Gladwell's Line - A Tale of two Legs

by Richard Gladwell, Sail-World.com/nz 9 Apr 2018 14:38 PDT 10 April 2018

Sail-World.com's NZ Editor Richard Gladwell looks at the conclusion of the racing side of Leg 7 of the Volvo Ocean Race - which was similar in many ways to the same leg in the 2011/12 edition of the round the world race.

That was the last sailed in Volvo 70's - and where only two boats finished without suspending racing. Arguably the frustrations with boat reliability on that leg triggered the move away from boats designed to a box rule to the one design, supplied fleet of Volvo 65's.

Also concluded was the first of the major European Olympic class regattas, with the Princess Sofia Trophy in Palma, Spain. In some fleets, like the venerable Finn class the established names and medalists were scattered throughout the fleet. In others like the 49er the name sailors were missing and we had a look at a new line-up of talent. Plus the first round of 2020 Olympic Qualification is just four months away - and co-incidentally with Palma, World Sailing announced the Qualification process for Tokyo 2020.

Leg 7 of the Volvo Ocean Race has finally come to a close when the former overall leader MAPFRE crossed the finish line in Itajai, Brazil on Sunday (NZT) and finished 4days 17hrs and 15 mins behind the leg winner Team Brunel.

Food, fuel and water had to be rationed, with MAPFRE fitting their Sea&Watts hydro generator - and finding it worked well with surprisingly well with little impact on speed. They also had a manually powered watermaker which got broken out of the packaging, and worked but wasn't required.

To recap, on March 25, when MAPFRE was close to Point Nemo a small section of the sail track began to detach. The crew nursed the boat for the next few days after making an interim repair to the spar at sea.

They split the mainsail from luff to leech at Cape Horn and pulled in for a minimum 12-hour stopover on March 30 (UTC) which turned into 13 hours by the time both items had been repaired with the aid of their shore crew and a vessel anchored in the shelter of Cape Horn.

At the time of dropping out of full race mode MAPFRE was only 73nm off the lead and was in fourth place.

When they restarted, after effecting repairs, their speed was initially OK, as was that of the other six boats still in the race. A few days later it had all turned to custard as Team Brunel, and Dongfeng Racing took off for Itajai at speeds of over 20kts. At that point MAPFRE was trailing Team Brunel by over 640nm - that's about the length of the Rolex Sydney Hobart.

At the time, two competitors had dropped out. SHK Scallywag had already suspended racing after the tragic loss of John Fisher, and Vestas 11th Hour Racing had also suspended after dropping her mast 100nm south of the Falkland Islands.

For both those two boats, the race is on to get to Itajai by April 22 for the start of Leg 8 to Newport RI.

SHK Scallywag has recruited a delivery crew who are taking the VO65 through the Strait of Magellan to Itajai. They left Puerto Montt a few days ago.

Vestas 11th Hour Racing left Port Stanley for a second time after fitting a Jury Rig and new improved fuel system for their 1400nm voyage under motor and sail.

Thanks to the drone flying skills of the On Board Reporters there's some spectacular video of the Volvo 65's sailing at high speed in the Southern Ocean. There is no doubt that the drone borne cameras have provided a new dimension on the race coverage. For the first time we are able to see what we have only heard about sailing in the Southern Ocean since the first of the Whitbread Round the World Race in 1973.

Now there is an offset for the endless wall of water pouring over the bow shots that have been the most spectacular takeout from the Whitbread/Volvo racers.

What is remarkable about the Leg 7 finish is its contrast with the end of Leg 6 into Auckland. There six boats finished within 25 minutes, and the whole seven finished Leg 6 within two hours.

Yet on the next Leg, the total margin from first to fifth was over four and a half days, with two retiring from the leg.

Both SHK Scallywag and Vestas 11th Hour are racing against time to make the start of Leg 8 to Newport RI.

Palma a Preview?

New Zealand was represented by a team of 26 sailors at the Princesa Sofia Trophy in Palma, Spain. The regatta ended on early Sunday morning NZT and was the first of the major international regattas on the 2018 European circuit. Over 1200 sailors competed in the Regatta which covers all 10 Olympic events. Despite not getting the World Cup tick from World Sailing, Palma has always been a popular regatta and turned on an interesting range of conditions. At a distance it seemed to be a worthwhile workout.

Palma isn't part of the World Sailing World Cup Series - the final two regattas in that northern hemisphere retinue will be held at Hyeres in a fortnight - starting on April 22. The final is at Marseille starting in early June. Quite how France can be awarded two World Cup regattas and the Southern Hemisphere get none is a piece of logic only understood by World Sailing. For sure there will be an incredibly good reason, it just isn't obvious. But we digress.

In August, the 2020 Olympic Qualification process gets underway at the 2018 Sailing World Championships, Denmark. From now the lead-up regattas take on a special significance, and we can expect to see the heavy metal make an appearance in the two French regattas.

New Zealand emerged from Palma as the third best-performed country with three medals, behind Great Britain and The Netherlands. Not so good were Australia and USA. The former did win two events - the Laser and Mens 470. The Australians look to be treading the same path of recent Olympics of either being outstanding in a class or not selecting - an extreme version of Yachting New Zealand's policy.

