News Around the World
team were hard at work trying to optimise routes based on weather and current. Hats off to Chris Woolsey and his team for providing an outstanding and interesting winter season of racing. A much needed booster (sorry) after two years of sad disruption. Elsewhere in the US midwest, both courses of the Bayview
Mackinac Race will be back in July, with Canada now open again to allow the faster boats to use the longer Cove Island course with its turning mark in Canadian waters. Organisers at both the Bayview and Chicago-Mac Races are expecting high turnouts this year, possibly approaching 600 entries between them. The other big news is the largest race on the US east coast, the
biennial Newport-Bermuda Race, will (finally) be run after a four- year hiatus. At 635 miles, this remains one of the great offshore classics, alongside the Fastnet, Sydney-Hobart, Middle Sea Race and the relative newcomers to this 600-mile club: the Caribbean 600, Aegean 600 and most recently the interesting new RORC Baltic Sea Race. After such a long break the Bermuda Race has rebounded impres- sively with 216 teams already signed up. These include a Double
how her operation is thriving in its mission to educate and train future offshore stars. Among the ageing racers in the Gibbs Hill division is, tucked
away, one strong favourite: Chris Sheehan’s Botín-designed Pac 52 Warrior Won. His team bristles with talent coming off an overall win at the Caribbean 600 following an overall win in last summer’s Transpac. However, rather than one overall winner, the Bermuda Race firmly segregates class trophies so for the Warrior team a third consecutive overall win is off the table. Finally, Bermuda Race line honours… that’s an easy call with
two of the same MOD70 tris competing that regularly rip up the big 600-milers wherever they can be found. Other US offshore races already showing well for this summer
include the Baja events from California to Mexico, the Pacific Cup from San Francisco to Hawaii, and the biennial Victoria-Maui Race from Canada. This northernmost race is also recovering from a four- year hiatus and the excessively long lockdowns imposed in Canada over the past two years. But it’s great to see racing start to return to our (self)-imprisoned neighbour to the north. Dobbs Davis
AUSTRALIA Lifting a nation Michael Blackburn has coached three different athletes to win three gold medals in the Laser Class – an achievement he will cherish for ever. But now Technical Director of the Australian Sailing Team, he tells Blue Robinson why there is so much work still left to do. Seahorse Magazine:Where did Tokyo sit on the Olympic planning cycle for the Australian Sailing Team? Michael Blackburn:Each Olympics has its own nuances and change in athlete generation as they come and go. We were very fortunate in having one athlete across the three Olympics from London to Tokyo, Mat Belcher, and with three medals from three Games that brings a great deal of unity over a longish timeframe. But of course there are others coming in and out all the time.
Quite the talent… the three Laser Class medallists at Sydney 2000 gather for the big photo. Michael Blackburn’s (left) bronze medal in Sydney was followed by a win at the 2006 Laser Worlds, in between fitting in a remarkable crossing of the Bass Strait in a Laser in 2005. After that he turned to coaching, a role in which he has helped deliver three Laser gold medals for Australia. Ben Ainslie (gold) and Robert Scheidt (silver) meanwhile carried on racing, since achieving a good collection of acceptable results
Handed Division of 19 entries – among them two J/105s fielded by young offshore sailors managed by Peter Becker, who in 2016 led a team of teenagers to an outstanding second overall on the Tripp 41 High Noon... in a year when the weather forecast had scared most of the pro entries (sic) into staying ashore. As is still the way here for now, there are few dedicated short-
handed designs in this division, previous-generation yachts generally having Stability Indices of 105-108, far short of the required min- imum of 115. Similarly there are no Class40s or Figaro 3s racing, and the Open Division has only one entry: Charlie Enright racing the
Imoca 60 Mālama. Which should be interesting. However, with the days of the fiercely fought IOR Onion Patch
series long gone, today’s Bermuda Race entry shares little in common with its fellow 600-milers, the bulk of entries still primarily cruising yachts or their close relatives. Forty cruising yachts are competing in the Finisterre Division, with 123 cruiser-racers com- peting for the St David’s Lighthouse Trophy. Preserving the Corinthian character of this race, this largest division also requires amateur helmsmen and limited numbers of pros in the crews. The more pro-friendly Gibbs Hill Lighthouse division has 27 entries
with a wide variety of boat types, the most racy of which is Dawn Riley’s Oakcliff Sailing’s ageing 86-footer, the 20-year-old ex- Windquest. On a brighter note, Dawn’s Oakcliff group has a total of six entries in this class – over 20 per cent of the fleet! Shows
28 SEAHORSE
An example is Matt Wearn, training partner for Tom Burton in the lead-up to Rio, but that relationship then changed in the lead-up to Tokyo. You also need those legacy pieces to help drive on the competition within the group. SH: How far out was Tokyo 2020 strategically – were you thinking about it back in Beijing 2008? MB: Good question… Now we are thinking about the Brisbane Olympics in 2032. It’s certainly closer to home and we are aware we have a generational shift coming in our athletes and even in our coaches – plus some new classes to deal with. All this has forced some different thinking including in terms of strategic horizons. SH: What happened after Tokyo? MB: Like most teams we had a very thorough review among the coaches and athletes, plus each class had their own internal intro- spection. We know we are weaker on the female side of things – our medals came from predominantly male athletes in Tokyo and so that is a key area for us to work in, how to develop and then retain the female athletes a lot better. SH: And, personally, after Tokyo? MB: As a coach I was thrilled to be able to win three gold medals from three different people – that is something I will cherish for ever. But now I have moved away from Laser coaching that is the end of an absolutely incredible chapter. SH: That must have been a huge wrench. MB: It is probably time to move on… I am going well in my new role as Technical Director, now I am able to get across all the classes in a new role that we haven’t had before. It gives us the ability to transfer knowledge in a more cohesive way across the whole group. SH: The Australian Sailing High Performance Strategy is a pretty powerful document, with key pillars highlighting Build, Perform, Sustain. Under Sustain is the phrase ‘supercharge and prioritise coaching’. What does that mean!? MB: It means investing more heavily in the development of our
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