SH: Two of your competitors are Terry Hutchinson and Ben Ainslie, both highly accomplished and aggressive characters in a pre-start. GA: No question they will come out guns blazing. But to win the Cup you still have to balance your design, sailing, engineering and high- performance sailing team. No one individual will win the next Cup. SH: It must have been comforting to see proof of concept with the launch of the Ineos and American Magic test boats… GA: It was fantastic – and we would have loved to be the first boat sailing. Don’t forget that not so long ago there were a lot of knockers of this concept… Just go back and read some reports from 12 months ago. The same with the Bermuda event, we risked big there too. Moving forwards with this concept we have a huge amount of research under our belts now and, yes, we will launch our test boat next year, but the events at the end of 2019 are our main focus. Certainly myself, Pete and Blair, Josh and Ray all have itchy feet to get out on the water and start learning. Simulation, CFD and VPP work is a great help – but it ain’t real until you have got 50kt over the deck trying to rip your helmet off. SH: And realising just how much runway you have… GA: The Hauraki Gulf is going to seem pretty small, pretty quickly! SH: You are up in Queensland for the A-Class events. The Australian nationals went pretty well for you last week with 1,1,(5),1,1,1,1 and then winning your 10th world championship by a commanding nine points from Mischa Heemskerk, who chased you hard! GA: Believe it or not, this has probably been the first time since Takapuna in 2014 (again with Pete Burling and Blair Tuke) that we managed a bit of training before an event. We were hard at it for two weeks working on the boats and testing settings, then discussing and analysing it all with Ray Davies. And so last week at the nationals almost felt like the first part of the exam for me! We have done our homework well as Pete and Blair really have not sailed an A-Class since 2014. Clearly their skills are extremely high and put them on any boat and they will be up at the front, so it has been great to work together to tighten those skills. I have
been learning as much as they have – with the new foils and rigs, plus all the settings and elevators are new – really this is the first on-the-water project we have worked through since the last Cup. The worlds here were great. I couldn’t have started better: a glamour first day with three firsts, then on day two with the different conditions I came ashore knowing I could have pushed myself and the boat a little harder. I wasn’t backing off in any sense but I probably sailed with an even stance rather than driving hard off the front foot, so I didn’t have the points buffer I would have liked. SH: Then we had two days’ sitting ashore with the storm rolling through, making the final day critical. Watching you up close from the committee boat two minutes out from the start, did I notice a bit of dry mouth happening? GA: Oh for sure! Particularly after two general recalls and the black flag in place. I just wanted to get into it and get going. Everyone was feeling the same and we knew we had to get three races on the last day so, sure, before that first start I was definitely a bit edgy… SH: Then that first race at the bottom gate you opened the door for Mischa? GA: I had a shocker with the shift, then sailed round the bottom gate in very little pressure with Mischa close… then he hooked onto the right shift of the day at the top and sailed past me. So game on. SH: Race two that last day you sat behind Mischa in the pre-start, then bore away and bolted down to the pin end and took control… GA: That was a planned move. I wanted to sit there and have a bit of a look around at the committee boat end to scope it out. Having done that I knew it was on at the pin, and I have learnt to back myself over the years. Clearly you won’t get every shift or start right, but you must have the confidence to follow your judgement, so I did that and soon came out in front. Starting at the pin end, getting a good lane to tack early, get the bow down and put the shoulders back. SH: Taking pressure off you for the last race to bring it home… GA: Now with the two drops after nine races sailed, I think I had it squared away. But I am always racing against myself and wanted
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