The last time the Summer Olympics were held, Warwick’s Louisa Chafee had never sailed a Nacra 17.

Now, she’ll be sailing one at the Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro after qualifying this week in Miami with her partner and skipper, Bora Gulari.

“It was pretty mixed,” Chafee said of her reaction when she first heard the news. “I was really, really excited and honored and humbled to be able to be representing the U.S. in the Olympics. But the first reaction was just relief. And [that] the trials are over. Now it’s time to get ready for the next step of the journey so to speak.”

Chafee said that when she first started sailing the Nacra 17 back in December 2013 at Brown University, her first skipper was very skilled, but the partnership didn’t work out. She had her doubts, but just over two years later the dream has become reality.

“I went through a period where I wasn’t sure if I could make this happen,” Chafee said. “It’s been pretty incredible for it to have worked out like this and to be able to represent the U.S. in the Olympics. It’s incredible. It still hasn’t fully sunk in yet.”

During Chafee’s senior season at Brown, her former head coach John Mollicone could see the development towards her goal as well. Chafee was a three-time All-American crew at Brown, and was named a finalist for the New England Intercollegiate Sailing Association Crew of the Year as a junior.

Her Olympic qualification came as “no surprise” to Mollicone.

“I think certainly she got to a level where absolutely I thought doing an Olympic campaign [was possible], trying to go to the Olympics,” Mollicone said. “She was certainly at the level to compete and she had gotten that good in college. She worked very hard, by the time she was a senior she was at that level.”

Chafee said some of the Nacra teams had been training together for as long as three years. That wasn’t the case for her and Gulari, though. They had only gotten paired together a week before the first trial in Miami. Gulari has a year of experience in the Nacra himself, but is a two-time Moth World Champion and U.S. Sailing Yachtsman of the Year, according to U.S. Sailing.

Despite the short time sailing together, Chafee said the pair’s chemistry has been “really good.” Luckily for the duo, the sailing conditions were perfect for their first regatta together and they sailed “really well.” The two finished 12th out of 47 teams at the Miami World Cup to go up eight points on the next closest team, Mark and Caroline Mendelblatt. In one instance during the regatta, Chafee and Gulari cracked the top 3.

Their second and most-recent trial at the Miami World Championships, though, was more of an obstacle. Chafee described the environment as “windy and wavy.” They finished 31st, which allowed them to hold their spot as the top U.S. boat.

“Bora’s a professional sailor, he’s made his career out of this,” Chafee said. “So it makes it easier to sail with someone who has that kind of discipline on the water. We can just keep things fairly simple. There are definitely challenges ahead when we get into more frustrating situations, but we’re confident that we believe in each other and that we’re gonna make it through this and hopefully bring home a medal to the U.S.”

Chafee said that, between now and the Olympics, she is focused on becoming the best at her craft, and not on the water contamination levels in Rio. The Associated Press found in July that “athletes were competing in the viral equivalent of raw sewage and exposure to dangerous health risks [are] almost certain.”

“I’m hoping that the organizers will make the best decisions for the health and safety of the athletes,” Chafee said. “So right now I’m trying not to think about that and make sure that when the games roll around I’m the best athlete that I can be and the best competitor that I can be on the race course.”

In order to be at the top of their field, the training will continue for Chafee and Gulari. After some rest to recover and regroup, the duo will compete in regattas in Europe before training camps kick off in Rio.

“We’re working right now to put together our schedules for the next six months to make sure we’re optimizing what time we have left together before the games,” Chafee said.

Chafee has always been driven by her competitive fire, but working with the Nacra 17 has only fanned the flames and helped her improve.

“Honestly sailing the Nacra 17 is such an incredible experience and it’s such a fun boat to sail that it almost pushes you in and of itself,” Chafee said. “You want the boat to feel perfect, you want the boat to feel fast, so in order to do that I have to be really good. I have to be physically in shape, mentally sharp. So it’s almost like a continuous circle almost.”

As for Mollicone, he knows it will be hard, but he said he thinks Chafee and Gulari have a shot to get on the podium this summer if they continue to get better.

“I think it’s going to be very difficult, but I think it’s doable and they showed it with their result at the Miami World Cup in January, where they were, at a point in the regatta, they were in third place against the best sailors in the world,” Mollicone said. “So, yes, I think if they were to continue to improve as a team and sail really well, absolutely. It’s going to be difficult, and it’s going to be difficult for everybody. “