USA continues to confound. Their best place was fourth in the Laser class. Arguably that is a step backwards from their home World Cup Miami regatta, where 2016 Olympic Bronze medalist Caleb Paine won the Silver medal - at Palma he finished 26th. Laser sailor Chris Barnard was the flipside of Paine's result - going from 31st in Miami to 4th in Palma.

It is hard to believe that this is the same USA that won three Gold and four Silver medals across the seven events in the 1984 Olympics.

Probably the most pleasing aspect of the regatta, from New Zealand's point of view, is that we are starting to build some depth into the classes, rather than just having one key sailor/crew in each event - and living or dying on their results and form.

With Peter Burling and Blair Tuke not confirmed for a 2020 Olympic campaign, Josh Porebski and Trent Rippey turned in a creditable fourth overall in the 49er fleet. A quick scan down the result sheet reveals the presence of only a few of the sailors who competed in Rio Olympics, 18 months ago. Most of the entry list was made up of new crews. Also missing for similar reasons to Burling and Tuke was the crack Australian crew of Nathan Outteridge and Iain Jensen.

Another notable result came in the Finn class with former Laser sailor and America's Cup cyclor, Andy Maloney turning in a very creditable third against a quality field with plenty of familiar names from Rio 2016. Maloney scored two race wins in the 73-strong field.

The event was won by the 2016 Gold Medalist and America's Cup team Land Rover BAR sailor, Giles Scott. Olympic Bronze medalist Caleb Paine (USA) was in 27th two places ahead of NZ's 2016 rep and America's Cup cyclor Josh Junior.

2016 Bronze medalist Sam Meech improved one place to win Silver in the Laser class. All three medalists from Rio were in the high-quality field - with the Olympic Gold Medalist Tom Burton (AUS) in sixth, and the Silver medalist from Rio in third.

If Yachting NZ applies same selection criteria for the 2020, as YNZ used in 2012 and 2016, then New Zealand sailing fans should expect to be represented in only seven of the ten events in Games of the XXXII Olympiad.

That is the same as Rio 2016, and down from the full card of 10 events in 2012 at Weymouth and an improvement on the six classes only in 2008 at Qingdao.

The 2020 Olympic Qualifying criteria were published late last week.

The first and arguably main, qualifying round is at the 2018 World Championships in Denmark, with the top eight countries going through in the Finn, 470 Men, 49er, 470 Women, 49erFX and Nacra 17. For the other classes, the Mens and Womens RS:X have 10 and 11 spots respectively. The Laser and Laser Radial have 14 and 18 country spots. On the basis of the Princesa Sofia results, New Zealand would have Qualified in six events and be two places wide of the mark in the Men's 470. (But offset that 10th in Palma with a 4th in the World Cup Miami a couple of months back, and the Mens 470 is well within the NZ Olympic selection frame.)

While there are further qualification rounds in 2019, the simple point is that if you can't make the top eight countries in August 2018, how are you going to be medal capable two years later in 2020? The statistics are heavily against you. Sure a crew can have a bad first qualifier and come back to be top three overall in the following year, but that is very much the exception.

Most notable is the Irish Laser Radial, and now Volvo OR sailor Annalise Murphy being one who springs to mind. The tall Irish sailor won four straight races in the 2012 Olympics in Weymouth, looked to be a shoe-in for the Gold medal only to lapse and finish fourth. That rocked her and in the next three World Championships finished 20th, 55th and 39th in the 2016 regatta held in Mexico - four months before Rio. A record like that would be more than sufficient for her not to be selected in the Medal focused Olympic programs. But Murphy won the Silver medal in Rio, and along with the lightweight mens rowers - the inimitable O'Donovan brothers - and fired up the morale of the Emerald Isles.

An emphasis of first round Qualifying for your whole team was one of the lessons from the Brits - the most successful sailing team in Olympic history. It makes the paradigm much simpler for the final two years of the Olympic cycle. For countries who enjoy state funding their message to their masters is simply that at least one crew has qualified in the event and a lot of risk is taken out of the funding investment in that event. The fact that they have done it in the first round makes the argument even more compelling. For those reliant on commercial sponsorship to pay the Olympic campaign bills, it is much the same story-line provided their national authority is smart enough to shut off the selection process as soon as a crew qualifies, and doesn't go through the now self-indulgent selection trials process.

Selection trials had their use 30-40 years ago, but don't work now. The better way is to tell the crew who earns the qualification spot to put their heads down and work out what they need to to win a medal at the Olympic Regatta. Forget about having to peak for trials a few months before the main event. Spare them from battling yet again for Olympic berth (and usually fought off one or two very distracting protests along the way) then having to refocus once more for the main Olympic event. If you're needed to work as a trial horse - then get funded as such and work with the selected crew to get the best possible Olympic result.

For sailors the Olympics is a six year cycle beginning at the mid-point of the previous cycle, and if you don't make the qualification cut, checking out after the first round of qualifying and run a lower key campaign, maybe with a bit of education/professional sailing thrown in.

Second is the most expensive place mentally and financially in an Olympic selection program.

Currently it is still early days, with a couple of regattas to come before the Olympic Qualifiers in August. After what happened in 2016, to earn Olympic selection for NZ, a sailor or crew has to be in the top 10 overall in a World Championship in one of the two years preceding the Olympics.

That is a very high bar.