Worlds Recap
The form guide was fairly accurate this
year.
I picked Silja and I to be top 3. Dylan & Rob to be top 3.
Cameron & Matt to be top 5. Huw & Max to be top 3 (but 4th
was close enough). Paul & Marie did get top 10 (but only
just).
Pepe didn’t make the top 10. Jen & Mike didn’t make gold fleet.
Helle & Simon didn’t compete. Benjamin had a different crew and
did make the top 10.
Mikko & Miikka were the surpise I expected. If there was such a
thing.
So 7 out of 10 or so is not so bad.
So why did the regatta turn out like it did? Well…. Splitting the
108 boat fleet 4-ways for qualifying meant that the contenders
rarely got to sail against each other, except for Huw & Max and
us, we raced each other on the first two days. After those two days
and 6 light-air races the Welsh guys were already talking up how
much of a speed advantage we had over them. They’d talked
themselves out of beating us.
Paul was still as confident and cocky as ever. Miikka was getting
more confident by the day. Dylan started to tear himself up over
his inability to win every race like we were doing.
Then Huw & Max beat Paul in the last race of qualifying to give
us 1st place and a headstart into the
finals. Now they were talking up our speed advantage over him
as well.
And then the scores were reset and off we went into the last 3
days, head-to-head against all the contenders at last.
So the first non-race was light, Dylan and Paul were leading, we
were well back. We got lucky when the wind died. The luck ran out
on the startline of the resail where we were OCS. No second
chances. Despite being over at that start we had a lame first work,
but pulled through to get 2nd across the line. We were quick upwind
in the moderate stuff.
And people started to notice it.
The next race was tight as well, the breeze was still building. We
finished a close 7th, with Dylan slipping through on the finish
line. We pulled in a third in the next race. Not a great day by any
stretch of the imagination, but it matched it with almost everyone
else.
Then the breeze built for the second day of finals, and with five
races it was all to play for. Paul was out-gunned off the line and
was going backwards fast. We started to stretch out. Our upwind
technique was so different to the rest of the fleet - but nobody
was matching us. The start-lines were long enough that we could
start anywhere with a gap, and then roll away over the top of the
leeward boats. The Argies started talking about us rolling
them.
And by the end of that day we’d stretched to a 10 point lead. The
US coach was saying we were trapezing lower, hiking harder and
going 2 knots faster than anyone else.
Even though Cameron & Matt were closest, our eyes were always
on Dylan. We kept our eyes on him on the last day, but nailed two
wins to make it next to impossible for him.
So what made us different to the others? Psychologically we were
stronger. The competition was scared of us before the event
started. Our windward technique was better, especially in waves.
Our starts were mostly very good.
We could have gone much much faster downwind, but then the downwind
is short, and if you’re already in the lead, then passing
opportunities for the boats behind are limited. Our gybes in
moderate breeze were lame.
Our commincation on the boat was pretty ordinary too.
Australian-slang probably isn’t the easiest thing to learn.
Silja didn’t really buy into my psycho-babble about self-belief and
thinking you can win. But I’d never considered being able to win in
the previous two worlds, and finished a close 3rd then 2nd. This
time around I didn’t think anyone else could win it.
It’s not that the other teams weren’t good. There are some great
sailors there. I just don’t think that they thought they could
catch us - and so they couldn’t. They didn’t.
But then I don’t think the next challenge is going to be quite so
easy.
