RECENT COVERAGE : February 15, 2008
Ulrike Schuemann, with her dark curly hair and freckles, is known as Ulli to everyone.   Schuemann, Julia Bleck and Ute Hoepfner (GER) went into the Medal Round of the 2008 Yngling World Championships in third place, but their hold on the Bronze Medal was precarious.   In a very light and shifty sea breeze with Sally Barkow, Debbie Capozzi and Carrie Howe (USA) within striking distance in the point spread, Ulli had her work cut out for her.  Especially when she rounded the final weather mark of the Medal Race in last place and the US team had played the pressure and the shifts to pull into fourth place. 

 “What did you think when you rounded the mark in last?” I asked her.  Ulli’s coach, Lee Icyda, who campaigned for the US Yngling berth four years ago as a crew, spoke for the overjoyed Schuemann, “That I had to clear the weed off of my rudder.”  The combination of clearing the weed off the rudder and gybing onto port and going hard right, paid off.  A shift and more pressure scrambled up the back of the ten-boat fleet enough so that the T-Systems sponsored German boat slipped across the finish line overlapped and ahead of the Kiwi team.  The Germans’ seventh place finish was more than enough to keep the Americans, who had crossed the finish line in fourth place, at bay.

There is a reason that Schuemann is usually smiling.   She and her Yngling teams have a history of always finishing in the top ten at ISAF ranking events.  They have had strong performances at Yngling World Championships and took home Silver medals in 2003 and 2006.  Germany’s Olympic Trials in the women’s keelboat discipline were finished before this year’s Yngling World Championship, so Schuemann, Bleck and Hoepfner, each of whom started sailing Optis when they were only six years old, were well on their way “living their dream,” as Schuemann put it, before this podium finish.