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Mat Belcher spoke to Blue Robinson with 100 days left to go on the road to Rio and the chance of a second 470 gold medal to add to his medal from London 2012 Seahorse Magazine: Let’s begin with the boat. What characteristics do you look for in your 470 hulls? Mat Belcher: We obviously had great success in London with the Ziegelmayer hull, and with the family connection, having married his daughter and now with two children, there is not too much discussion on builder options these days… But there are other great builders now with consistent high-quality reproduction of hulls. A few more top men’s teams have moved to Ziegelmayer since London 2012 with success, but the New Zealand Mackay boats are also performing well. But Ziegelmayer’s attention to detail is amazing and it makes for a very enjoyable boat to sail. SH: Is your latest 470 a light-airs boat for Rio or an all-rounder? MB: I really believe a lot of teams just want to use what the top guys are using. There are a few top teams that are trying to find an edge through materials, but I believe if we can have the same equipment as everyone else then ‘all’ we have to do is just race better. This is what racing is about. The Ziegelmayer boat has proved to be fast in all conditions – there really isn’t the speciali- sation between conditions you see in some classes, it just depends on which team is sailing the boat well on the day. SH: Rig of choice… MB: Again there is a fair bit of scope on what you can use – we have gone with the SuperSpar masts. We were playing around with our own rigs during the pre-London campaign, then decided to take that variable out and have stayed pretty happy with Super- Spar. It’s also easy to replicate, which has allowed us good consistency in our development. SH: How many rigs do the top teams carry now? MB:Interesting question. With the events more globally distributed by World Sailing, getting to places like Abu Dhabi plus the 2015 worlds in Israel, plus doing enough training at the Olympic venue and having just competed in another worlds in Argentina, it really is a challenge to keep up with the containers, boats and gear. At this stage of the cycle we have had to use a lot of boats and kit to maintain a properly professional approach. This means we have several boats, as this is the only way we can get to all the events. I really hope the future brings a little more co-ordination in the calendar, to make the events more feasible with the same gear, instead of missing an event by a week or two due to shipping times and so needing more and more equipment. In terms of masts we have five or six we actively use. But we are comfortable now with our Olympic equipment and have put that aside; we enjoyed a fortunate transition period from London to this campaign which allowed us to do a lot of hard work early on. SH: Sails – still using the Japanese guys? MB: Yes, we have been with North Sails Japan for quite some time, actually for my whole 470 career. They have been really great to us and we have tried to support them as much as we can. We have a strong relationship and train with their national men’s team through our mutual sponsor Abeam Consulting. The quality and consistency are just fantastic. As long as I’m in 470s I wouldn’t look to use another sail manufacturer. SH: How much scope for sail refinement is still out there? MB: It really depends on the team. Those who are not happy will continue testing in the weeks before the Olympics, but the more experienced teams like us will have locked in the majority of their equipment. Rio is a hard venue as it is so diverse. You just need to have flexible enough designs to get you across the wind range – then just try and race better. SH: Fitness… MB: Will [Ryan] has brought a real professionalism to the fitness side, particularly now that with free-pumping above 8kt true wind speed the 470 has transitioned to much more physicality – like the Finn a few years back. This means the current fleet have a pretty high work rate which is great for the class, much more physical and also more interesting for spectators. SH: Is there now a 470-specific injury?
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