Outteridge looking invincible

Aussie 49er ace nearly bags Skandia Sail for Gold with a day to spare

Nathan Outteridge could have been on the road to Switzerland this morning towing his brand new Mach 2 foiling Moth, with the 49er win at Skandia Sail for Gold bagged a day early. However Friday’s mixed conditions worked against Outteridge and his crew Iain Jensen and while through the preceding days their worst result was an 8th, today they posted a disappointing 18-2-17 - still in the lead, a comfortable 16 points ahead of this week’s early leaders, Manu Dyen and Stephane Christidis from France, but not en route to the Syz & Co Moth Europeans a day early as he had hoped.

“It was just shifty and erratic,” said Outteridge of Friday’s conditions. “It was cloud-driven and some rain came through at the end. You couldn’t predict everything – we did the best we could, but in the last race we were in 6th and it went 30-40deg left and we went from 6th to 20th. If we had just held in that position we wouldn’t need to race tomorrow. So we are a bit disappointed, but we are still happy with our lead.”

Conditions in Weymouth over the last couple of days have become a little as they were a year ago. Weymouth Bay becomes awkward in the extreme when the wind comes anywhere out of the north - offshore with the breeze rocketing down from the hills.

“The first couple of days it was really stable,” says Outteridge. “But then as it has gone around to the right the weather has been getting really unstable everywhere and it doesn’t matter if you have land effects or not. On our course today in between the second and last race we had anything from no wind to 12 knots and we had 45 degree shifts and then they just sent us off.”

And this was on the 49er course which is in the middle of Weymouth Bay, not tight into the shore like the Lasers.

The performance of the Australian team at this regatta has been unusual, dominating some classes, nowhere in others. Outteridge and Jensen had the potential to not have to sail the medal race, while Tom Slingsby was in a similar situation in the Laser. Recently crowned 470 World Champions, Matt Belcher/Malcolm Page have been leading this week, although they have dropped to second.

So what’s the secret? “We sailed here last year a bit and we were here in June for about ten days, but when we sailed here then we had completely different weather conditions to this,” says Outteridge. “The Aussie team are just good sailors who like varying conditions and it is suiting us pretty well. We do a fair amount of sailing in Sydney Harbour near the Heads with a bit of swell and you’ve got the shifts from all the land.”

Outteridge, the triple Youth Worlds gold medallist and double 49er World Champion, says he still hasn’t ramped up his 49er campaign, although they have done well at the events they have sailed in this year of which Skandia Sail for Gold is just their third. “We started off second in the Worlds in the Bahamas in January. Then we did Holland Regatta and won that. So we are not doing a full program. It is just so expensive for us to do all the events and it is hard for us with the amount of travel. We are just picking the ones we want to focus in on and the whole goal is to learn more about this place. This is the biggest event for us this year.”

So ramp it up more next year? “We’ll ramp it up a little bit more next year, but at the same time there is no point doing every single event because then you end up doing so many events and getting tired and injuries. We will just try and focus in on the most important events for the year and do as well as we can in them.”

Next year’s events obviously includes the Perth 2011 ISAF Sailing World Championships over 3-18 December. This will be used for country qualification for London 2012 but Outteridge says is also likely to be used by the Aussie Olympic sailing team to qualify sailors within the team. “So that will be the next goal, but we have two events in Weymouth next year so that’ll be a good lead up to the Worlds.” These are Skandia Sail for Gold regatta – being moved to June next year (5-11th) – as the Olympic Test Event is to take place over the first two weeks of August (31 July-13 August).

As mentioned with Sail for Gold out of the way, Outteridge is hightailed it down to the Moth Europeans on Lake Silvaplana in Switzerland. He says he couldn’t make the Moth Worlds in Dubai earlier this year due to some yachting commitments. But for the Europeans he has just purchased a new Mach 2 which he took for a first spin in Weymouth last week. “It didn’t break so that was a good start but I still have to tune it,” he says.

He was out last weekend when Adam May trialled his solid wingsail Moth – and was impressed. “That wing rig he’s got is pretty nice. I had a look at it the other day– he had good height upwind but couldn’t get it to go super quick. He has to get the twist sorted and he has to get it to the full size and then it’ll be really interesting to see what happens.”

Two other Aussies will be racing at the Europeans in Scott Babbage and Tasmanian Rob Gough. The idea says Outteridge is to check in with the rest of the European fleet before the class heads en masse to the next World Championship to be held in Belmont, Australia. There several others in the Australian Olympic sailing team will be competing including Tom Slingsby and his own crew Iain Jensen, to whom he has cunningly sold his Bladerider...