take ya ...
And it didn’t hurt that the U.S.
sailors quickly turned up the
mojo to deliver four gold med-
als, one silver and the Nations
Trophy for best national team.
Having spent time with family
in Belgium and Spain, speaking
French and Spanish, the twins
can switch languages if they
need to talk “in code”—but
their very American regatta
diet relies on peanut butter and
jelly and keeping things familiar,
whether the setting is Sanya,
China or Kiel, Germany.
Keen observes, “One of the
strengths that Carmen and
Emma possess is an ability to
learn from mistakes, even when
mistakes are hard to swallow.”
Carmen adds: “We’re hungry.
We’re always ready to ask what
we did wrong, and we like the
role of underdogs.”
Call that good, because in
the 470 they’re underdogs
again, and it’s not as though
the 470 dinghy isn’t a famously
tweakable not-quite-one-design
with latitude on masts, foils and
more. And it’s not as though the
twins haven’t been named to
the US Sailing Team Squad for
a shot at selection in one of
the most challenging Olympic
classes. And it’s not as though
this isn’t a heady moment in
their young lives, leaving par-
ents to shake their heads in
wonder at what their progeny
have become, and are becom-
ing. The Cowles twins are
not the house bet for a 2020
Olympic berth, but ....
This year brings races in
Japan and Europe, Emma
says, “and a focus on process,
process, process. For each of our
youth worlds we had a training
arc designed to peak at those
times, with regattas right after
the worlds because we thought
we wanted to extend. Now we
know that we need time after
the big ones to decompress.
There were rough moments in
those extra regattas.”
The twins are accepted
at Yale—something aboutengineering and business—
with the understanding they
will take a gap year before join-
ing the oldest collegiate sailing
club in the world.
One element of a gap year,
Keen says, “is learning to man-
age time so they keep learning.”
To this point, time has been
managed—if not over man-
aged—by circumstance. Not
counting a jam-packed 2018,
there was Project Pipeline sail-
ing in Miami in January with the
Olympic Development Program,
then a flight home for midterms.
Then it was back to Miami for
the 470 North Americans.
“We missed our middle school
graduation because we were
o at a training camp,” Carmen
says. “We look forward to not
having to fit school around sail-
ing and sailing around school.
We just might miss our high
school graduation this spring,
though, because it’s right
around Kiel Week.”
There’s probably a song for
that too. QThe twins
are accepted
at Yale—
something about
engineering
and business—
with the
understanding
they will take a
gap year before
joining the
oldest collegiate
sailing club in
the world.