SailJuice Blog

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… Read the rest

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

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

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

“If something goes wrong, women still think about it a week later. For men, it’s easy to go to the bar, get a beer and get over it. It’s done. Women have more emotions and they can spend a long time thinking about it….”

Phewww! Imagine saying that about the fairer sex. We blokes would be hung, drawn and quartered for uttering such blasphemies. But it wasn’t me, guv! It was Marcelien de Koning, three-time 470 World Champion (that’s her on the right, with crew Lobke Berkhout), who lays out her “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus” theories in my latest SailingTalk Xpress interview.

Click here to sign up and read the full interview. In the past few months we’ve profiled many of the best sailors in the world, including Darren Bundock, Howie Hamlin,… Read the rest