Swinging the lead
Sailing can be a weight-obsessed sport, and every class appears to have its optimum weight range. I mentioned the massive weight variations among top Optimist sailors in last issue's Rolltacks, but this is certainly the exception rather than the norm. Of course, the 1990s trend towards weight equalisation tried to overcome this obsession with weight and having experienced the Laser 5000's system it did seem to work quite well. But only in a straight line. Whether you were a heavy team with narrow racks and the minimum of lead or one of the lightest on ‘max racks' and ‘max lead', boatspeed upwind was remarkably similar. As soon as you start turning corners, however, the heavy mob gets the advantage. Out of a gybe, all they've got to do is park their bums on the gunnel to balance the boat and prevent a capsize. The little people, on the other hand, have to leap out on to the edge of racks to achieve the same righting moment. That's where the system starts to break down.
The 49er adopted a much less sophisticated equalisation system as an afterthought, when it was bidding against the Laser 5000 for Olympic selection in 1996. The 49er won that battle, but the sailors have since been saddled with a system that they don't much care for. All the top teams lose weight so that they come in under a combined 148kg and pull their wings out to the maximum, in return for attaching 5kg of lead to the transom bar. This has long been the accepted wisdom in the class, but the new World Champions have just turned that thinking on its head. When the Spanish team of Iker Martinez and Xabier Fernandez last won the 49er Worlds in Hawaii two years ago, they were doing the whole go-running-followed-by-a-really-long-sauna-whilst-drinking-absolutely-no-water routine. This year in Athens they won back their crown by weighing in as the heaviest team at over 160kg combined. As in Hawaii, they didn't just win in Athens, they dominated the event with a race to spare.
I don't know the Spanish reasons for competing at such a heavy weight, but it will be interesting to see if they drag others in their direction for the Olympics this August. When a crew performs at such a high level on a consistent basis, they can start to influence people's opinions of what the optimum class weight might be. Ben Ainslie sits at the other end of the weight range in the Finn, struggling as he does to bulk up to the 97kg+ that is considered necessary for the Olympic singlehander. And yet his dominating performances these past couple of years must be making other sailors wonder if heavy is the way to go. Ben has many strengths as a sailor, but the one that is most often mentioned is his devastating speed downwind, and his lighter weight must help him in that department.
Then again, the nice thing about a less strict one-design such as the Finn is that you can at least choose your mast and sail combination to suit your weight. This is a luxury that isn't available to sailors competing in manufacturer one-designs like the 49er. You have to design your body around the rig, not vice versa. Having been one of the fatties in the 49er, I'm hoping Martin Jones and I can justify our relatively heavy weight in the International 14. There are all sorts of things to play with - fat-head mainsails, carbon masts, different hull shapes and T-foil rudder arrangements which can generate up to 70kg of lift. Of course if none of these things work then we'll have to lose weight instead, which isn't nearly so appealing.
Donner und blitzen
I was enthusing about Garda last Rolltacks, and after eight days sailing on the Lake I haven't changed my view. No wonder so many Brits and Germans make the pilgrimage to race there, just surprising that more Italian sailors don't take advantage of this beautiful lake on their own doorstep. Six out of the eight days were spectacular - absolutely classic Garda - and the other two were perfectly sailable, just a bit weird. The final day of the Riva Cup was the strangest of all, with the rain pouring and the wind unable to decide whether it wanted to come from the North, the South, or vertically downwards from the surrounding mountains. And then the thunder and lightning started rolling ominously around the lake. I was sort of wondering whether the race committee would send us in at this point. Sailing around attached to a 26-foot lightning conductor isn't the most relaxing of experiences. Martin reassured me that carbon is every bit as conductive as aluminium, the difference being that when aluminium is struck by lightning it doesn't tend to explode into a thousand supersonic shards and leave your face looking like Freddy Krueger's.
Then again, you'd think the lightning might be more inclined to strike the towering mountain peaks surrounding the lake. But no, it fell to winners of the last race, James Fawcett and Dave Dubrovnik, to receive a one million volt telegram of congratulations down the mast and through the boat. Fortunately, the effect on both sailors was little more than a jolt and a Kevin Keegan hair perm.
