Driven to Win
Driven to Win
After finishing 18th in one early race of the InterCollegiate Sailing Association Women's Championship, Yale senior Jane Macky and crew Marla Menninger recalibrated their focus.
"We looked at each other and were like, 'OK, let's go out and win this next race,'" she says. "It was really windy and all day we hadn't truly turned our game on 100-percent. We had everything ready to go and off the start we blew away from the fleet, hiked our asses off, and were beating all these bigger girls that had been beating us all day."
And so it was in this fashion that Yale senior and women's Bulldog A-division skipper Jane Macky ripped it up in the remaining races of the Women's Championship in San Francisco. Sheer determination and love of sailing earned the New Zealand native an impressive first place in A division and Yale's ultimate victory. The outstanding performance also sealed the two-time All-American's fate as the Quantum Female Sailor of the Year.
Being from New Zealand, what made you decide to come to the United States?
I had heard about college sailing while in Canada for the Cork Regatta when I was 16. I think that's the way to do university and sailing at the same time, which isn't as easy to do in New Zealand. Back at home, if you want to be serious about sailing you give up university and train for the Olympics straightaway. So college sailing really sparked my interest and sounded like a lot of fun. When I got in to Yale, I was like, "Well I have to go now!"
Did you do anything special to prepare for Nationals?
I've been with my crew Marla for the last two years. We know each other well and have built up a really good sailing relationship. She knows the strategy that I execute on the water and after two years understands everything. Even though this year was a very good year for us, at a lot of regattas we would be doing really well, make one big mistake, and end up not doing as well in the regatta. So we worked on performing the way we knew we could every time. Also, we knew that it was supposed to be really windy and we didn't have different crew options for me, so we had to get a little stronger to survive out here.
