News Around the World


the team were settled and that flowed straight through into our racing. I can also say that I was shaking like a leaf during that first start! I have quite a bit of responsibility in terms of what’s going on


behind us, covering Tom Slingsby’s blind spot and what is unfolding. I had only just nailed the comms in the last practice race –meaning I had done it right just the once in my mind – so I was super-nervous. All this meant my goal for race day was not to set the world on


fire – it was about not making any errors. Just bringing it right down to doing the jobs that I had to do in a very solid way and trying to build trust in myself and with the team. We had two really good races, then just prior to the third race


the officials reduced us down to four sailors onboard. So I started shaking like a leaf for a second time!! SH: Who makes the call here? NC: The decision is made by the race officials, controlling the number of people onboard and taking the choice out of the athletes’ hands – the coach and support crew receive a text message from the officials just a few minutes before the start… SH: Cádiz arrived on the back of a tough event in St Tropez, with technical issues for the Australian team. And now you have a new big rig to contend with. NC: Changes like the big rig, or an additional athlete onboard,


volatile… We had the medium rig on the final day and, talking to most of the teams, one of the hardest parts was just getting out of the marina. There was a lot of sea state immediately outside the entrance


without a great deal of space. There were a lot of rocks and cardinal marks close by – unfortunately the Spanish capsized and the Danish ripped off all of their fairings leaving the harbour. Japan had a crash as well, so there are no easy parts of the day when the breeze is up. I am sailing with these super-experienced people and I could feel the tension! Everyone was checking their spare air and con- stantly patting where their knives were. SH: And day two? NC: Honestly, a whole new baptism of fire… Crossing the boat is always difficult when we are racing as everyone’s attention is stretched, but now the motion was much more aggressive with the breeze up. In those conditions you want to cross the boat as fast as you can because you are very vulnerable. We are also getting good at feeling it about to go bad, and so when you feel like you might be thrown you get really low, slow down and hold on tight. SH: Key points from the early races on day 2? NC: We had so much on from start to finish… with our very first bearaway we had a really near-miss when Denmark did such a good job of not running into the back of us. The consensus is that you have to be going fast – you can’t take your foot off the pedal and go half at it, especially in big conditions. The guys were getting more comfortable with the conditions


France’s SailGP F50… big and very fast boat, tiny steering wheel, a lot of important buttons to learn about… Late in the season the team’s Volvo Race-winning manager Bruno Dubois dispensed with the services of helm Billy Besson, replacing him with fellow Nacra sailor Quentin Delapierre. Considering that Besson is a four-time Nacra world champion, while his replacement’s best finish was fourth, Delapierre acquitted himself very well in Cadiz, stepping into his complex and challenging new role with little preparation but bringing the ship home every day in good order


honestly, they really don’t rattle them one bit; when you view the team’s success in season one it is not hard to see why that happened. They have the most experience onboard, the team is really unchanged from season to season – everyone is rock solid and so when a change does happen they probably handle it better than anyone else. SH: And the big wing? NC: Even as a beginner for me the boat feels completely different with that new big rig on. I have now done the flight control sailing with the small, medium and big rig, and the big rig is by far the most difficult as the boat has so much more momentum in a fore-and- aft axis. I found it really difficult at first when I was flight controller, but these guys just take it in their stride. SH: Close to the shore in Spain it was gusty. NC: Yeah, Cádiz was just wild in terms of that. And then take it to the final day of racing where it was so windy and the wind was so


36 SEAHORSE


through the day – I could see that in the confidence in manoeuvring after the first bearaway which just improved massively. The guys were adapting quickly to what the boats both could and could not tolerate. They did such a good job of staying out of trouble and that of course became the key component of that big final race. SH: As you pointed out, if you have a near-miss or dig the nose in a little you can’t then throttle back because you just magnify the problem… NC: Yep. And fear is your worst nightmare. If you sail those boats with fear it will end very badly. I think that is the case with a lot of sailing. You can be cautious and wary – but as soon as fear creeps in you start to make bad decisions or you doubt yourself and you unravel really quickly. My goal that day was to hold onto myself and try not to let any fear creep in so I could make confident calls and move around the boat with confidence… the team led by example! SH: And so to the final race – a heck of a start… NC: It was… taking off in those conditions when it is gusty – wow. I think Ineos did such a good job, they really nailed that start. We were slightly back but with really good speed – that is crucial, having good boat speed at the start and, boy, we certainly had that. On the first reach coming into the bearaway we hit 52kt – reaching in the high 40s means you slingshot into faster speeds. SH: Are the foils OK at 50kt+? NC:No! As soon as you get into the high 40s and low 50s the water is literally boiling around the foils and the boat becomes extremely volatile. This is something that I am yet to experience in the flight controller position, but just being onboard in those situations you can feel the feedback from the boat and you are watching it unfold around you. All the time you are learning so much by feel and by osmosis right there. The fact is that unless you have been part of a Cup programme over the past eight years or so nothing can prepare you for water boiling around your foils. SH: At these speeds how physically hard is it for Tom [Slingsby] and the rest of the drivers? NC: On the first reach at around 40kt I was tucked in just behind Tom – and I have to do a good job of locking myself in as it would be pretty catastrophic if I fell or was slammed into him. Tom was holding onto the wheel and he briefly leaned inboard, and the wheel bucked with so much force it threw him to the other side of the cockpit, and then he corrected that and threw himself back into the middle. So I saw this ‘whack-whack!’ of him being flicked from one side of the cockpit to the other. You can only imagine what sort of pressure is going through that steering wheel to throw Tom across


RICARDO PINTO/SAILGP


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