Go fast girls - 49er FX sailors Paris Henken and Helena Scutt

by David Schmidt, Sail-World USA Editor on 13 Apr 2016 American’s Paris Henken (20) and Helena Scutt (23) recently won a berth to represent the USA at the Rio 2016 Olympics in the high-performance 49er FX skiff, a goal that the team has been devotedly working on for almost three years. While Henken and Scutt have mastered the art of keeping a 49er FX upright in a breeze, this summer’s Olympics will be their first time competing on an international stage of this magnitude.

Yet to write the two off as still being on the “Olympic learning curve” would involve writing off their proud eigth-place finish at the Trofea SAR Princesa Sofia (March 25-April 2), which just wrapped up off of Mallorca, Spain, or their second-place finish at the Toronto 2015 PanAm Games (August 7-15, 2015).

Then there’s the backstory from the 2013 49er FX Worlds, which were held off of Marseilles, where an unavoidable collision sent Scutt to the hospital with a broken spine, two broken ribs and a lacerated left kidney. Impressively, this accident galvanized the team, and their results have only been improving since those dark days in the fall of 2013.

I recently caught up with Henken and Scutt via a Skype call to learn more about how they are approaching-and preparing for-this summer’s Olympiad.

What’s it like to be just about four months away from your first Olympic games?
Paris: It was pretty stressful throughout the trials and not knowing whether you’re going to go [to the Olympics] or not. But after having a very successful trials and knowing that we got the job done, it’s pretty relaxing. But obviously not too relaxing because you want to push really hard and train even harder than we have been. But it’s quite nice to know that our goal has been met so far, and we can just focus on getting the little things better and hopefully that makes the big picture easier.

What aspects of this summer’s Olympic regatta you guys are most excited about?
Helena: I’m really excited for the racing itself because even though it’s going to be a smaller fleet than we’re used to racing, it’s going to be an extremely good fleet and obviously everyone is [going to be] pulling out all the stops and [will be] on top of their games. So I’m really excited to race everybody, and then second, I’m super excited for the opening and closing ceremonies because when we went to the Pan American games last summer…the closing ceremony…was really unforgettable, and then third, I was really looking forward to sharing that experience with my family and the competitors [who] have become our friends. [And of course,] seeing all of our hard work come to fruition.

what aspects of going to Rio are the most intimidating
Paris: Obviously you don’t want to be intimidated; you’re supposed to be the top of your game…I haven’t even thought of that at all, I’m actually really not sure.
Helena: I think you could see the level of competition as intimidating but to me it’s basically more just exciting, intimidating

Paris: I guess we don’t get intimidated that much.
Helena: A lot of attention from the media…so we just need to be able to not let that phase us…even if it’s all well-meaning, we don’t want it to be distracting.

Given that you’ve being sailing against many of the same women that you’ll be lining-up against this summer in Rio, how different do you think the Olympic will be compared to a high end event such as a World Cup or a World Championship?
Helena: The fleet will be a lot smaller [as] there is no qualifying series. It’s 20 boats against each other the whole time, except for that final medal race which is the top 10 boats. But I guess in my head I keep picturing it as ‘you really need to be on your toes’, because the conditions in Rio can be really variable and very tricky.

Because the fleet is so good, anybody can capitalize on that. So I think I see it as we have to be ready for anything and very adaptable. You can’t really expect to beat any given boats because it’s unpredictable and everyone is very, very good. Not that we expected to not beat anyone in the Olympics but you can’t just count on it to be in front of anyone.

Rio is historically a light-to-medium air venue. Do you see this as an advantage or a disadvantage from where you guys are on your performance curve right now?
Paris: At the beginning of a campaign we thought that heavy airs basically was our condition and that we struggled in the light airs. But we capitalized on it during the Pan Americans and we figured out that light air wasn’t our strength, and so we went down and trained early there in the venue because we knew it was going to be light air and we [wanted to] up our performance. Right now I think we don’t see heavy air or light as a disadvantage or at an advantage-we just sort of adapt as much as we can. Personally, I think we do enjoy heavy winds more than light air, [because it] makes things more exciting but I wouldn’t say that we’re at a disadvantage for the light winds.

