Whitecap: The Canadian Sailing Podcast

Today on the podcast we've got Canadian ILCA 6 sailor, Clara Gravely. Clara is a member of the Canadian Sailing Development Squad, gold medalist at the Canada Summer Games in 2017, and winner of Sail Canada's Marvin McDill award for Rookie of the year in 2019. We talked about the Canada Summer Games, what inspires her dreams of sailing at the Olympics and using process goals over perfomance goals to acheive success and limit discouragement.

Tom Ramshaw is a one of the most successful Canadian dinghy sailors of the last two Olympic cycles, competing in Rio 2016, winning Rolex Canadian sailor of the year in 2018 and placing 10th at Tokyo 2020, in Finns.

In 2022 he switched to the ILCA 7 and in his first regatta with that class in over a decade, placed 2nd and top Canadian at the US Open. He's currently an integral part Canada's Sail GP team as a jib trimmer and grinder. We talked about being part of the Finn's last Olympics, his new hobby of wing foiling and what it's like to go 85 km/h on the F50.

In a special quick turnaround Whitecap podcast, professional sailor and coach Chris Watters joins Dave to talk about Canada's 2nd place finish at Chicago Sail GP. Chris's current program is called East Coast ILCA. @east.coast.ilca on instagram eastcoastilca.com

Sarah is a member of the Canadian sailing team, a Pan Am games Gold medalist, placed 6th at the 2020 Olympics in the Laser Radial which is the highest finish for any Canadian Laser sailor male or female in the history of the Olympics. She recently absolutely crushed the fleet at the World Cup in Palma winning by 31 points with a race to spare. She and Dave talked about trusting the process over performance, how to increase inclusion and diversity in sailing and the incredible pressure of an Olympic medal race.

In our premiere episode, Dave talks to SailGP Canada Skipper Phil Robertson as he heads into his third season on the SailGP circuit. They talk about putting the Canadian crew together in extremely short order, how match racing might offer sailors a different pathway to success and of course, what crashing an f50 feels like!