the waterline at the steeply raked stem. The 717 came into being really before the concept, let alone the term, sportsboat had come into being. Rod Johnstone had shown in 1975 what really light displace- ment and an easily driven hull form could achieve with the phenomenal J/24 proto- type Ragtime. A year later Elvstrøm and Kjaerullf created the 717, roughly the same weight at 1,400kg but with a super- wide flush deck, spindly rig with running backstays and more sail. It was a rocket… and a bit of a handful. Some 50 were built. The J/24 passed 5,000 boats.
‘In many ways Paul was ahead of his time when he designed something,’ believes his old sailing friend Dan Ibsen. ‘Sometimes he didn’t succeed, but that’s how it is with those among us who are the true innovators.’
America’s Cup
Pick one sailing project beyond the nerves- affected Olympic campaigns that was a substantial setback to Elvstrøm and it would have to be his involvement with Baron Bich’s French America’s Cup team. After the infamous lost-in-the-fog debacle of the 1970 America’s Cup, Bich asked Elvstrøm to join his team and impose competitive rigour on it for the 1974 Cup. Instead of integration, the French and Danish contingents grew further apart. The dismasting of the Mauric-designed France II at Kiel was indicative of a cam- paign not going as planned. Bich sacked the man he’d hired to enhance his chances. I remember walking along the wall by Copenhagen Sound with Elvstrøm after we’d finished an interview, the tape recorder’s work done. The Bich debacle was something he’d chosen to keep his own counsel over, which is why he spoke about it rarely. Yet there was a palpable sense that this was not just an unhappy time but a lost opportunity. If he’d stayed on with Bich, achieved reasonable success, it might have been the first plank of a future effort from Denmark. Paul was a proud Dane to his core.
Business and books
It was author and publisher Richard Creagh-Osborne who took the famous photograph of Paul sailing his Trapez. The Briton was a five times UK Finn National Champion and 11th at the 1956 Games. The closest of friends, the pair collabo- rated on a number of books. 1965 saw the first edition of Paul Elvstrøm Explains the Yacht Racing Rules, a standard-setting publication that demystified sailing’s arcane rules. It was he who suggested including four little plastic coloured 2D boats, each with a boom to show which tack it was on, and three buoys and a committee boat plus an arrow to represent the wind direction. Just as these were stowed inside the plas- tic soft-covers, so ‘Explains’ was stuffed into just about every racing sailor’s kitbag in the world. Now in its 18th edition, the English
It is very important to train yourself to recognise the difference between good and bad luck, and also skill and good fortune
However hard it is to accept, the winner almost never wins through luck. There is a reason for it
I had the spirit of fighting. I wanted to be the best. It must be something in me… in foot- ball, in running, in skating, in skiing… I wanted to be the best
Even when I was 13, if I took part in a race, I was so well prepared, I had the feeling I could not lose
language versions have sold over 320,000 copies. One of Paul’s sons-in-law, Soren Krause, an International Umpire and Judge, has taken on the book for many years. Though Elvstrøm was on the receiving end of protests, notably at several Olympics, Dan Ibsen is certain that Paul himself never lodged a protest in his entire sailing career. His view was that sailing was an honour sport. If rules were needed they were in place to avoid conflict. Protesting would be anathema to him and against the spirit of competition. It is why this sensitive man felt so uncomfortable when other competi- tors were gunning for him.
It is also why if one quote defines Paul,
it is this one: ‘You haven’t won the race if in doing so you haven’t won the respect of your competitors.’ Variations of this famous sentence are found in multiple
Elvstrøm (left) in Melbourne having just won his third gold medal after pulverising the Finn fleet, winning five of the seven races; and (opposite) 25 years on, driving the Berret-designed King One on which he won his second Half Ton Cup in Poole in 1981: ‘I was so happy that I could still win’
references to Elvstrøm or enshrined on signs at sailing clubs around the world. Pinning down the precise time and place where Paul uttered these words is difficult. Dan Ibsen believes they, or a similar phrase, date back to the early 1960s. ‘There is no question that is a 100 per cent representation of Paul’s belief. Competing with honour was the only way Paul wanted to race. It is completely character- istic of Paul as a person.’
Creagh-Osborne & Partners’ publishing house morphed into Nautical Publishing, which was later run by Sir Peter Johnson. Elvstrøm and Creagh-Osborne collabo- rated on two further books, Elvstrøm Speaks and Expert Dinghy and Keelboat Racing, each becoming standard works. The pursuit of improvement led to the creation of Elvstrøm Sails in 1954. ‘I couldn’t find anyone to make a sail the way I wanted it,’ recalled Elvstrøm. So he and his friend Erik Johansen started their own loft. In a way this mirrored Ted Hood and Lowell North who went down the same path in the 1960s. All three proved to be fabulously successful. Claus Olsen, who owned Elvstrøm Sails for 36 years after Paul sold it to his father Henning in 1976, and who remains chair- man of Elvstrøm Superyacht, remembers how the famous red crown logo came into being: ‘When Paul designed the crown the most important thing for him was that it was symmetrical and therefore two could be placed on top of each other on both sides of the sail. He also wanted a logo that could be recognised just for its shape and did not need text. As Denmark is a king- dom and a crown is something special, he thought that it was a good choice.’ By the 1970s Elvstrøm Sails was active in all the world’s key markets, and remains a major brand. The business grew a mast- making arm, yacht window manufactur- ing business and boatbuilding division. ‘In the boatbuilding boom of the 1970s there were over 200 people employed in Denmark across the divisions, apart from all the franchises elsewhere,’ recalls Olsen. The two boatyards built all manner of boats including the Finn, Soling, H-Boat, Snipe, and the Nordic range of family cruisers, as well as a productionised version of Bes. Another award won by Paul was from the Danish Institute of Design for an early windsurfer. His range was remarkable.
The oil crisis of the early 1970s not only saw the boating market collapse but also made the boatbuilding business impossible to sell, draining resources from the other parts of the business. Paul was eventually forced to shut it down. He sold his major- ity holding in the sails business in 1976 to
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