The spirit of the America's Cup is always at its best when there is no America's Cup is at stake. We saw this during the Louis Vuitton Acts that travelled across Europe in the three years leading up to 2007, and the same carnival atmosphere was evident in Auckland for the recent Louis Vuitton Pacific Series. When the future of the Auld Mug is in the balance, steely-eyed determination and ruthlessness wipe all niceties aside...
Audio (8 minutes) and text: Anna Tunnicliffe reflects on a dramatic conclusion to the last Olympics. The Laser Radial Olympic Champion talks about what she's been up to since then, and why she's back on the campaign trail so early for Weymouth 2012.
Audio (10 minutes): Olympic gold medallist and America's Cup sailor Jonathan McKee was all revved up to do the Volvo Ocean Race with Puma, but he only did Leg One was off the boat. He talks about the disappointment, but also the subsequent upsides of this move...
When some old 49er friends from Switzerland once told me of their unbreakable rule for sailing - never go out if it's less than 5 degrees Celsius - I made it my own rule too. I remember racing a Topper in the early 80s when it was so darned cold that when you reached the windward mark you found that you couldn't let the mainsheet out because it had frozen in a stubborn coil at the bottom of the cockpit...
Just before Christmas I asked Russell Coutts what type of boat he wanted to see emerge as the replacement for the ageing and rather ponderous Version 5 class which has been the Cup boat for the past two decades...
Match racing is a tough win-or-lose game, which makes match racing sailors very good at analysing their races in fine detail. It’s a skill that fleet racing sailors would be well advised to copy...
A buoyancy aid is a good thing, isn’t it? As obvious as wearing a seatbelt in a car. Not necessarily for high performance sailors, suggests Andy Rice...
Elsewhere we’ve talked about the power of incurable optimism. Sometimes you can have too much of a good thing, such as an realistic expectation (hope?) of how far you are from the start line...
Getting your fore and aft boat trim is critical for ultimate boat speed, and transitioning between different sailing modes requires you to shift your body weight accordingly...
If you try sailing your dinghy heeled to windward when you’re practising, chances are you’ll sail much more upright during racing. And that means you’ll be faster...