Helena: I’ll just add that [at the Trofeo SAR Princesa Sofia regatta in] Palma, there were several very good teams and several teams that we’ll see at the Olympics and some of them beat us and we beat some of them but [there were] also a lot of new teams, maybe it was their first major regatta or their first year on the circuit, or whatever it was. So in that sense, we wanted breeze because we knew we would keep the boat upright and all the other younger and more inexperienced teams would struggle. So that’s [why it’s easy] to say ‘oh we like big breeze, that’s our strength’ but the reality is that we consider ourselves pretty even with most of the Olympic level fleet, whether it’s light or heavy.

Can tell me a little bit about what skills and techniques you guys are planning on really practicing between now and Rio.
Helena: We’re going to work on transitions because the courses-especially the inside courses-can be very patchy and so you need to be ready for transitioning from big puffs to big lows, and doing that smoothly and cleanly. We’re going to work on tactical situations at the windward mark and the leeward gates, and work on fine-tuning our positioning and our modes as we come into those situations. And then finally, we’ll work a lot on starting because we’re making progress but we need to able to start anywhere on the line, because some big shifts could roll through, or maybe there’s a current line appearing. And so [Rio is] not like most venues where you can start anywhere-we need to be able to make the most of a unique situation, [for example] say you need to start on port tack at the pin or something like that; we need to be able to just go and execute.

So do you think that success in Rio will depend on stepping thing up from a physical/training perspective, or do you think it’s going be a little bit more on the mental side of things and your approach to the Games?
Paris: I think its psychological because Rio is so complicated with the current and wind directions. Obviously, we’re hitting the gym very hard but I think it’ll probably be [harder] to get a handle on tactics and strategy throughout the venues. There are multiple venues inside and outside the Bay and we haven’t been on the outside venues yet, so [we’re] pretty eager to go to see what it’s like out there. So I definitely see it as more of a psychological challenge.

I’m sorry, you guys said you’ve not being on the outside courses yet?
Paris: We’ve only been to Rio twice now, and the first time we were there it was way too windy for us to go outside, and then the second time we were there, there happened to be no wind that day so we never actually got to sail.

When do you guys plan on going down to Brazil before the Games?
Helena: We’re going in May, June and July. Three different trips

Will you be down there for weeks at a time or more like few days at a time?
Helena: Two and a half weeks each time.

So where is your boat right now?
Helena: We have one boat here with us in Barcelona for the Europeans, [which] starts on Monday [April 8-16, 2016]. And our Olympics boat is in a container somewhere between Miami and Rio, we used that boat for the trials and we are really happy with it…we haven’t used it much, [and] we’ve done no training [on it]-only racing-so it’s in great condition.

And then there is actually a fleet of one of each Olympic class boat already in Rio that was given to the US Sailing Team by a generous donor. Those boats have been used for training throughout the quad, so that’s what we’ve used on [our] last two [Rio] trips, [and] that’s the boat we’ll use for training in order to keep our Olympic Games boat as brand-new as possible.

Is there anything else you guys want to add for the record, or anything else that you like to say about your campaign or the work you’ve being doing?
Helena: It’s been a really amazing journey, both figuring out the sailing side of it, and also the fundraising and logistics and teamwork and sports psychology. So it’s from a lot of different angles I think we’ve both learned a lot and really enjoyed pretty much everything about the journey so far.

Paris: I’m pretty thankful and appreciative of my parents, [because] you know, not going to college after high school is something that’s pretty surprising for American students I guess, so just having [my parents] being so supportive behind whatever I chose to do and knowing that they are there for me all the time is pretty amazing.

[Editor’s Note: Henken completed one semester of undergraduate work at the College of Charleston before hitting pause to pursue her Olympic career. Likewise, Scutt took a break from her graduate studies at Stanford University-where she also has an undergraduate degree-in mechanical engineering to pursue her Olympic dreams.]