Hancock's half hour of fame
The other night I went to the most bizarre race briefing I've experienced. The briefing was to take place no earlier than midnight outside the Oca Bar in Riva, at the northern end of Lake Garda. Some of Great Britain's finest yachters were gathered, Geoff Carveth, Mike Lennon and James Fawcett among them, to hear what another fine yachter, Tim Hancock, had to say. The only thing was, people weren't thinking fine thoughts about Hancock, as he eked out his moment of power and glory as long as possible, making the gathered throng wait until nearly one o'clock before he revealed the course that would decide the Adolfo Bastardo trophy. Yes I kid you not (and you couldn't make up a name like that in this age of political correctness, could you?), there is a Swiss 14 sailor of that very name, and now a bronze cast of this gentleman's foot has become one of the most sought-after trophies in the 14 fleet.
Tim Hancock, as the winner of last year's Adolfo Bastardo when he was crewing Zeb Elliott, had the privilege of setting the course for this year's marathon around the legendary Lake. With this year's helmsman, Chips Howarth, Hancock did a scouting voyage the day before. When Hancock issued the course (round the dirty grey mark opposite a peach house north of Limone, and so on), not only was the 14 fleet looking a little the worse for wear at one o'clock in the morning, but it is against class rules to take down the course on paper. Everything must be committed to what little memory has been left unassailed by Warsteiner, Becks, grappa and various other alcoholic horrors.
The following day, the day that would decide the winner of the Adolfo Bastardo Trophy 2004, was a classic case of ‘it's normally like this'. The wind refused to behave and Lake Garda was feeling in particularly mischievous mood as it promised much but delivered little. Various teams took the lead, but Richard Lovering and Richard Kent grabbed the front in the latter stages and held it to the finish.
From Garda with love
Maybe it's sour grapes because my helmsman and I made such a pig ear's of the race, but the conditions weren't the most enjoyable. Then again, let's put everything into perspective for a moment. How bad can a bad day get when you're in Lake Garda, Europe's cathedral of sailing and windsurfing? You are surrounded by mountains that soar out of the water, their peaks towering hundreds of feet above you. The water is blue and as fresh as you'll taste in any restaurant. More often than not the sky is blue and the sun is hot. And when the fabled Ora wind blows in from the south, you get the ride of your life.
For three consecutive days, my helmsman Martin Jones and I enjoyed some of the most spectacular sailing either of us could remember. The breeze must have been touching over 20 knots at times, and yet at Garda it feels eminently sailable. It makes a pleasant change from Chichester Harbour where you never quite know when you're going to run aground. In Lake Garda, you've got 2,000 feet of sheer cliff on either side of you, and below there's another 1,000 feet. So should you happen to capsize and turn turtle, it's not too much of an issue.
The other nice thing about Garda is that normally there is not the slightest whiff of any breeze until 11 o'clock in the morning, so you needn't feel guilty about getting up late. You can hit the town the night before, safe in the knowledge that you have a whole morning to get your head back together again. The added bonus of the 14 in its T-foil configuration is that you get a fire hose of water in your face when you're really motoring upwind, too powerful for even the most persistent of hangovers to withstand.
Blood, sweat and tears
Chips Howarth is another who is new to the charms of the T-foil and associated 14 gizmos, although he is still closely involved in the more sedate 470 class. As well as his commercial interest in the class as product manager for Proctor Masts, he is set to do some coaching with our Olympic representatives Nick Rogers and Joe Glanfield, who won a Bronze at the recent World Championships in Turkey. Chips became a pretty respectable 470 helm in his own right during a campaign for the 2000 Games, and among his regular training partners were the Aussies Tom King and Mark Turnbull. Chips says they were always pretty good sailors but weren't really looking like serious medal prospects even as late as a year before the Games. However, after a summer back home in Australia, King and Turnbull burst back on to the European circuit in early 2000 and won just about every major regatta - Hyeres, the Europeans, the Worlds and eventually the Olympic Gold in Sydney.
