SailJuice Blog

You’ve got to hand it to the 470 class. It’s not the fastest boat by modern standards, but it certainly delivers drama. Two new World Champions, but neither the Men’s or Women’s teams going to the Olympics. That speaks volumes about the depth of talent in the fleet.

Delighted Nic Asher admitted he and teammate Elliott Willis had done it the hard way as they celebrated clinching the 470 World Championship crown in Australia before insisting: “Now we want to help Great Britain win gold at Beijing.”

The British team that will be going to the Games is Nick Rogers and Joe Glanfield who had a lacklustre conclusion to the Worlds, a 9th place dropping them to 9th overall. Asher and Willis’s victory poses an interesting – but ultimately futile – question about who would be the better bet… Read the rest

Yesterday I wrote about USA’s No.2 470 Women moving into the lead of the World Championships, while the No.1 nominees who will be going to the Games for USA were lying in 6th.

After today’s racing in moderate breezes on Port Philip Bay, the gulf is much wider. Erin Maxwell and Isabelle Kinsolving now hold a commanding lead going into tomorrow’s Medal Race, while Amanda Clark and Sarah Mergenthaler had a poor outing, and have fallen to 11th, just three agonising points short of the cut for the Medal Race.

Herein lies the weakness of the one-regatta, winner-takes-all Olympic trials system still favoured by US Sailing, long since abandoned by other leading sailing nations such as GBR. How many reigning 470 World Champions have been left behind, not even able to represent their nation, let alone win a medal?… Read the rest

Christina Bassadone and Saskia Clark (GBR) scored two bullets at the Women’s 470 World Championship earlier today, launching them up the rankings and making the cut for the Medal Race.

Despite the 12-15 knot winds, which would normally be a strong point for Marcelien de Koning and Lobke Berkhout, the Dutch three-time World Champions slipped to 3rd overall after an OCS and 9th place. This leaves up-and-coming Americans Erin Maxwell and Isabelle Kinsolving way clear at the top, 16 points ahead of 2nd-placed Italians Giulia Conti and Giovanna Micol.

The championship is there for the USA girls to lose. De Koning will be happy just to hold on to a podium position. “Maybe we’ll still be able to get into the top three,” she said. “But the points difference with the first boat is too big to make up. It’s… Read the rest

Ben Ainslie won his fifth Finn Gold Cup in Melbourne, after finishing second in the Medal Race. But the reigning Olympic Champion said this was his toughest win of the five.

The Brit already held the world record for the number of wins in this long established and legendary Olympic class; well ahead of Paul Elvstrom (two wins), Willi Kuhweide, Jorg Bruder, Lasse Hjortnaes, Freddy Loof, who all had three wins.

And he has Olympic gold medals in both the Laser class (2000) and Finn (2004).

Ainslie finished just a wave behind British team mate Ed Wright in the medal race, which is restricted to the top ten sailors after eight races in the 82-boat fleet, but well ahead of New Zealander Dan Slater, who had been only a point behind him going into the medal race.

A… Read the rest

While the lead in the 470 Worlds has been swinging around from one team to the next, Dan Slater has been at the top of the board since day one of the Finn Gold Cup, when he won both heats.

However, yesterday Ben Ainslie (pictured above) claimed a psychological advantage in passing the Kiwi on the finish line, to get ahead by one point before tomorrow’s Medal Race. With Pieter Jan Postma climbing to 3rd and Jonas Hoegh-Christensen in 4th position after a 9th in today’s race, the top four contenders are within 10 points going into tomorrow’s Medal race. It will be a four man battle for the title.

The reigning Olympic Champion, tenth at the top mark, gradually gained places. Turning 5th onto the run, under Oscar flag allowing for free pumping, Ainslie stayed close behind Slater… Read the rest

The American 470 Women are coming on strong at the World Championships, with teams lying in 1st and 6th overall. Only trouble is, the ones who have qualified to represent USA at the Olympic Games are the ones lying in 6th, Amanda Clark and Sarah Mergenthaler.

Now this is no disaster, but to have a team at the top of the leaderboard – Erin Maxwell and Isabelle Kinsolving – who aren’t going to the Games, that must be a bitter-sweet moment for the people at US Sailing.

It would be a bitter-sweet moment too for the girls themselves, although they were putting a positive spin on things. “If we win the world titles we’ll be a whole lot less bummed about missing selection for the Olympics,” Kinsolving said. Maxwell added: “We didn’t want to stop sailing after such a… Read the rest

A long time ago, if memory serves me correctly, a young Kiwi sailor called Dan Slater beat a young Brit called Ben Ainslie to the ISAF Youth World Championship. That was almost 15 years ago, in Laser Radials. Now the same two sailors – a little older, wiser and somewhat heavier – are battling it out at the top of the leaderboard in the Finn Gold Cup in Melbourne.

Slater (pictured above) had a scorcher of a start to the regatta at Black Rock Sailing Club, winning both the first heats in lighter winds. Yesterday was the first big breeze day, and the top of the table is tightening up.

The two big gainers were Jonas Hoegh Christensen (DEN) and Pieter Jan Postma (NED). Postma stormed up the charts to fourth overall, with a stunning 1,2 scoreline in the… Read the rest

When you think of sailing as being a dangerous sport, I doubt that racing 470s is the first thing that springs to mind. But yesterday at the 470 World Championships in Melbourne, two top teams competing in the Gold Fleet found themselves in a head-on collision.

Here are the grim details from Jody Kelly and Clare Murray’s report from the first windy of the championships.

A stunning mid-race collision has potentially cost British pair Nic Asher and Elliot Willis a serious tilt at their second world title at the 470 Men’s championships at Mordialloc Sailing Club today.

Asher and Willis, who started the day in overall second position, collided with Aussie No.2 team Mat Belcher and Nick Behrens in Race 8, and have slipped to sixth with Willis carted off to hospital for precautionary chest x-rays.

Willis, 24, was knocked… Read the rest

I caught up with Ben Ainslie last week during the Sail Melbourne regatta. At the time, he had just moved into the lead, but Ed Wright was still hard on his heels. As it turned out, Ben stretched away on the final days to win the regatta by a massive margin, even though he said he wasn’t that focused on his performance there.

For Ben, the trip to Australia was all about Sydney International Regatta (where he needed to prove his mettle against Ed for British selection to the Olympics) and now the Worlds which start in the next few hours. If he can win in Melbourne, it will be his fifth Gold Cup victory.

Of course the other job which Ben is holding down is that of skipper of Team Origin, not the most onerous job right now,… Read the rest

If you’ve enjoyed following Francis Joyon’s progress around the world over the past couple of months, here is a summary of his record-breaking voyage.

Act I: gliding all the way to Tasmania

Francis Joyon set sail from Brest on Friday 23rd November 2007 at 11h05, in a north-easterly flow, which reached 25 knots at the tip of Brittany. To beat Ellen MacArthur’s record, IDEC had to complete her circumnavigation in less than 71 days, 14 hours and 18 minutes, or in other words return before the 3rd February 2008 at 1h23.

Easily recognisable with her very long central hull, the Irens/Cabaret design immediately put on the speed, respecting precisely the battle plan that had been drawn up beforehand with the router, Jean-Yves Bernot: a gybe in the Bay of Biscay and then work hard to keep up… Read the rest