Read What The Media Have Written About Harriette
March 2008
Harriette visited a school to talk to sport students about nutrition and training methods to help with their course. See pictures in the gallery or click here to read about it in the local newspaper.
February 2008
Harriette attends a conference to help inspire young volunteers. Read about it here.
June 2007
Harriette joins the Sporting Champions scheme. This is a scheme run by Sport England which connects athletes with young people encouraging them to participate in sport. Harriette will be visiting schools clubs, sports functions and the like promoting sport. Check out her page here.
May 2007
Harriette appears in the Exeter University prospectus as an example of a Sports Scholar at Exeter University. See what she wrote here.
May 2007
Harriette launches the sale of her Team Trumble GBR official team kit
December 2006
Guildford Bourogh council show their support for Harriette as they name her as a London 2012 hopeful
July 2006
Harriette appears alongside Olympic Medallist Steve Backley and 'Miss Newcastle' to help promote 'Dream Number' - the new lottery game from the National Lottery helping to raise money for London 2012. Click on the link below to see a photo.
23rd July 2006 - Surrey Advertiser
Luna Radio - 100.3 - 9th April 2006
Click on the picture to hear a clip of Harriette's first interview with Luna 100.3. Visit their website at www.lunamallorca.com
November 2007
Breeze On DVD
Harriette has appeared in a sailing DVD along side Olympic medallists and fellow Great British team sailors. Check out some clips and order your copy at http://www.breezeon.co.uk/home.html
Surrey Advertiser - 17th September 2004
Riding the crest of a wave is Milford teenager Harriette, who came third for Britain in the Youth Sailing ISAF World Championships this summer with Pippa Wilson at the helm. Harriette and her partner are going for gold in the next Olympics. It has been a phenomenal year for 17-year-old Harriette, a pupil of King Edward's School Witley. In January she came fourth in the 420 World Ladies' Sailing Championships with a different helm, and one of the youngest competitors in the youth event.
In April, Harriette and Pippa won the National Youth 420 sailing championship, which earned them places in the prestigious RYA British Youth Squad and training by top national coaches.They were then selected for the coveted spot in the RYA British Team competing in the ISAF World Championships. Fresh from that international success, they went on to win the Ladies' European Championships a few weeks late.
"To hold the British flag was so great", said Harriette. "We have now been offered places in the Olympic Development Squad and have had offers of funding. The teams will be selected in 2007. My whole family sails and my uncle is a world champion in a different class. I just love sailing. It's so tactical and you can really get stuck into it. My best venue was in Port Phillip Bay in Australia - it was so warm".
A-levels are looming and Harriette has had to cut back on competing to study, but she will continue to coach the national junior squad at weekends. "It's nice to put something back", she said. She has however returned to school sports teams and is a star striker for the hockey and netball teams - a definite all rounder.
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Yachts And Yachting Interview Issue - Feb 13, 2004
Taking On The World
What does it take to reach the top of a competative fleet like the 420s? Before they headed off to the worlds, Harriet Prest caught up with Charlotte Savage and Harriette Trumble to find out.
The first thing that strikes you on meeting 420 pairing Charlotte Savage and Harriette Trumble is that they bring a whole new meaning to the term 'young professional'. At 18 years old, Charlotte is on her gap year, whilst Harriette, aged just 16, fits her sailing around her school work, but the girls' attitude and approach to their campaign could be used as the blueprint for would-be Olympians of any age.
At the UK selections for the worlds, the pair trounced the competition - boys and girls- and there followed and arduous training schedule under the guidance of performance race coach, James Grant. Amazingly the selections were the first event they sailed together as a team; Charlotte's full-time crew was due to sit exams at the time of the worlds and Pippa Wilson's tendonitis in her wrists left Harriette at a loose end for the rest of 2003.
Despite their early success, both girls clearly knew there was a daunting amount of training to be done to become race-ready for the worlds. As their coach James explained, 'They won the world qualifiers, nailed everyone. Then it was the case of "Now what do we do"? It was really hard to keep the momentum going. there were so many holes in the basics of their sailing and also they had to become friends and get to know eachother.'
Teaming up with another top team, Luke Patience and Adam Wagner, the girls spent their weekends throughout the lead-up to the worlds out on the water working on every aspect of their sailing, as well as fitting in a comprehensive RYA training programme for all the selected pairs. The trained a different venues nationwide, from Scotland to hayling Island, to ensure as much experience as possible across the spectrum of wind strengths. As Harriette explains, 'Consistency made us win the qualifier. We are looking to repeat the same consistancy - we have to get to a point where we can win in whatever breeze'.
On The Water
The first day of their training was dedicated purely to getting their tacking, gybing and spinnaker work spot-on perfect. The rationale behind this is simple; creating an autopilot set of triggers and actions for each move frees both helm and crew to concentrate on other factors on the racecourse. At first glance there seemed nothing amiss with their initial routines.However, the improvemnt become crystal clear upon watching the polished result. Every movement throughout the tack and the gybe were pulled apart, then rebuilt to produce the most efficient sequence possible; inputting the minimal required movements and outputting maximum speed.
