and you’ll be competitive. SH: What about bigger boats? Harry Melges III: We’ve kicked around a 40-footer for a while with Frederico of Melges Italy. So far it’s just been talk but there is a lot of owner pressure to do it… SH: Is that about comfort level? Harry Melges III: Every new class is a little uncomfortable! There’s lot of work and risk involved. SH: What about foiling? Harry Melges IV: It’s really cool. Sailing the Moth has given me more of a handle on sailing boats with accentuated sens - itivity. But I enjoy the non-foiling boats just as much. SH: Feel…
34 SEAHORSE
Harry Melges IV: In the Moth you can’t move your body much or you slow down. Make a big mistake there and the boat will cartwheel. So focus. Going from there to the E Scow when it’s windy and shifty, that experience really helps. Harry Melges III: The Cup in foilers is cool to watch. Foiling is fun, it’s fun to do but it’s a different kind of racing. Cats will eventually all be foiling, why wouldn’t they? Racing something like a Moth is great but it’s not easy… for high-end guys only. And tactics are more like an iceboat race. There’s still a huge need for regular dinghy racing, that’ll never go away. Buddy Melges: With the foils the Cup’s a track race now. One guy forcing another
into a mistake, I don’t think you’ll see much of that. The AC was probably the forerunner to match racing as we know it now. The AC now is a whole different beast. There used to be different ways to get to the line first; when was the last time you saw 10 tacks on the windward leg of an AC race? SH: So tactics are out of the window… Buddy Melges: Speed, that’s what it’s all about now. Last time the Kiwis had it in the bag then the USA learned how to foil upwind and through manoeuvres… Maybe my age has got me hooked on tactics and things like that which are more exciting from my point of view. I think the doers like the tactics but the folks up the shore, they’re all about, ‘Whoo, look at it go!’ It’s a bit like iceboating where we do six 10-mile races a day. SH: So is the new AC product closer to iceboating? BM: Sure, in iceboating the old talk was the harder you sheet the faster you go. A lot is the same. Upwind that’s true and
CARLO BORLENGHI/DPPI
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