Nacra 17’s ´The breakthrough for Australia’s Waterhouse and Darmanin?

by Rob Kothe & Jedda Murphy on 21 Sep 2014 In Santander Sail-World talked this morning to a distinctly unwell Jason Waterhouse ahead of the ISAF World Championship Nacra 17 medal race

First up he rasped ‘Lisa and I obviously being cousins have known each other forever. We have been sailing since 2007. We started on the Hobie Class trying to qualify for the Youth Worlds. We represented Australia in two youth worlds in Denmark and Brazil. We won a gold in Brazil. We have been sailing together forever. Seven years now.

'When the multihull was dropped from the Olympics that was pretty devastating. Hen this came back in the mix I just looked at Lisa and went wow that’s pretty convenient.

T'o be honest then everyone jumped into the class. We have got some really good 49er sailor in the class. Ex Olympians. This fleet is super tough. I am really loving the racing. It is so tight and tense and is really making me a better sailor. I really do love it.

‘Yes we are sailing pretty well at this regatta. We are pretty happy. We set a long term goal to medal this event and we are on track for that.

‘I have been pretty ill through the qualifying series but am getting better.

‘Of course at the top of the leader board all season has been Billy Besson.

‘He is a fantastic sailor. I have been racing him now for about two years also formula 18s and he just sails the boat very fast and in the right directions. That’s pretty much the basics of it. I have great respect for him. In saying that people will catch him eventually.

‘For us, in this regatta, we had a pretty basic game plan to have a really conservative qualifying series and make sure we didn’t do anything really stupid and we have only got a one drop for this event so we wanted to get through the qualifying with keeping a relatively low score card and low risk.

‘Went through there and I think we were in 15th but once we hit the final series and had a good drop under our belt we decided to ramp up the risk and move up the leader board a bit.

‘Took a bit more risk and got a bit more aggressive in our tactics and just sent it. We had some really nice breeze the first two days of qualifying and we just pushed it really hard and got some really nice results. Yesterday was a real crunch point. We were still only dropping a 10 and that was really handy to have under our belt and we just pushed it really hard yesterday and we got a six.

‘Vittorio Bissaro had a pretty bad set of race yesterday with a 30th and an 11th and that really helped us and now we are in with a chance with possibly silver. We are just one point off second. We are really happy and today is going to be tough though so we are pretty excited.

'While Bundock and Curtis have had a great season, we had a pretty shocking start of the year in terms of results and I psychologically just had to mature a bit
‘
We had Rio test event a qualification events. Palma and Hyeres and like I said I just wasn’t on top of my game there. I just needed a bit of a break. I was just under the pump a bit. Bundy and Euan McNichol were selected to represent Australia in Rio and I just went back to Australia and took a look in the mirror and I just talked to myself and said what have I got to do to get back on top and obviously it has got it working.

‘It was more looking at myself and my sailing and what I can do to improve and simplify how I manage my racing. We were top Aussie at the Europeans fifth overall.

‘That was out turning point I think especially after the A Class Europeans as well. I came second. I sort of just grabbed a new sense of confidence.

‘Bundy has just had a pretty tough regatta and we support each other a lot and we are both backing each other in this medal race and who knows what is going to happen in the medal race. He could pass me. He is only ten points behind.
‘The medal race no one can catch Besson. We are just going to go out there and sail as hard as we can.

‘I will have a sit down this morning with my coach and Lisa. We will talk a bit about it.

‘Vittorio who I am tied with second (effectively because of the double points) is a good sailor too and he is not silly. He won’t make too many mistakes.

‘We really need to look at the scores and think how we are going to manage what and how much risk we are going to take and what opportunities that we might have to create on the start line and stuff like that.

‘ I think the course inside we have done a lot of training in there this month so I feel pretty comfortable in terms of the course but in terms of managing the fleet we have a small game plan at the moment and it just depends. After the start it will just all unravel again so we will have to see what happens.

The Duna course in nor’easters it’s pretty good. I think that what the forecast for today, to have a nor ‘east breeze.
‘The only problems is the sand banks on the course. We drive a bit with our curve boards.

' I think tide wise we should be ok but it might minimise our strategy in terms of leverage on the fleet just with the sand banks but there is a lot of tide running through there. It’s tricky. It is tricky really.
‘
But we are looking forward to it.’