You cannot be serious!
Before I moved to the leafy pastures of Hampshire, to be closer to the sea, I used to live in Ladbroke Grove, just around the corner from Portobello Road and Notting Hill in West London. The mention of Notting Hill makes it sound posh, but I lived in a little shoebox that overlooked the Westway, the horrible raised dual carriageway that sluices traffic into the West End of London.
Anyway, I get home late one evening, and I switch on the answer machine to listen to the message waiting for me. "Don't pull the f!£$%&* in! Don't F%$£!(& pull it in!" At this point, I assumed it was a wrong number and that I was listening to some local drugs bust. I wasn't living in the safest of areas. Linford Christie's brother had only recently been shot dead just round the corner from the flat, and it wasn't uncommon to be offered illegal substances while you walked down the street. So I just thought, ‘This all sounds terribly violent, but clearly nothing to do with me,' and was about to erase the message when at the end came: "Like your style, Andy." This was unmistakeably the voice of TV producer Andrew Preece, a former Yachts & Yachting columnist himself, whose APP TV production offices were just half a mile up the road from my flat.
I still couldn't quite fathom just what I'd been listening to, so the next day I called up Andrew to ask what on earth he had been playing down my answer machine. It turns out the drugs heist was in fact a recording of me - shouting at my crew Steve Kyffin as we were rounding the leeward mark of a particular windy Laser 5000 Eurocup race in France. Before going afloat that day, Andrew Preece had wired me up with a microphone to record the onboard dialogue during racing, and he had just caught me effing and blinding my round the course.
I never got to see the final TV show, but judging from the number of comments I had from people at sailing clubs over subsequent months, I was left in no doubt that Andrew Preece had included my soundbite of gentle encouragement in the final cut. "I didn't know you knew words like that," and other such comments came my way, much to my embarrassment. I'd never really thought of myself as a ‘shouter', but Preecey had caught me bang to rights.
Fortunately, my crew Steve Kyffin had broad shoulders and didn't take the tone of my voice personally, but it's really no way to behave, is it? If you're interested, what I was actually trying to communicate was: "Steve, seeing as it's quite windy, I'd really appreciate it if you could leave the jib well eased until we've safely round the leeward mark and are settled on an upwind course. Thanks for listening."
Now listen hear
I think we could all learn a tremendous amount from listening to the different styles of communication that teams use between themselves. The use of video to observe boathandling is a well-established coaching technique, but I don't know of anyone using audio to hear what top crews are saying to each other. I believe it would be hugely educational, and help us understand what the priorities are on the race course. Are they talking about boat set-up? Who's doing the tactics? Is the crew calling the gusts and shifts as they're about to hit the boat?
Having had the privilege of crewing for a number of top helmsmen over the years, it's interesting to see just how different people's approaches can be, and yet still achieve good results. There have been the shouters, the don't-say-anything-at- alls, and the incurable optimists. The late John Merricks was king of the incurable optimists. It didn't matter how badly you were doing in a race, he still thought he could win it from the most ridiculous of circumstances, and quite often he did. His optimism in the face of adversity seemed crazy, and it made you feel like a right party pooper when you attempted to inject some realism into the proceedings.
Green monster
But having seen just how successful optimism can be, not only from John but from many other talented sailors that I have raced with, I have to say it's well worth a try. I remember reading some of the British Olympic Team's profiles in the build-up to Athens last year, and when asked what their best quality was, quite a few answered: "I never give up." That's certainly what epitomised John's approach to racing, and you only need to have followed Ellen MacArthur's progress around the world or look at Ben Ainslie's scorecard in Athens to see that's the way they think. The words of the Incredible Hulk come to mind when I think back to Ben's incredible Olympics. "Don't make me angry, you won't like me when I'm angry," Ben could well have said to the French Finn sailor who got him lobbed from a dodgy port/starboard incident on Day 1 of the regatta. And look how Ben responded to that setback. I wonder if he'd have won the Olympics as convincingly if he hadn't been dealt that near fatal blow on the first day. A perfect example of what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, if ever there was one.
