Full steam ahead

Toby Heppell talks to Britain's top Radial sailor Lizzie Vickers about life in the new Olympic Class

The introduction of the Laser Radial as the women’s Olympic single-handed dinghy has seen a large shake up in the fleet with old hands from the Europe struggling to get to grips with the boat and up coming youths that have been Radial sailing for years making a big impact. We spoke to Lizzie Vickers (currently Britain’s top Radial sailor) about the class, this week’s big regatta in Kiel,funding and the all important Europeans in Croatia this summer.

Lizzie Vickers was born in 1980 and has been sailing at Hayling Island Sailing Club for most of her life (her parents even met there). She is a bubbly girl and almost always seems to be singing somebody’s praises. She is currently Britain’s top ranked Laser Radial sailor being third in the ISAF rankings – a result of a great deal of success this year including a fourth place at Hyeres and a second place at the Holland regatta (previously Spa) amongst some stiff competition.

Vickers, as with many sailors, started sailing at a fairly young age in an Optimist, but didn’t get really serious about sailing until she moved into the Laser Radial. In 1998 she was selected for the Laser Radial youth squad - which is when things really started to take off and she has never looked back.

Initially Vickers was competing in the Europe, a class she stepped into in 2001, but during the 2002-03 season she was told by her tutors at Oxford University that she would need to dedicate more time to her studies. She and her parents had always said that education was to come first so she took some time away from competitive Europe sailing.

She spent much of the rest of her time at university doing some team racing for Oxford - with some less regular Europe sailing combined with some match racing for good measure. She then started Europe sailing more frequently and she had a pretty good season in 2004, coming sixth in the Rolex Miami OCR and being selected to go to Athens as Laura Baldwin’s Team GBR training partner which Vickers described to TheDailySail as “an awesome experience.”

After university Vickers played a waiting game. “I spent some time waiting for ISAF to decide on a boat as the women’s single hander,” she said. Meanwhile she did some coaching and more match racing. It was then announced that the Laser Radial had been selected as the single handed boat for women so she got herself a boat and started training. Vickers commented that sailing a Radial again after such a long time was “pretty funny” - but she soon got back into it.

When asked how she feels about ISAF choosing the Laser Radial Vickers seems, for the most part happy,mainly due to the perfect weight required for the new Olympic class. “I could never get down to 60 kilos which is about the weight all the top Europe girls are, and I am more physically suited to the Radial,” she said.

Having sailed the Europe for some time she did initially have some concerns about switching back to the Radial, but these soon subsided: “I really enjoyed learning about all the technical stuff that comes with campaigning a Europe and was worried that the Radial would be less fun because of it’s one design nature but the racing is so competitive it’s really great.”

We asked Vickers the specific reason for her to choose single-handed sailing or whether it was just because she started in Optimists. “As I started in Optimist’s it was a natural progression for me,” she commented. “But also physically the decision is right - I am too big to helm a 470, and I really enjoy the challenge of helming, so the choice was sort of made for me.”

With Kiel nearly started the Laser Radial fleet looks to be one of the most interesting, and competitive classes on the water with lots of great names from Europe sailing entered and lots of up-coming youth radial stars.

So how does Vickers rate her chances against such a line up? “I have never been to Kiel before so I am just looking to have a good event in a strange place…but I would like to be in the top seven.” She was also quick to add that she was “really not looking forward to how cold and rainy it apparently is!”

Kiel, however, is not the thing weighing most on Vickers’ mind at the moment, her focus is later in the season. “In terms of this year the Europeans in Croatia is the big event for me…..I need to get inside the top twelve to move onto the next level of RYA funding.” This seems a realistic goal and the she admits that the additional funding would be “really helpful.”

In terms of role models in the sport Vickers doesn’t single anyone out but goes for everyone: “I suppose anyone that does sailing fulltime gets my vote. I really admire them it is a lot of work.” She is also quick to thank the Carr family, including current RYA Chief Executive Rod Carr for their personal support.“The Carr family just said to me, when I was 16,‘come sailing with us.’ I think they really believed in me.”

Vickers has a healthy respect for all her fellow Radial sailors. Comments such as: “Sari Multala is a great sailor, she just hasn’t got to grips with the boat yet but that won’t last long” or “Sophie de Turckheim is really an amazing Radial sailor” pepper any discussion of her competitors. When asked what the atmosphere is like between the women in the British Radial fleet, without so much as a moment’s hesitation she replied: “Its fantastic, really great all us girls get along together really well.”

Vickers seems to think that the next year is going to be pretty turbulent in terms of the Radial fleet: “There are just so many good Europe sailors that have never sailed a Radial, or at least have not sailed one in a long time, and then there are so many good young sailors who have pretty much only sailed Radials but have little experience of high pressure sailing I think it will be really interesting to see what happens.”

She qualifies this by singling out Britain’s eighteen year old Charlotte Dobson, currently ISAF ranked 18 in the class: “She has been sailing Radials for ages and is a great Radial sailor but she is still really quite young.”

Racing at Kiel starts on Wednesday 22nd June and the Europeans in Croatia begin Friday 5th of August.