Two Worlds

This year the Enterprise class celebrates its 50th anniversary with not one but two World Championships. The 2005 World Championships take place in Sri Lanka in February 2006 while the 2006 Worlds are to take place in Looe this summer. But the reasons for two Worlds in one year are nothing to do with the class's golden jubilee, but more due to "a big wave", as class rep Jon Woodward puts it.

That "big wave" was the tsunami which swept across the Indian Ocean just over a year ago, wreaking untold devastation in many countries. One of them was Sri Lanka, hence the postponement of the Worlds which had been set to take place last February. While the host resort for the Worlds was not that badly hit, it is easy to see that there were far greater priorities for the region than hosting a sailing regatta.

Despite the setback both the Sri Lankan organisers and the class association were determined to see the event take place at some point, and so the 2005 Worlds are about to commence. About 60 boats are expected to enter, including 19 being containered from the UK.

Strongest of the UK contingent would be Richard Estaugh and Pete Rowley. Shane McCarthy and Alf Wright, along with Jeremy Stephens and Matt Johnson are among others that Jon Woodward marks out for possible success. Reigning World Champions, Nick and Shona Craig, won't be defending because Nick is off to Australia to defend another of his world titles, the singlehanded OK class. However, the Brits won't have it all their own way because the Indian and Pakistani teams are always strong and nearly always have finishers in the top six. Jon Woodward, the UK's representative on the International Association, is a regular finisher in the top six at the British Nationals but has yet to achieve the same level at the Worlds. "It's a higher standard of sailing," says Jon. "It's the small differences that make the difference at that level. Getting into the top 10 at the Nationals is tough, but it's just as tough to get into the top 20 at the Worlds."

Jon is expecting a moderate wind regatta. "We'll be sailing on the Indian Ocean, and the sea breeze generally kicks in around one o'clock in the afternoon," says Jon. "We'll probably get a Force 3, which is enough for full hiking upwind but not quite planing downwind. Whereas the sea breeze can build more strongly here, it's not as strong there because you don't get the same thermal differential." Of course, the nice thing about there not being such a strong thermal differential is that when you walk into the water you are pleasantly shocked not by how cold but how warm the sea temperature is. Jon says that at the Worlds in Goa a couple of years back, the sea was warmer than the swimming pool.

The same probably could not be said of Looe in Cornwall, where the 2006 Worlds take place this July. But sea temperature won't be enough to deter a huge turnout. The venue has always been a favourite with the class and the added incentive of the 50th anniversary should make it even bigger. "We've always had over a hundred boats when we've been to Looe before," says Jon, "and we've already got 50 entries by the beginning of the year. So I think we're looking at 150 boats for this summer." This is where Nick and Shona Craig will be coming back to see if they can regain the World title from whoever claims it in Sri Lanka. Geoff Carveth is another who is set to come back to the Enterprise after a number of years away racing fancier boats.

The Enterprise has long been the proving ground for some of Britain's best sailors. Aside from names already mentioned are the likes of Ian Pinnell, Lawrie Smith, Jim Hunt and Ian Barker. One of the great attractions of the boat is that money can't buy you success. It's impossible to spent much more than £6,000 on a brand new boat including covers and trailer, but Jon Woodward says that it would be quite possible to win a Nationals with a secondhand boat that you could pick up for less than £2,000.

While the white plastic hulls have won the lion's share of championships in the past decade, the Nick Craig's Worlds-winning boat is a wooden JJ-built hull, proving that wood remains the equal of plastic provided it is well-looked after. If anything, the wooden boats are believed to have a longer competitive life, but Jon says that is because the plastic boats are quite often less cared for. "People with wooden boats tend to look after them well, and store them indoors, whereas the plastic boats can sometimes be bashed around a bit more. People just don't have the same affection for plastic boats like they do the wooden ones, but if you take care of them they will last. I remember seeing a 10-year-old plastic boat being weighed in at the Nationals last year and it still needed 2kg of correctors in it."

