to support two boats,” Emma
relates. “If we wanted to keep
sailing—and that wasn’t even a
conversation—we had to start
sailing together.”
What came next laid the
groundwork for today and
beyond. Settling into the i420
as middle teens with Emma,
an inch taller and a few pounds
heavier, taking on the trapeze
and recalling now, “Against the
fleet, we were light, so we were
underdogs. It was a matter of
saying, ‘let’s see what we can
do with what we’ve got.’” And
about turning two skippers into
a team: “There is a foundation of
trust built on knowing that we
have two skippers in the boat.”
From Carmen’s point of view,
“We come from the same place.
With everything I ever learned
in an Opti, Emma was there.
With everything Emma learned,
I was there. If she compares
a situation to something that
happened in a dierent regatta,
I’m right there with her.”
Emma adds, “And if we’re in
a situation, we know how the
other will react, what she’s
going to need.”
“If we’ve had a bad race,”
Carmen says, “I like to talk about
it. Emma wants a quiet boat, so
we have it both ways. We go
quiet, and then it’s time to ask,
‘how do we get back into this.’”
Thus we confirm identical
twins are not quite identical
after all, but the relationship
between “best friends” cuts
through a heap of getting-to-
know-you. Our conversation
took place the morning after
the girls received their Rolexes,
with LISOT coach Steve Keen in
company, and for Keen’s two
cents, “I’ve sailed with siblings
a lot. It can be a blessing or a
curse. You might say something
to a sibling that you would
never say to anyone else.”
True enough, and Emma
agrees, “But we’re sisters. It’sa full partnership, and we’ve
learned a lot about [this comes
with a grin] being a couple.
On the water, we can be pretty
vocal, and I think people who
hear us are surprised when
we come off the water and
we’ve already turned the page.”
Turning the page could mean
revisiting a few bars from
Imagine Dragons: You made me a
believer, believer. You break me
down, you build me up, believer ...
“For every regatta we have a
song,” Carmen says. “It has to be
a song we can sing. In Corpus
Christi last year for the Youth
Worlds, we’d play Kokomo over
a speaker while the U.S. boys
were launching. At first,
they weren’t exactly comfort-
able with full-blast Beach Boys,
but they got into it.”
Aruba, Jamaica, oh I wannaThe Cowles sisters excelled at
their first major 470 regatta, the
Hempel World Sailing Cup Miami,
finishing 16th of 28 teams.
PHOTO: JESUS RENEDO/
SAILING ENERGY/
WORLD SAILING