To be honest I quite like Qingdao.

Livia: We like Qingdao—it’s nice and warm. I’d also like to go back to Lysekil, Sweden, where a great women’s match racing event is held every year.

Silja: I miss sailing in front of our yacht club at home. Actually, it’s my favorite place to sail. I have enthusiastic sailing friends around me, and after sailing I can go straight into the sauna. Go NJK!

What do you find most fun and rewarding about the sport?
Maria: Teamwork and making progress towards our goal.

Silja: I love being outdoors, on the water (I doubt I could live away from water), competing in a sport that requires so many different abilities and meeting cool people.

What advice would you give a sailor new to the sport?
Maria: Don’t hesitate to ask the best sailors for help. People are very open on sharing things they know.

Silja: It’s never too late to start sailing. Nothing is as complicated as it first seems.

What do you like to do when you're not sailing?
Maria: I like spending time with my family. I’m also studying philosophy, which I enjoy a lot.

Livia: At home I try to get together with family and friends. This past year there’s not really been time for it. Depending on where we are, on a day off I enjoy diving or cross-country skiing.

Silja: Obviously, I like spending time with my family and friends. Sailing has been my hobby forever and now I’m sailing full time. If I had more free time, I’d love to surf and windsurf (in the summer) and cross country ski, skimbat and snowboard in the winter.

Are you doing anything differently to prepare for the 2008 Games?
Maria: I believe our team has the skills to get a medal in the Olympics by continuing the track we are on.

Livia: I agree, we are on track towards our goal.

Silja: This is very different from my other sailing projects. My goals were never further out than one year and I wasn’t sailing full time. Now, everything is different and it’s exciting. But in the end, we are preparing for this regatta like any other.

DECK layout

Yngling

featured Hardware

Harken Sailing Gloves

Lubricant

McLube™Sailkote