News Around the World
a few weeks in the class. Clearly time in the wilderness had done nothing to diminish her competitive instincts, or her talent. But with no desire for another 470 campaign, she turned to the
49erFX, first sailing with a young male crew to get to grips with the basics, before seeking an Olympic partner. The obvious choice was Molly Meech, who won silver with Alex Maloney at Rio 2016. But after a disappointing 12th at the Tokyo Olympics Meech and Maloney decided to part company. ‘I have known Molly for a long time,’ says Aleh. ‘She knows the boat better than anyone. She was definitely top of my list.’ After winning the New Zealand Nationals together Aleh and Meech
travelled to Europe as New Zealand’s strict Covid lockdowns began to ease. ‘We only decided to do the Hyères regatta two days before,’ she says. ‘The wind was pretty fresh and most of our sailing over the Kiwi summer was in quite soft conditions, which obviously makes boathandling easier. We enjoy the breeze, but staying upright is still a bit of a mission.’ Lining up in an international fleet for the first time in a new class
in close to 20kt of breeze was a daunting prospect. ‘Even before the start for us it was all about survival and staying upright.’ But at the gun Aleh and Meech flew out of the blocks in Race
1 like a pair of rockstars. ‘We actually led the fleet up to the top mark. That was quite entertaining,’ Aleh chuckles. ‘Then we totally fell apart downwind… but that was kind of expected.’ In the end, though, they kept it together in a mix of conditions
with nine top-10 finishes in a 38-boat fleet. ‘Overall the good news was that we are competitive,’ Aleh acknowledges. ‘We had some good races, but we did plenty of falling over and things that definitely don’t need to be repeated over the next couple of years.’ Alex Maloney and her new partner, Liv Hobbs, were also sailing
at Hyères, finishing ninth and setting up prospects of a keen battle for the single Olympic slot in 2024. This brings to mind the tough situation in the Finn class for Tokyo, where best friends Andy Maloney and Josh Junior fought for selection and demonstrated terrific sporting grace at the outcome. ‘The Finns set the gold standard in New Zealand of how two boats
can work together,’ Aleh agrees. ‘Ultimately we want to work together as well, though we know that at the end of the day only one team gets to go. If that team is the best in the world, that’s job done.’ With that goal in place, the two Kiwi boats headed from Hyères
to the Olympic venue in Marseille for a training block with their coach, Spaniard Javier Torres del Moral, who guided the Brazilian 49erFX combination to gold at Tokyo. Alongside their Olympic campaigns the four women are also team-
mates in a new initiative launched by Pete Burling and Blair Tuke’s Live Ocean Foundation. This is the Live Ocean Racing team, which will see an all-women crew competing on the EFT26 foiling catamaran circuit. The initiative is seen as a pathway into SailGP and the Women’s America’s Cup regatta in Barcelona, although it will take some juggling to fit in with an Olympics in the same year. Racing in open competition against male and female crews, the
New Zealand EFT26 crew finished fifth on their first outing at Spi- Ouest over Easter. The squad comprised Nacra sailors Liv Mackay and Erica Dawson with 49erFX campaigners Aleh, Meech, Maloney and Hobbs. Suddenly, from her self-imposed time in the wilderness, Aleh’s
sailing dance-card is fast filling up. She is fit, fully engaged and relishing the mix of racing. ‘It keeps it fresh and it keeps you learning.’ And it revives some hope that her America’s Cup dream which began 24 years ago might yet come a step closer. Aleh was part of the same Kiwi Olympic cohort with Burling and
Tuke but there could hardly be a starker contrast than their meteoric post-Olympic rise and her abrupt deadend. ‘It’s cool to see Pete and Blair acknowledge that those opportunities have not been there for women coming through,’ she says of the new initiative they have created. ‘These are good stepping stones. Time will tell if they do provide a transition to go further, but it is a good beginning.’ Ivor Wilkins
30 SEAHORSE
USA Reality check time? With 200 entries making preparations to race to Bermuda in June for the first time in four years, and several hundred US and Canadian entries now coming back in full force for the Mackinac races on the Great Lakes in July, the docks, clubs and chat rooms are all abuzz on matters of preparation, ratings and speed for the coming season. Another topic that rightly always finds a big audience is safety.
In the USA the World Sailing Offshore Special Regs are not used, instead our route is similar but with simplified tiers of Inshore, Coastal and Offshore categories. However, some events, including Newport-Bermuda, will add their own criteria… One of these is on liferafts, where modern boats are limited to
hard-pack rafts, while older boats are allowed to keep a soft valise raft down below. A newer Sydney 47, for example, must have a hard-pack on deck for the Bermuda Race, yet with its stripped-out interior getting a valise on deck would be relatively easy. Certainly a lot easier than wrestling a valise past all the furniture found in the older cruising designs which are allowed this option. Gavin Brady, helping manage the Maxi72 Vesper programme,
points to another concern: retractable propeller systems. These are not widespread, being expensive, difficult to maintain and not fast in use, but if the budget can get there they are low drag. ‘The problem is what happens if there is a crew overboard while hurtling downwind at 20kt+,’ he says. ‘Besides hitting the GPS and throwing out the safety gear, your next move is to start the engine after ensuring there are no lines overboard too. ‘Yet this is not possible until the boat is slowed to 5-6kt so that
the ramp can be cranked down. The likelihood of this happening quickly while sails are being dropped in heavy seas on a boat this size is very small indeed.’ Brady suggests this is one of many places where a serious dose of rating inflation could deliver a precious improvement in a far more important area. Brady has raced and trained with some pretty demanding clients
over the years – owners like Larry Ellison, George Collins, Jim Swartz and Karl Kwok are but a few – and he’s found a good rapport with each despite their diverse personalities. So he’s well placed when he talks about the lack of focus on ‘owner-enjoyment’ in some big programmes. ‘I do feel it’s important to keep the owner’s interest more to the forefront of campaigns,’ he says. ‘As professionals we need to sometimes do a better job of finding the balance between managing expectations and being sensible about costs. ‘I won’t be liked for saying this, but why are three mainsails
needed on a competitive raceboat programme? We should have more rules that specify a declared inventory to reduce the arms race and be more clever at designing sails that work across a wider range of conditions.’ Personal rapport with the owner is needed for the longevity of
a successful programme, and Brady has managed this well. Most notably perhaps, while giving match racing tutorials to Larry Ellison, the pair discovered a shared love for flying aeroplanes, including getting to play with some of Ellison’s famed collection of military hardware. ‘We mostly only played hard when we were well out over the ocean, though,’ he adds reassuringly… for the residents of San Francisco and its Silicon Valley environs. Meanwhile, back home in Annapolis, Brady stays busy practising
for a possible light-hearted return to some match racing. Nearly every day while at home he tries to get out on two equally matched IC24s (J/24s with a flush deck and large cockpit) to ‘bring back the muscle memory of match race manoeuvring’. What he doesn’t shout about is that whenever possible he takes along as crew enthu- siastic local youngsters eager to learn from a top-tier competitor. Giving young talent ‘an opportunity’. Gavin Brady is not your average everyday pro-sailor, but rather
a professional sailor who does his bit for those lower down the ladder while being careful to maintain a not-all-that-common appreciation of who it is who pays the bills. Dobbs Davis
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