At the other end of the extreme, I've seen what incurable pessimism can do for your performance. While out on a TV shoot at Antigua Sailing Week last year, I was doing some onboard camera work with a bunch of Brits who were racing around at the back of the big charter boat fleet. The guy on the helm was actually not that bad, but he gave himself no credit for having any ability whatsoever. Every time there was the remotest bit of pressure, such as aiming to cross a boat on starboard while we were on port, he'd start muttering to himself, "We're never going to make this, we're never going to make this." To many other people on the boat, myself included, it would quite often look like an easy cross to make ahead of the starboard tacker, but the helmsman would wind himself up so much that he'd lose all concentration and in the end he would be right - we weren't going to make it. We'd either have to crash tack or do a massive bear away at the end to avoid a collision. His pessimism became a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Glass half empty, or full?
My point is that we all have a choice about how to look at a situation - we can either copy from John Merricks or from the charter boat helmsman. I know which I'd prefer. The other great lesson to learn from John was how he could step back ashore with a big grin on his face, win or lose. Even after a bad day, he'd just whip the side of the boat with the mainsheet and say: "Bad boat, bad boat!" And if he'd had a really bad day, sometimes he wouldn't even let the rig tension off or put the cover on, saying that the boat didn't deserve it. It was hilarious and a great tension breaker after a frustrating day at sea. I used to tear myself up about bad days on the water, and I still find myself falling into that habit occasionally, but if I ever I do, I can just remind myself of the way John would laugh it off.
Sometimes John's incurable optimism would cause him trouble. Early on in his Olympic career John would frequently PMS (that's what they called it back then before it became OCS), and quite often twice in one regatta. So not only had he used up his single discard but he had to count a PMS in his scoreline. On the start line he was a nightmare to hold back from sheeting in early. As you counted down the last 10 seconds, 10-9-8, he'd say, "We're going on 6, we're going on 6." And you'd find yourself sheeting on a good few seconds before everyone else. It was nerve wracking as you thought you were going to break the line early, whilst no such worry ever seemed to occur to John. I must admit I'd fudge the countdown by a couple of seconds to try and peg my eager helmsman back a bit. It wouldn't have been any good having one of those big yellow watches mounted on the boom doing the countdown for both of us to see, as I couldn't have got away with my little white lie.
Of course, when you got away with it and managed to start cleanly - which was far more often than not - then it meant you had a great lane and clear air to race into. While in the early part of his career John found himself breaking the line rather too often, by testing the margins he eventually gained a good sense of where the limits were. He became an excellent and very consistent starter, particularly with the steadying influence of Ian Walker with whom he won the silver medal in Savannah. Most of us spend our whole sailing careers playing it safe and not testing those margins - you only have to see the massive line sag in photos of big fleet starts to see that. So, bearing in mind John's impressive race record, perhaps it's worth emulating some of his traits. Try being a little more daring on the start line, even if occasionally you do fall foul of the recall flag. Just don't sue me if I ruin your championship!
Glyn's race
I was delighted to see Ben Ainslie has become the first patron of the John Merricks Trust, the charity which gives up-and-coming sailors a financial leg-up. There are many ways you can support the Trust, but one particularly fun way is to compete in the Glyn Charles Memorial Pursuit Race, which takes place on 11 June from Hayling Island Sailing Club. Glyn, GBR's Star helmsman at the '96 Olympics, was lost at sea during the severe storm that struck the Sydney-Hobart Race in 1999. He grew up racing around Chichester Harbour, which is where this regatta has taken place in his honour these past few years. Last year, William Warren and Robbie Sampson brought their Merlin Rocket for the first time. They finished 2nd, won a weekend break, and had such a good time that the event is now in the Merlin Rocket calendar.
For 2005, principal race officer Greg Wells has incorporated some of the improvements suggested by last year's competitors, including a lead boat to help visitors find their way, an extra high tide to enable exploitation of all the creeks of the harbour, multiple mark finishing, and, most important, a party in the evening, supported by the event's charity, the John Merricks Trust. For details closer to the date, visit HISC's website: www.hisc.co.uk
