"For the time being it’s the long-time multihull specialists who are winning, although it’s early days and the pecking order is far from established."
but is now relishing a new challenge. The Spaniard has teamed up with Tara Pacheco, a 470 World Champion. "She's very competitive,” says Martinez. “No one gives a World Championship to you and you have to work hard to get it so I'm more than happy. Now we have to keep going. We can see now that the power in the boat is very important, the technique is also very important and there are a lot of different points that we have to be focused on.” Martinez and Pacheco won a race at Hyeres but, along with Cammas, failed to put in a consistent series. For the time being it’s the long-time multihull specialists who are winning, although it’s early days and the pecking order is far from established. One of the biggest technical challenges is how to master the curved foils of the Nacra 17. It’s not just the AC72s in the America’s Cup that are learning the seemingly unpredictable quirks of hydrofoiling. YouTube is filling up with thrilling videos of Nacra 17s flying along at high speed only to take off without warning and crash back down again. Some are claiming it’s a design fault. But British sailors Ben Saxton and Hannah Diamond, 4th at Hyeres, see foiling as a new challenge. “It's exactly the same as when the 49er first came in as a new class,” says Diamond. “Olympic sailors want a boat that's challenging to sail and they will always push the limits, and that's how you make the boat go faster. Whether we're training or racing, we're always trying to find where that limit is. Sometimes we push it a bit too far, and it ends up with a capsize, pitchpole or rising up too high on the foils - but give it a year or so and the boat will be under control and I'm sure we'll be sailing them a lot quicker than we are now.”
Image credit:
segel-bilder.de
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