When Carrie Howe and two other college-aged teammates surprised the sailing world in 2003 by piloting 21-foot yngling keelboat to victory in the prestigious Rolex Olympic Classes Regatta in Miami, U.S. Sailing Coach Gary Bodie had two words for it: "dumb luck."

"He said it in a really nice way," Howe, 27, recalls, chuckling. "He was trying to make other people feel better about getting beat by a bunch of college kids. We laugh about it now. He's still our coach sometimes."

Five years later, Howe and her team – including skipper Sally Barkow and jib trimmer and tactician Debbie Capozzi – are a little older and far more battle-tested, currently ranked fifth in the world in yngling class sailing. And this year, Howe is fulfilling a lifelong dream as her team vies for a medal at the 2008 Olympics in China.

Carrie Howe will go for gold.CHASING GOLD

Howe, who is the spinnaker trimmer and technician of Team 7, as it is called, spent the summer training at the Olympic sailing venue, which is actually more than 300 miles away from host city Beijing in the bustling city of Qingdao, home to 9 million people.

The traffic-clogged bustle and algae-infested water of one of China's biggest coastal cities is a far different atmosphere than the rarified air of Grosse Pointe, Mich., where Howe first learned to sail on Lake St. Clair two decades ago.

She came from a large family with eight kids and "no sailors at all" – her father works for a marketing services firm; her mother, a stationary company – but fell in love with the sport when her mom signed her up for sailing lessons at Grosse Pointe Yacht Club when she was still in elementary school.

She didn't realize how much sailing meant to her until college, however, racing with her teammates from Boston College on the Charles River and against teams around the Atlantic Coast. She graduated from Boston College in 2003 cum laude with a degree in finance.

"I've always been really intense person and [sailing] is one thing that can take your mind off anything"¦you feel like you're lost for a little while in this natural world," Howe says. "It was during college when I'd have the most chaotic weeks, and then every weekend we'd go away and race and forget about it all. That's when I realized what a big part of my life it was."

Capozzi and Barkow were rivals and teammates at Old Dominion University (Barkow graduated in 2002, Capozzi in 2003) when the three women decided to team up in late 2002.

"We didn't know what we were getting ourselves into," Howe says. But after their early success, and Bodie's "dumb luck" remark, the team "buckled down" and decided to make a serious run at an Olympic berth. They've won several major competitions in the years since, including a world title in 2005.

FULL-TIME SAILOR

Howe, who still calls Grosse Pointe her home base, has spent most of that time as a full-time sailor, having to get creative with her teammates to raise funds through raffles and clinics to support an Olympic campaign that costs $250,000 a year. This summer, the team spent weeks training in Qingdao, which Howe has been blogging about it on her team's website.

The team has faced challenges sailing on Fusan Bay that include thick fog, strong currents, "vile smells in the water" and the "endless clinging algae islands," Howe wrote on her blog. The team spent much of their time grappling with how to manage the thick "green goo" that has invaded the sailing venue – garnering international media attention as Chinese workers frantically tried to remove tons of the stuff and clear the water before competition begins.

Getting around crowded city was a challenge, Howe says, especially since workers are still putting the finishing touches on many of the venue's amenities. At one point, she worked out in an athletes' gym where building was literally still going on around her.

But it was a thrilling time to be in Qingdao, she says, because of the boundless enthusiasm of their hosts.

"I'm excited," Howe says of their Olympic journey. "China is going to do a great job . . . and the country is putting a great foot forward. I just hope the weather cooperates!"