Brits wrap up the Star Worlds

21 01 2010

Beijing gold medallists Iain Percy and Andrew Simpson have scooped the World title after a thrilling final race climax to the Star World Championship Regatta held in Rio de Janeiro.

The six-day event held at the newest Olympic venue saw difficult light wind conditions with the pair fighting for their title amongst an 81-boat-fleet boasting 11 former world champions including 33-year-old Percy himself who won the title in 2002.

Simpson commented; “It’s been a tough week with very difficult conditions so we are really pleased to have won. Brazil is the home of Star sailing so it’s a very special event for us to have won especially here.”

Yesterday saw an opportunity for the Skandia Team GBR duo to clinch the title a day early in the penultimate race having created a 19 point lead in the first four races. The Swiss pairing of Flavio Marazzi and Enrico De Maria, currently the top ranked sailors in the world, however put paid to that posting a sixth place in the race delaying the championship decision until the last days racing.

Percy and Simpson went into the final race in a comfortable position needing post a ninth or better themselves or ensure the Swiss finished the race outside the top three boats to in order secure the title. The pair employed a match racing strategy against the Swiss but with extremely shifty light winds in Rio’s Guanabara Bay, the race proved quite a challenge making for an exciting finale to the week.

Percy commented; “We started off chasing Marazzi to the unfavoured end of the course but when the wind shifted 40 degrees to the left it then became the favoured end of the course and we had managed to push them in to a good position!

“We managed to catch up so we were quite close to him in the end and then we were able to relax and enjoy the last lap of the course knowing we were world champions,” he continued.

With light airs it was all about boat speed and Percy was keen to pay tribute to his crew.

“Boat speed is 90% down to the crew and Andrew really made it easy for me this week enabling me to point the boat in any direction and go faster than anyone else,” he concluded.

In winning the regatta and world title Percy and Simpson beat defending world champions George Szabo and Rick Peters (USA) who finished in 28th as well as top Brazilian crew Torben Grael and Marcelo Ferreira who finished third, Greal having picked up the ISAF Rolex World Sailor of the Year Award in 2009. Swiss Marazzi and De Maria finished second.

Simpson concluded; “It’s not been an easy week and we made some mistakes – it’s a good reminder for us we’ve got some work to do to be the best for 2012 but we’re really chuffed to have won.”

The Olympic champions will hold the world title for 22 months with the next world championship not taking place until December 2011 in Fremantle.


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Categories : Olympic Classes

Gold Medallists prepare for Star Worlds in Rio

15 01 2010

© Richard Langdon/Skandia Team GBR

Star sailing gold medallists Iain Percy and Andrew Simpson will be putting the newest Olympic venue through its paces when racing at the Star World Championship gets underway in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on Saturday (16 January).

After missing the 2009 Worlds in Sweden, which clashed with Simpson’s wedding, the pair are determined to assert their place in the 81-boat fleet, which boasts 11 former world champions including the 33-year-old Percy, who won the title in 2002.

“This event is a great marker for us, and missing the 2009 worlds due to my wedding means we are even hungrier for this one,” Simpson explained. “There will be no Worlds for another 22 months so it would be great to take home the title and keep it for such a long period.”

The Skandia Team GBR duo know that, with such a competitive fleet – particularly in Brazil which Percy describes as “the home of Star sailing” – winning a first world title together won’t be easy.  But they’ve been logging up the training hours at the venue with a training camp in December, which included a trip up Sugar Loaf Mountain to assess the racecourse conditions and tides in the harbour.

“The Brazilians have a great Olympic pedigree in this class,” said Percy.  “They boast three Star World Championship winning teams and a total of 14 Olympic medals between them!

“These guys know the water well and we need to keep an eye on them.  The European teams are also here in force with the ever-strong Swedish, Swiss and French teams having put in a lot of Rio training hours ready for this event.”

“We are here to win,” added Simpson, “but there are some strong teams and medalling at the Worlds is never an easy task with only six races, one slip up can cost you dearly.”


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Categories : Olympic Classes, Torben Grael

Bloody Madness – It’s Happening!

8 01 2010

© ianroman.com - a scene from last year's Bloody Mary, but this year's will be sub-zero....

The Bloody Mary is going ahead tomorrow, Saturday 9th January. The 37th edition of this winter dinghy pursuit race classic looks set to take place in a sunny but bone-chilling moderate north-easterly wind. It will deter some from coming, no doubt, but it won’t deter the toughest. Such is the pull of the Bloody Mary, many of Britain’s hardiest sailors will still do what it takes to get to the reservoir near Heathrow Airport.

Queen Mary Sailing Club said earlier this afternoon: “We have made the decision to proceed with holding the Bloody Mary Pursuit Race tomorrow Saturday 9th January . Competitors are reminded that it is due to be very cold and should ensure that they are adequately dressed for the conditions.”

For some still sitting on the fence about whether or not to go, there is the added incentive of the Bloody Mary being the first event of a brand new series, called the SailJuice Global Warm-Up. This new winter travellers’ series brings four of the biggest winter handicap racing events into a unified series, to find out just who is tough enough to race their way through Britain’s toughest winter in more than 15 years. With more than £2,000 of prizes up for grabs, not only for the winners but for sailors throughout the fleet, some sailors are going the extra mile to compete in this weekend’s Bloody Mary.


