North Bay Woman

42 NORTH BAY WOMAN | S P R I N G 2 0 1 7 10 QUESTIONS Flying high with Erika Heineken By Michelle Slade E rika Heineken has the distinctive honor of holding two World Champion Formula Kiteboarding Championship titles, two North American Championship titles as well as four Canadian National Championship titles. Heineken, 30, grew up in Larkspur and attended high school at Marin Academy, and she and younger brother Johnny are fixtures in the local sailing and kiteboarding scene. An engineer with the City of San Francisco Department of Public Works, Heineken lives in Corte Madera with husband John Tilney, their new baby Cody Heineken Tilney, and chocolate lab Belle. 1 Where did you develop a passion for water sports? My dad started windsurfing in the late 1970s and when my brother and I got to the age where we could learn to windsurf he immediately threw us on a board. Dad has also been a long time member of the St. Francis Yacht Club so we got on the water when we were very young. There are photos of me sailing on my parents' boat in the Delta when I was a month old. Johnny and I learned to sail dinghies in the Richmond Yacht Club Junior Sailing Program when we were very young. I also coached sailing at the San Francisco Yacht Club for many years, and was on the University of Vermont sailing team. 2 How did you get into kiteboarding? Once Johnny converted over to kiting, I saw how much progress he made in a short time and was convinced I had to switch as well. I learned on a trip to Costa Rica one winter when I was in college — what started as a surf trip turned into a kiting trip. I ended up changing my ticket to stay for a month to learn to kite and became pretty competent. I returned home, bought kites and the rest is history. 3 Do you think other sports you played helped you develop as a kiter? I have played volleyball really competitively since fourth grade and through two years of college at the D3 level. I don't know how much transferred over to kiting but definitely the competitive spirit did. I am quite competitive when it comes to the top level! 4 What have been your biggest accomplishments in kiteboarding? I won the World Championships (2012 in Cagliari, Italy, and 2013 in Boao, China), on the Formula Race Board, and I won a tour on the hydrofoil at a time when that form of kiting was very new. 5 What was the most well-earned award? The first World Championship I won was in Sardinia, Italy, in Above: Kiteboarding world champion Erika Heineken. – Photo by Michael Petrikov

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