Chips asked Tom King what had made the difference, and Tom said it was the insistence of their coach Victor Kovalenko that they spend 40 days doing solid boathandling practice. No thinking about rig settings, no testing out new sails or centreboards or anything remotely technical. Just doing tack after tack, mark rounding after mark rounding, honing every part of their game until they were dizzy. Kovalenko seemed to operate on an Eastern European work ethic that just expected far more of the sailors than perhaps they had ever expected of themselves. It's not as though the 470 is even very difficult to sail, but as the old cliché goes, it's a boat that's difficult to sail well. I think the Aussies' success offers quite a heartwarming story for those of us who like to think you can still do well at sailing by doing simple things like boathandling practice, rather than having to spend endless amounts of time and money testing out new equipment for that elusive speed edge.
Judging by the number of different winners in 470 regattas, it must still rank as one of the toughest Olympic classes. And yet according to Chips, such was the Aussies' dominance in 2000 that there was one day at the World Championships where they won all three races and weren't even crossed by another boat. You can't get much better than that. I remember reading one of Tom King's comments after he won the Gold in Sydney saying that they had trained until "talent was no longer an issue".
The implication of that remark is that talent will get you so far, but it won't get you all the way. What Tom was saying was that he left his talent behind some months back and that the last few percentage points of improvement came through nothing more than a lot of blood, sweat and tears. In fact he professed not to have enjoyed the process that Kovalenko put him through, perhaps indicated by the fact that he left the sailing world behind soon after Sydney for a career in finance.
Optimists
Many of our future Olympic stars will doubtless continue to hail from the ranks of the Optimist. Ben Ainslie and Iain Percy came through the class, for example. The Optimist remains unassailed as the young sailor's training and racing singlehander, something that has frankly always baffled me, as I couldn't get out of the boat fast enough when I was a youngster. But a conversation with LDC Racing Sailboats' Nick Peters revealed another side of the Optimist that hadn't occurred to me. Actually, Nick himself is a reluctant convert to the charms of the pram dinghy, having seen his kids jump into them and do rather well. He is not great fan of heavily structured youth sailing, where he feels the serious side is often in danger of outweighing the fun. "I've been arguing against that ethos for years, but now I feel a bit stupid. I was keen for the kids to sail at Hayling Island this summer, I wanted a more family friendly avenue for their sailing," he admits.
But now with 13-year-old Frances having finished second overall in the selections for the World Championships, she is on her way to Ecuador in July, while a month later, 11-year-old James is on his way to the Europeans in Sweden. It looks as though Nick's own sailing is going to have to be put on the back burner for a while, as he stands on the shore with binoculars and plastic launching trolley in hand. At least all this Optimist activity will give him an opportunity to sell the Chinese-built Optimists that LDC Racing Sailboats has just started importing. At £1995 for a package that includes boat, rig, sail, trolley and cover, it compares favourably with the Scandinavian alternative, the Winner Optimist which sells for £2650. And Nick claims the Chinese boat looks to be every bit as fast as the world-beating Winner. With some commercial competition, hopefully the class will overcome its reputation for being somewhat on the expensive side.
Despite being no great fan of the Optimist, Nick concedes it does offer a lot of benefits. "As a boat it's relatively clever. Its rig has an immensely low centre of effort so it's easy to sail. And it has a huge wetted surface area and is very flat underneath, so is very stable. You have a boat that absorbs crew weight like no other class does. Take the selection trials at Weymouth. Five are selected to go to the Europeans, and five go to the Worlds. The heaviest in the team is 55kg, and the lightest is 29kg, and these guys can really sail. The standard of racing is very high." As Nick points out, you'd be hard pushed to think of another class that offers such a wide competitive weight range.
Nick says the Optimist fulfils three different functions in youth sailing extremely well. "It works at a base level when you're learning; it is a good training boat; and at the top level it offers worldwide competition." But it's not all good news. "In other respects, it almost does youth sailing a disservice at times. If you get a 12 or 13 year old who knew nothing about sailing, you wouldn't be likely to excite him about going out in an Optimist. The boat isn't exactly cool, whereas the Feva would be perfect." Of course, he would say that wouldn't he, but Nick certainly makes a point that rings true with a lot of kids. If you want to learn the art and science of racing, there's no better place than the Optimist. But if you simply want a blast, then there are all manner of youth boats to go and play in. The key is to try a bit of everything and see which avenue of the sport grabs you the most.
