470 World Championships - rudder failure ends medal hopes for Britain

by Lindsey Bell on 18 Jul 2010 There was drama for leading British sailors Luke Patience and Stuart Bithell on the penultimate day of the Delta Lloyd 470 World Championships in the Netherlands on Saturday (17 July), when a rudder breakage ended their hopes of a second consecutive Worlds medal.

The Skandia Team GBR pair – lying in second place overall heading into the three-race day – saw great pace in Saturday’s opening race to finish third and advance them into the gold medal position.

It was in race two that their fortunes changed. The 23-year-olds, silver medallists at the 2009 World Championships, were again in a dominant position and heading to the windward mark for the second time in second place when their rudder gudgeon broke off, leaving them unable to steer the boat.

With the damage unable to be fixed on the water, Patience from Helensburgh and Rochdale’s Bithell were forced to abandon that race and the ensuing third race, and instead were towed back to shore.

They still make the cut for the ten-boat medal race finale on Sunday, in eighth place overall, but a podium spot in The Hague is now out of their grasp.

A frustrated Patience explained: 'I felt a bit of wobble in the rudder before the pre-start of the second race so I went back and I checked everything, I made sure everything was tight and it seemed fine. I couldn’t see anything wrong.'

'Going up the second beat, just before the windward mark in the second race, the wobble was still there so I hadn’t solved the problem – I couldn’t work out what it was. Just before the windward mark the bottom gudgeon sheared off the back of the boat – it just went and so we weren’t able to steer as we careered into a Greek boat!

'It’s just so frustrating. It’s actually the first bit of breakage I’ve had in five years that’s stopped me from racing. I’m quite on top of it, so it’s a bit of a kick in the teeth,' he continued.

'We were having a good race – we were about to round second and were about to clock another solid race so we’re disappointed for sure, but you’ve just got to get up and carry on.

'It is painful, but we’re frying bigger fish than the World Championships here so I can’t be too emotional about it. It’s one event, it’s one mistake. It’s a learning point and there’s no one to blame but myself – I look after the boat. It’s one of these things that’s happened and we just have to move on.

'I can fix the boat tonight so that won’t even be in the equation for tomorrow.

'We’ll do all we can tomorrow,' resolved the Scotsman.

Skandia Team GBR teammates Nic Asher and Elliot Willis had a flying start to their day, leading a British 1-2-3 over the finish line in the first race ahead of Patience and Bithell, and development squad sailors Matt Mee and Ian Dobson.

But as the breeze increased, the two-time World Champions struggled, picking up 18,12 from the second two races to sit them in sixth overall, but just eight points off of the silver medal spot. Their hopes of a third world title have now gone, as Australian duo Mathew Belcher and Malcolm Page need only finish the medal race tomorrow to pick up gold.


'We’re still struggling a little bit for pace when the breeze gets up,' Willis explained. 'The boat’s been a lot of hard work – it’s not set up quite how we’d want it to be. The mainsail’s a little bit full we think.

'In the lighter stuff, sort of 15 knots and below, it’s absolutely spot on and we fly like we did in the first race today.

'But it’s all to play for tomorrow,' he continued. 'We’ll go out in the medal race and go and do the business hopefully.'

In the women’s fleet, Sarah Ayton and Saskia Clark are putting on an impressive show in their first World Championship together – and Ayton’s first in the 470 class.

In spite of picking up a black flag penalty in the middle of the three races, the pair had an otherwise solid day with their disqualification sandwiched by two fourth places to see them into fourth place overall. With 16 points separating them from the bronze medal position, a podium spot is still a mathematical possibility for the Skandia Team GBR pair, but it would require a sub-par performance from Italy’s Giulia Conti and Giovanna Micol who’ve got the better of them in most of the week’s races.

'We’d have enjoyed it more [today] if we weren’t black flagged!' Ayton explained.

'But it was wicked sailing. It was a bit a case of survival of the fittest and it was just nice to be racing in that breeze really, having not done much.'

'I think it’s fair to say we’re ahead of where we thought we be at this stage,' Clark added. 'Our goal for this week really was just to try and make the medal race and gain that experience. But we’re super pleased we are where we are and we’ll just go and have a bit more fun tomorrow.'


'It’s been really good coming from our win in Kiel, not just having the confidence from winning there, but more the experience we gained from racing at the front of the fleet. It’s proved really valuable here so we’re pleased we’ve been able to carry that on.

'The added bonus has been that there have been a lot of windy races which we haven’t had yet so it’s been good to build up that bank of experience.'

Penny Clark and Katrina Hughes will also feature for Skandia Team GBR in the women’s medal race, in spite of a testing day. They picked up 19,9,14 from their three races and made the cut in seventh place, with a strong medal race on Sunday offering them the chance to finish their regatta in fifth place overall.

The warning signal for the 470 men’s medal race on Sunday (18 July) is scheduled for 1355 (local time, with the women’s race to follow at 1455.