The class has three good builders at its disposal, the wooden JJ, and Rondar and Speed Sails who produce the plastic hulls. The sails of choice include Speed, North and Pinnell & Bax. The one area of virtual monopoly was in the mast, where Superspars have dominated with their M7 section for many years. However Selden have made a strong resurgence in recent years by following Superspars' lead in sleeving the lower section. Jon Woodward says this adds extra power to the rig downwind, and when you don't have a spinnaker to haul you along, I suppose you really are looking for every extra ounce of speed you can find.

Jon says he noticed the difference immediately when he upgraded his Selden rig a couple of years back. "You've got to have the sleeved mast, because without it the offwind gust response was poor. With the old rig, the mast was depowering downwind. With the sleeve in the lower mast, when the gust hits, the boom doesn't bend and the mast doesn't bend, it gives you better acceleration." However Jon admits it took him a number of months to realise he was over-vanging on the mainsail leech. "I'd bear away around the windward mark and release the kicker to its usual mark and forget about it. But after a while I realised the mainsail leech was too hard. With the new mast you can ease the kicker another a couple of inches from where it used to be."

For such a long-established class it is not surprising to hear that there are few developments going on, except that after the Looe Worlds there will be a move to change the ruling on jib sticks. A few years ago the Indian team turned up to championships with maximum and minimum length jib sticks, as they had discovered you could use a minimum length stick to hold out the jib to leeward on a reach. Their downwind pace was devastatingly quick as they were able to barber-haul the leech much straighter and get more power out of the top of the jib. Jon says this has now become the norm, with everyone jib-sticking the sail on a reach and sheeting in and cleating the jib. While this is a very efficient use of the jib, it has removed one of the skills of a good crew downwind, who are now there solely to balance the boat.

Understandably, the crews' union has not enjoyed being relieved of sail-trimming duties and so the plan is to change the rule after this year's Worlds and for jib-trimming to become part of the crew's repertoire once more.

Having only competed in one Enterprise regatta, the Worlds in Tynemouth 1990 when I crewed for Paul Brotherton, it is hard to comment on ways of improving the boat. But if I was helming I'd be tempted to try an up-and-over mainsheet system, with a transom bridle leading up to a block on the back of the boom forward to a block on the centre of the boom, and to sheet - B14 or 29er-style - directly off the centre of the boom. One of the problems for Paul, as I remember, was that sheeting off the transom meant he was constantly fighting against sliding back along the gunnel. It also makes it harder to hike as effectively with transom sheeting, but the feeling is that centre sheeting would make it harder to pump the mainsail as effectively downwind. Transom sheeting is also very good for smooth rolltacking, but for straight-line speed upwind I would have thought centre sheeting had a lot to recommend it.

Testosterone Challenge

Steve Nicholson was an Enterprise sailor who died well before his time, but at least the regatta held in his name continues to go from strength to strength at Northampton Sailing Club every year. As I write, the Steve Nicholson Memorial Race is about to take place, and I see that those strapping lads in the Finn and Phantom classes have thrown down a ‘2 tonne' challenge to each other. Julian Abel, chairman of the Phantom Association, says the two-part challenge, which takes place at Northampton and the following weekend's John Merricks Tiger Trophy at Rutland, is a way of bringing the two classes together in a spirit of friendly rivalry. "I'm delighted we have finally managed to get the two classes together in a competitive forum. For many years we have been in contact and both classes have been the butt of sometimes very funny jokes in the Finn magazine Pump and on the Phantom Class Association's popular bashing page. The main point of the challenge is to raise awareness amongst sailors of other classes, possibly unsuitable for their size, that there are fantastic alternatives out there in either the Olympic class or the lightweight and classic Phantom."

With the sailing part of the challenge decided at Northampton and Rutland, the Finns and Phantoms move on to the next phase at the RYA Dinghy Show in March, when the big boys will front up for some arm wrestling and beer drinking. Julian says: "I'm not too sure how many volunteers we'll get for the strength exercise but I'm sure we'll be beating away the prospective beer drinkers with a very large stick