News Around the World


usually no wind at the venue chosen… No matter how well-intentioned, change for the wrong reasons now won’t


fix a problem we don’t have. ‘For some time to win in Olympic sailing you have to showcase


the values that the sport is so well known for. You want to win? You need to be tough. Not Tour de France tough, but tougher than you look. You need to be patient, accurate and ruthless to a point that few could understand. You need to be able to win a race without any idea when it will start or what conditions it will take place in. You need to endure while your legs scream for air so you can play the chess game against the rest. You need to be consistent. ‘These are Olympic sailing’s values. Contrary to what the IOC


might think, plenty of people follow the sport because they know sailing provides a unique showcase for people who excel in those values. And with a small amount of patience to understand the game, it’s entertaining too. Sailing regattas are long because the weather is variable, preparation for an event is to learn how to sail in all conditions, not gamble on one race in one condition. ‘Regardless of the method by which it is decided, there will always


be medallists and a winner. The question that is being asked is how do we choose our winners? Who is the champion of the values that sailing requires? If the winner becomes so because they qualified to a winner-takes-all race and luck shines upon them that day, then the competitors will be the first to know the raw injustice of it. Spectators will know because, simply put, they aren’t stupid. They want to see a competition not a lottery. ‘And, most importantly, the people who really matter in all of this,


those we inspire to go out on the water, leave their phone behind and take on an adventure, they won’t buy what we’re selling. ‘To cater for an audience with such supposedly short attention


spans there is a guarantee of creating random outcomes with the mistaken notion of selling jeopardy. The Olympics is the pinnacle of raw human endeavour where the finest athletes in the world excel at something surprisingly relatable. Within that, sailing is unique, it must embrace that and not apologise for it, we should focus on telling the story, not changing it. ‘SailGP is a monumental spectacle taking place in some of the


best venues in the world. Where that comes at the cost of racing quality, the ebbs and flows of fortune of different conditions are negated by the year that it takes to qualify for the grand final. If the Olympic racecourse is a poorly conceived “stadium venue” with just one broadcast window to differentiate between 10th and 1st in each class, something has gone seriously wrong. ‘Olympic sailing must do its utmost to remain something which


the grassroots of the sport will recognise and aspire to take part in. Sailing is the freedom to explore and drive your boat years before you could a car, it’s unique in its ability to provide purpose and skills to anyone at any age, who may find themselves without the direction they need in their life. There are no genetic prerequisites that the elite end of all other sports require of you, there is a place for every- one. The sport will only ask you one question. Do you care?’ It was quickly evident that Beckett had lit a fuse, while behind


the scenes at World Sailing plans were well advanced to enact new formats to trial in 2026. Several classes have already started their own trials, with the 49er and Nacra classes proposing new formats for their combined World Championships in Cagliari in October. Whether these changes achieve what the IOC is looking for in terms of relatability for a wide audience remains a subjective topic… The trial format for the 49er Worlds saw a three-day qualifying


series with a maximum of nine races scheduled for two or three fleets comprising an approximately equal number of boats. The top 25 boats at the end of the Qualifying Series went on to compete in the Gold Fleet in the Final Series and have a chance to be on the podium. The worst score over the first five days was excluded and points carried over in the Final Series. Then two days of a Final Series with a maximum of seven races for the Gold Fleet, the top 20 going forward to compete in a single Gold Race. The top four following the Gold Race, based on their cumulative


scores of the Opening Series and Gold Race, then took part in a ‘Four Point Race’. Going into this 4pt race the boat that was ranked first received 3pt, the second 2pt, the third 1pt and the fourth starts


26 SEAHORSE


with no points. The final medal podium is then decided by adding the results of the ‘Four Point Race’ – in which the winner is awarded 4pt, no other boats to score – to the one-off Gold Race. Hopefully that is all clear as crystal. Whatever… sailing is doing its best to please all the stakeholders


while producing the desired equitable outcomes. But is it enough? The IOC will let us know. The suspicion is that further change and more jeopardy may be required – to, it seems, the inevitable chagrin of the sport’s Olympic hopefuls. Magnus Wheatley


NEW ZEALAND In that sad but inevitable process of tidying up the affairs of a recently deceased parent, Simon Hull stumbled across three tiny and faded photographs and a handful of drawings that confirm just how far ahead of its time his father’s long obsession with foiling yachts was. The photographs are the typical ‘Box Brownie’ type images that populated family albums more than half a century ago. They reveal a typical wintry Auckland day on the beach – grey skies, grey sea. A small group in assorted woolly jumpers cluster around a strange contraption at the water’s edge. Squint a little closer and, sure enough, under the outriggers that


extend on either side of a slender hull are foils angling in at about 30°. ‘Basically, it was a mini Hydroptère,’ says Simon, in reference to the legendary French foiling trimaran that broke the 50kt barrier in 2009. ‘Those pictures on the beach were taken in the late 1960s and it is uncanny how similar the concepts are. My father had an absolute fascination with the idea of breaking the 50kt speed barrier under sail. So I grew up amid this perpetual discussion about foiling.’ Simon describes his father – who died in September aged 92


– as a kind of mad professor for ever dreaming up futuristic concepts. His copy of the NACA tables, which date back to the 1920s and 1930s and provide the lift and drag characteristics of various foil shapes, was well-thumbed from constant reference. ‘From the very beginning Dad understood that by reducing


displacement with foils, the drag coefficient would dramatically decrease and the boat would go faster.’ His mathematical calculations were by slide rule and his drawing


board was littered with templates for drawing accurate curves and shapes. Simon recalls waking up numerous times in the morning to discover his father had worked through the night on a project, covering reams of paper with calculations and filling the house with smoke from his Capstan Navy Cut cigarettes. Although his father’s technical talents and curiosity were highly


advanced, he dropped out of university one year short of completing his engineering degree to go farming. ‘I never found out why he gave up on his degree,’ says Simon. ‘I asked him numerous times through his life, but he never really gave me a satisfactory answer.’ Returning to those pictures on the beach, Simon points to one


of the smaller figures in the group. ‘That’s me. I was about seven or eight years old. What Dad had built was a single A-Class hull of tortured ply with a beam straddled across it at the mast. Tucked in high up under each foil was a small foam torpedo to provide a bit of flotational stability at slow speeds but the foam rose well clear of the water when it foiled. ‘The foils were made of cedar core sheathed in fibreglass, which


was still very much in its infancy. A curved aluminium I-beam carried the main sheet and ensured constant leech tension on the fully battened mainsail. ‘He put massively stiff battens in the main, which was shaped


like a wing. To control the wing shape he had piano wire attached to the battens controlled by twin levers in front of the cockpit. At slow speeds he could tension the battens to force curvature into the wing and create more power. As the speed built he would ease the batten tension to flatten the sail and reduce drag. ‘Over a couple of years the concept was refined, with a T-foil


added to the rudder to provide fore and aft pitch stability. He later added a system for adjusting the angle of attack of the rudder. ‘This boat was pretty rough and ready, but it worked. I saw it take


off and get up on its foils. There wasn’t a great deal of control – with occasional wild bearaways – but he got it to fly on several occasions.’


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