The girls, at first virtually silent on the boat, learnt to talk everything through, constantly giving each other feedback. There was never going to be a boat purely driven by the helm; instead they were encouraged to have equal input, adopting the technique of Harriette thinking upwind whilst Charlotte drives for maximum speed with reversed roles downwind.
At times the critical analysis of their every movement seemed to deflate the girls; especially Harriette who, as a crew, plays a vitally active role in manoeuvres. It was fascinating to watch as she began to enjoy herself as the day progressed and the newly installed techniques made her life easier and her crewing more rewarding. Harriette posseses and infectious energy - which visibly returned to the boat with every polished gybe.
Charlotte, as one of the most successful youth female helms, began with the tendancy to watch her crew too much. She admits,'At first, when we were working out all our routines, it was just so basic and I never thought we were going to get there.' Under the watchful eye of their coach she soon began to concentrate purely on her role in the boat and on communicating with Harriette. Both felt self-conscious at first - they said it felt stupid talking everything through, but they soon began to see the benefits; it was a cast of three steeps backwards to achieve 20 steps forwards.
Once their tacking and gybing had been restructured, they needed to repeat each manoeuvre over and over again. For this James employs an exercise called a whistle test. With one whistle for a tack, two for a gybe and three for a hoist or drop, this relentless endurance test was exhausting just to watch from the RIB. By 1630hrs time-out was called on the coaching session; the wind ahd died and the strong tide was making hard work of an upwind slog. The girls however had different ideas and stayed on the water till it was dark.
Debrief
On equal importance to their training is the time taken on land, discussing the achievements and discoveries of each session. On the final weekend before they left for Australia, Charlotte and Harriette sailed the whole day in flat wiring breeze and Baltic conditions, following this up with and hour and a halfs' debrief. But the atmosphere was fun. the boys and girls had obviously built up a real rapport with eachother and with their coach, the ideas were bouncing of the walls about the day's sailing. They discussed boat handling, consistency, tacking, changing gears upwind, working the gunwhale and use of the controls, all in terms of actual specifics of what they were trying to achieve. there was no mindless lecturing on abstract areas of theory, each topic was directly linked to an incident out on the waterthat they could all relate to with just a smattering of analogies from their coach, for example,'The helm is the engine upwind but you (the crew) are the actual mechanics, breathing coal into the firs and helping the engine go faster.'
James has his own particular style and approach to coaching, explaining his method; 'It's programme I call a pyramid: you have to put lots of building blocks in place at the beginning and you can't move forwards until you've covered every base, and then you keep moving up the ladders. We cover everything from approach to organisation on a logistical level, so they know exactly what's in their toolbox, exactly what spares they need, exactly where they are going to go and exactly what they need to do it.'
He talks of many sailors and coaches who have contributed to his understanding of teaching methods,'The thing about coaching, Iain Percy always said this to me, it's not just about what's going on the water, it's about everything else.' During training heavy emphasis was placed on the girls having as much infomation as possible about their schedules and their goals. they seemed to steer the direction in which their training progressed, the result being a comprehensive set of ideas for them to take to the worlds. they always had 'homework' to do, the keep them thinking about sailing throughout the week as well as their RYA-specified fitness programmes to ensure peak physical condition for a championship event.
Every detail of their time spent on the water, be it training of events, was recorded in a massive A4 file, referred to by their coach as 'the folder of sailing lurrve', and sub-sectioned into a range of categories including: settings/rig diary; tools and spares, logistics, venues, weather diaries, goals and mind, fitness, meteorology, rules and strategy. Diray entried include 'keeping up with the lads' or 'wicked speed, pointing not v.goo'. There was an impressive attention to detail in the preperations for Melbourne, from Southern Hemisphere meteotolgy down to exactly how their toolbox was travelling (container), to how they were (aeroplane)! One diary entry shows advice anyone could use in their own sailing: 'Take each race as it comes, deep breaths, hold tiller lightly, talk, be sensible, think.'
Time Out
Their coach believes that Charlotte and Harriette have 'approached their sailing in a more mature way than most adults'. So with all the pressure placed on the girls so young, do they have time to lead normal lives? It's widely acknowledged that the sport of sailing loses girls as they filter up through the system due to the struggle to fit in time for education and a normal dose of socialising, but Charlotte and Harriette seem to have their feet firmly on the ground. They value the RYA youth squad training pointing out, 'You need to practise with 20 boats around you,' and they have fun hanging out with everyone on the circuit.
Charlotte will be moving out of 420s following the worlds and is due to start a degree in Zoology and Psychology at Bristol in September. In the meantime, she plans to spend three months of her gap year in South America to think about whether she wishes to persue the Olympic route in a 470. Preperation for the worlds has given her and understanding of how much her life would be taken over by a throrough campaign. Not being one to do things by halves, she admits,'I know everyone wants to win but if I do a campign, I want to actually do it.' Harriette says,'I would do anything to be a proffessional sailor, so that I can just live sailing,' - but shes going to have to finish school first and will continue in the 420s with Pippa Wilson.
When the girls left for Australia they were justifiably confident that they had done everything within their reach to prepare themselves for a world championship. Whatever their result, there is little doubt that future steps will lead right up the podium.