Paralympic success

TheDailySail speaks to Helena Lucas about her transition from the 470 to a Paralympic campaign in the 2.4mR

Helena Lucas is one of Britain's top ranked 2.4mR sailors, something she has proved consistently this year by winning the Hyeres Olympic classes regatta with straight firsts and more recently by her third place at the 2.4mR World Championship. Lucas has only been sailing the 2.4mR for two years and yet is already a regular podium-placer in the class.

What is immediately surprising to most is that although Lucas, 30, is a now Paralympic sailor she started off her professional career sailing in the women’s 470 class, undertaking an Olympic campaign for six years. The move from the able-bodied 470 to the Paralympic 2.4mR is not a move made every day, yet she views it as just another change of class. “I had sailed the 470 for about six years which was really good fun, but I just got to a point where I think it was getting a little bit stale” explains Lucas “I was looking to get into another class and the RYA suggested trying out in the 2.4 - so here I am.”

Lucas’ disability seems something that she is not overly keen to focus on. She explains that this is because she just views herself as a professional athlete and her disability is neither here nor there. Lucas was born with a defect in both of her thumbs - enough to gain her Paralympic status, but not so great as to prevent her from competing against able-bodied people in other classes. In short she gets the best of both worlds.



Like so many Olympic sailors Lucas started off her sailing career very young. Aged 8, she raced Toppers at her local club in Surrey as a young child and never really looked back. She competed in the Topper National Championship, her first major event, in 1988 when she was 13.

Lucas was a very accomplished 470 sailor regularly getting top 20 results at ISAF grade one events, but she never quite managed to break into the very top echelons of the class. It was after several years of full on 470 campaigning that the RYA suggested Lucas gave 2.4mR sailing a try. Lucas says that she did not have to think about the options too much as she felt it was about time for a different challenge.

The singlehanded 2.4mR mini-keelboat is obviously very different to the 470 and Lucas says she is finding the change refreshing. “I thoroughly enjoy sailing the 2.4 because it is so different to the 470 sailing that I did before it. For starters I am sailing on my own and I have not done that for ages, in fact I have not done that since I was sailing Toppers, so I am really enjoying that aspect of it. Also I love how it is like sailing a small keelboat - it behaves like a keelboat and it has all the characteristics of a keelboat so it is a totally new challenge for me.”

Talking Lucas, it becomes evident just how much of a true passion sailing is for her, sharing all of her ideas and views openly, particularly when it comes to the 2.4mR class. She enjoys the 2.4mR being such a technical boat that is not as restricted as the 470. The rig, the sails and the rudder profiles for example are forever changing and being tweaked, and people are always exploring different ways to gain a little extra speed.

Lucas says that going from an Olympic campaign to a Paralympic campaign has been relatively straightforward for her as she was already recognised by the RYA so there was not as much pressure on her to get noticed in order to receive funding. “The support from the RYA is really brilliant. Personally I have noticed no difference between Olympic and Paralympic funding. The RYA has the attitude of treating sailing as a 13 class discipline and in terms of the support; they are doing an excellent job.” She adds that with the Sonar team having won the World Championship in Denmark, things look like they are only going to get better.

While the RYA are doing so many things right Lucas also expresses concerns about the amount of young female sailors that never make it through to Olympic level sailing. “I think when people go to university you tend to lose a lot of people to the team racing scene and the match racing scene. I think people go to university and find getting the balance between exam pressures and putting together a good campaign difficult.”

It is for these reasons that Lucas did not start doing a full Olympic campaign until she had graduated, although she did keep sailing at a reasonably high level while studying. She thinks that part of the trouble is that these days people are encouraged to do Olympic campaigns so early that they feel like they can not afford the three years away from full time sailing that they would need were they to do a degree.

The next three years look to be very busy for Lucas as she is now back into full time 2.4mR sailing in preparation for the Olympics in Beijing, where she is hoping to medal. There is, she says, lots of development work to be done in the next year which means spending as much time as possible in the boat.



Assisting her on her path to the podium in China is former Olympic Tornado sailor and recent foiling Moth guru, Adam May who is Lucas' coach. May she how impressed he is with the speed with which Lucas has become competitive in a class that is so new to her. He cites the Miami Olympic OCR in 2004 (Lucas’ second major 2.4mR event) as an example: “Helena had only done one day in any breeze over 10 knots (even then it only got to 15!), so it was with a little apprehension that she headed out on the first day with a 20 knot breeze forecast. After two races she was equal third overall.”

While it will be 2.4mR all the way from here, the relatively quiet first year in the Olympic cycle has also enabled Lucas to sail many different types of boat. She sailed at the 29er World Championship in San Francisco with fellow Paralympian Hannah Stodel. Lucas explains that after winning the 29er Inlands in Grafham, Stodel had put forward the idea of going to the Worlds in San Francisco.

It is clear from the way that Lucas speaks about this that the big winds and big waves of San Francisco were every bit as exciting in a 29er as one would expect. “It was blowing dogs off chains and we were rather on the light side and lacking a lot of practice so we did a fair amount of swimming around the course. By the end of the week though we had it sussed and it was just brilliant absolutely great sailing.”

Most recently she returned to the 2.4mR to compete in the World Championship in Elba, Italy. Lucas finished an impressive third overall “It feels really good to finish in the top three here in Italy,” comments Lucas. “The competition this year was much tighter with a really close top ten. I came out here to prove to myself that I can sail at the top level and that I can finish with a medal and I have done that. It's just an awesome feeling and a big relief to have done so well." Lucas seems to be extatic about here podium position and it is easy to see why. There could hardly be a better return to 2.4mR sailing.