The sailing throughout the week was electric. For the Riva Cup we raced around square courses with two-sail reaches as well as the customary windward/leeward legs, and it was the reaches that accounted for some of the more spectacular nosedives and capsizes. For someone who has spent the last few seasons racing almost exclusively up and down windward/leewards, it was really refreshing to hoon down some fast two-sailers for a change. There's a danger of the beam reach becoming a lost art in the world of asymmetric sailing, and while reaching can be a bit processional in the lighter breezes, it was anything but processional on some of the windy legs at Garda. Quite often the final 100 yards into the finish line were strewn with boats that had fallen at the last post. There was plenty of opportunity for catch-up if you could just stay on the horse for the final furlong.
Footloop
By comparison the three-sail reaching and running was quite sedate. Neither Martin nor I can quite believe what the T-foil rudder lets you get away with downwind. Just when you think it's all over - as you see a wave rise up with your name written all over it - the boat happily carries on through the wave and pops out the other side. Martin seemed to have a stronger stomach for danger as I don't once recall him asking me to dump the power out of the gennaker, but on a number of occasions I decided to anyway. Getting locked into your footloops also gives you a lot of confidence to drive the boat harder too, although I'm not quite happy with mine yet. Footloops are very personal bits of equipment, to the point where I used to transfer my favourite bits of hosepipe from my old 49er across to the next one. For me, they're like a comfort blanket, and worth getting absolutely right, in terms of shape, size and material used.
It turns out that Martin was one of the original pioneers of footloops way back in 1981 when he became the youngest helmsman to win Prince of Wales Week and the legendary Prince of Wales Cup at the age of 21. Competing with fellow Tynemouth sailor Peter Cassell, Martin largely credits that win with their radical idea of attaching a piece of hosepipe to the back quarter of each gunnel. This was back in the days of single trapezing and massive symmetrical spinnakers, and when both crew and helmsman wore weight jackets as heavy as they could physically bear. It's not surprising that Peter and other 14 crews found themselves swinging helplessly round the forestay on the odd occasion, as the boat decelerated into the back of a wave. Martin and Peter attached their secret weapon for POW Week and during a windy regatta at Mounts Bay they were able to drive the boat that much harder downwind without Peter coming a cropper. And so the ‘Casselli loop' was born, later to become more widely used on all manner of trapeze boats and to be renamed the plain, old ‘footloop'.
Ainsworth's Theorem
Another one of Martin's old mates from the Tynemouth mafia is Tony Ainsworth, who will be known to many sailors for his boat delivery service using massive multi-stack trailers towed behind big American 4x4 pick-ups. He was there in Garda along with fellow boat deliverers Ian Jubb and Pip Williams whose services we used to get our 14 down to the regatta, while we Ryan Aired it from Stansted. For anyone who values their time off work, this has to be better than doing your towing through Europe. Not only do you save yourself a day's travelling each way, but the difference in price is negligible. Count in the time that you've saved and it's definitely the more cost-effective option. Tony is acutely aware that his whole business is founded upon the Ryan Airs and EasyJets being able to continue offering ridiculously cheap flights, although with the current Saudi oil crisis as well as the evershifting European legislation, their future is far from guaranteed. But while you can still get flights to the far end of Europe for £50 or less, then you should really make the most of it. Get your boat on one of these trailers and treat yourself to some low-hassle, warm-weather sailing.
Anyway, my real reason for mentioning Tony was a theory he has, that you will either find encouraging or disheartening, depending on your point of view. Ainsworth's Theorem is that your overall result at a regatta will be within three places of where you finished in the first race of that regatta. He points out that the first race must be a fair one, held in reasonable wind without any unusual circumstances, but provided you have that, he claims his theory holds true. So, for example, if you finished third in the first race, this means you could go on to win the regatta or finish fifth. But if you scored 33rd, then the best you're likely to finish overall is 30th, in which case you might as well pack up early and play golf for the rest of the regatta, surmises Tony. "It gives you loads of time to go off and do other things rather than struggle through the rest of the regatta," he says. It's just as well Ben Ainslie didn't follow Tony's advice at the recent Spa Regatta in Holland. Ben had an uncharacteristically shocking first day out, scoring a 14th and OCS. But rather than going off to play golf for the rest of the week he knuckled down and won the next four races straight. He went and upset his run of success with a retirement in one heat due to a broken toestrap, but he did end up second overall, just three points adrift of Mateusz Kusnierewicz. So, while Ainsworth's Theorem might work in a good number of instances, I think it best for the mental stability of our Olympic sailors that they not be shown sight of this theorem so close to the Olympic regatta. But thanks anyway, Tony.