CLICK HERE to get the full lowdown on the SailJuice Global Warm-Up




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Nautical Moments of the Noughties – Part 2

2 01 2010

Francis Joyon on his record breaking voyage around the world on IDEC

Yesterday we looked back at the first five years of the Nautical Noughties, the moments that stood out in the competitive sailing world. Here’s a look at the last five…

2005

A new form of sailing is born as Rohan Veal uses a set of hydrofoils to win every race of the 2005 International Moth World Championships, sometimes by more than 10 minutes.

The diminutive Ellen MacArthur makes history by setting a new singlehanded round the world record aboard her purpose-built trimaran B&Q/Castorama.

A new canting-keel monster, the ambitious Volvo Open 70, is unleashed on the Volvo Ocean Race. But Mother Nature makes her displeasure known on the very first night of the race off the coast of Spain, when Pirates of the Caribbean and Movistar crash out of leg one. The new design is fraught with problems, but there’s no doubting they’re quick as ABN Amro 2 smashes the 24-hour monohull record with a new distance of 562.96 nm.

2006

Juan Kouyoumdjian’s beamy, twin-ruddered design for Team ABN Amro shows a clean pair of heels to the Volvo Ocean Race fleet, and first-time skipper Mike Sanderson wins the race with his crew on ABN Amro One.

2007

Russell Coutts has fallen out of favour with Ernesto Bertarelli, and does not compete in the 2007 America’s Cup. But with Brad Butterworth taking up the reins, Alinghi remains a force to be reckoned with. Team New Zealand has learnt from the embarrassing mistakes of its 2003 defeat at the hands of the Swiss, and gives Alinghi a real scare, in a match that many pundits believe to have been the best America’s Cup ever. The party doesn’t last long, however after Larry Ellison takes Bertarelli to task over a one-sided protocol. And so begins more than two years of legal wrangling over the future of the America’s Cup.

2008

Francis Joyon snatches back his singlehanded round the world record from Ellen MacArthur. Click here to remind yourself of this extraordinary feat.

Highlight of the Olympic regatta in China is the unorthodox way that the Danish 49er team win their gold medal. After breaking their mast in the heinous conditions just minutes before the start of the Medal Race, the Danes hurried back to shore and borrowed the Croatian 49er, enabling them to complete the demolition derby of a ridiculously windy and wavy finale. The Spanish and Italian teams that finished behind the Danes had good cause to be disgruntled about the Danes hanging on to gold, but it was great to see the lawmakers allow the spirit of competition to prevail over the letter of the law. If only it were so in the America’s Cup!

2009

Pascal Bidégorry and the crew of Banque Populaire V travel an astounding 908 nautical miles in 24 hours whil crossing the Atlantic. The 131-foot trimaran reached a peak speed of 47.15 knots and went on to break the transatlantic record, covering the distance between New York and the Lizard Point in just 3 days, 15 hours, 25 minutes and 48 seconds.

2010

That’s the end of the SailJuice review of the Noughties. What will be the highlight of 2010? Surely it has to be the best of three match between Alinghi and BMW Oracle racing in the 33rd America’s Cup. Whatever you might think about the tortuous legal process that has taken the Cup to this point, when those two giant multihulls accelerate off the start line, it will be one of the most dramatic moments in the history of the America’s Cup.


QUESTION: WHAT SHOULD HAVE MADE IT INTO THE HIGHLIGHTS OF THE PAST 10 YEARS AND DIDN’T? TELL ME WHAT I MISSED, AND WHY….



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Categories : 33rd America's Cup, Alinghi, Americas Cup, BMW Oracle, Francis Joyon, qingdao

Nautical Moments from the Noughties – Part One

1 01 2010

© Reuters: Kevin Burnham back flips in celebration of Olympic gold in Athens

Ten years ago, the turn of the new millennium, Russell Coutts and Brad Butterworth were sailing for the same team, representing their country as part of the mighty Team New Zealand. If anyone had told you that just three years later the America’s Cup would be won by Switzerland, you might have thought you were hearing the utterings of a lunatic.

What a difference three years makes.

What a difference a decade makes.

I have been thinking about some of the landmarks and milestones of the past 10 years in competitive sailing, and here are my picks. You’ll have to excuse some of my choices on the grounds of being a patriotic Brit, and I invite you to point out any glaring omissions, of which of course there are many.

But here goes …

2000

Russell Coutts and Team New Zealand wiped the floor in the America’s Cup, beating Prada 5-0.

Highlight of the Sydney Olympic Regatta was Ben Ainslie’s ruthless demolition of arch rival in the Laser, Robert Scheidt.

2001

Ellen MacArthur captures the attention of the French and British public when she runs Michel Desjoyeaux and close in the Vendée Globe. But the story that captivates France even more is when Yves Parlier rebuilds his shattered carbon mast off the coast of New Zealand, restepping it and and completing the race against all odds.

2002

Of the 17 ORMA 60 tris that start the 2002 Route du Rhum, only three finish. The indefatigable Michel Desjoyeaux wins again, while Ellen MacArthur breaks the monohull course record for this transatlantic classic by more than two days. Click here to remind yourself of this extraordinary race, and why I have included it in this line-up.

2003

With Russell Coutts and Brad Butterworth having defected from Team New Zealand to race with Ernesto Bertarelli’s brand-new brand new Swiss team Alinghi, the America’s Cup goes back to Europe for the first time since 1851.

2004

Highlight of the Athens Olympic regatta is Kevin Burnham, aged 48, back flipping out of his 470, having just won Olympic gold with fellow American Paul Foerster.


Tomorrow, we’ll round up the last five years of the Nautical Noughties. But meanwhile, tell me what glaring omissions should have been included from 2000 to the end of 2004. There are loads of things that could and maybe should have gone in. But what?


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Categories : 470, Americas Cup