Star diary

Andy Beadsworth's crew David Carr discusses being an Olympic rookie

The end of March 2005 marks an end of a challenging period in my sailing career as I am still very much a rookie on the professional sailing circuit. After graduating from Exeter University last June I jumped back on board with GBR Challenge, where we completed a very successful summer testing programme. Over the past three years I have been in the privileged position of sailing with the British America’s Cup team in my holidays from University. This gave me a snapshot view of the team's progression every six months. In my opinion last summers testing programme was one of the strongest periods in the team's history. Sailing with the top sailors in the country was a great way to start my professional sailing career and every day was an education. Unfortunately that dream faded, when GBR Challenge did not tie down a main sponsor.

Over the summer of 2004 I also became a TV couch potato, watching the British Olympic sailing team reinforce the fact that we are the best dinghy sailing nation in the World. You could not help to be overwhelmed with pride and inspiration whilst watching the Union Jack be hosted time and time again in Athens. It was around this time that Andy Beadsworth and I started discussing about starting a Star campaign together. We had always got along well at GBR and other matchracing events... After the America’s Cup hope had finally sunk, the dream of a Star campaign suddenly became the number one objective. Within a week we had borrowed a RYA boat and the realisation of the hill (make that mountain) we had to climb was all too evident.

It’s tough to draw many comparisons between America’s Cup sailing and Olympic sailing. It is like trying to compare marathon running and 400m hurdles - both fall under the running umbrella but they could not be more different. One thing they do have in common is that you go to bed shattered, but for different reasons. Cup sailing involved long days of training on and off the water and even simple tasks like loading the boat with sails takes its physical toll. In contrast Olympic sailing demands shorter more intense training sessions along with the logistical strain of running your own campaign that does not exist in a Cup team outside the management .

As with any form of sailing you are constrained by funding and the time that is available.I feel that I am at the beginning of a well-worn path taken by generations of Olympic hopefuls trying to find those elusive pounds that will enable you to sail to your full potential on the World Stage. Getting on the RYA Olympic Development Squad has certainly helped the cause. Coming off the back of a Sports Science Degree I was very impressed with the fitness structure in place when I went to the Olympic Development Week in Weymouth’s fantastic new facility. There is no question that the Lottery funded, RYA Team GBR is the best sailing team in the World. That is partly because of the sophisticated support structures, but also because of the talented sailors that are currently going though the system.

After sitting on a plane for nine hours flying to Miami for my first Olympic adventure knowing that I was at the bottom of the ladder, it was nice to go to the US Sailing Centre as a Brit where most of the Americans have a preconception that you will do well. This is mainly to do with the performances of Ian Walker & Mark Covell and Ian Percy & Steve Mitchell. When they jumped in the Star they rewrote the formbook. So it was only apt that the race officer said “those bloody Brits have done it again” as Andy and I won our first event!

From then it was on the Miami OCR where Ian Walker came out to coach us. This is the first time I have been coached in a dinghy since Chris Gowers coached me in the 1998 Laser youth squad. I was all ears. As the week progressed Ian picked up on the fact that Andy wanted to bend his ear on everything Star, and I needed to chill out in the evening as I was still buzzing after the day's sailing. Ian shared stories of what he and Johnny Merricks used to get up to in the good old days in the 470. This taught me that the better the synergy between any team in an Olympic campaign the better the results will be. We finished a credible sixth after a slow start. Even though Andy is 15 years my senior we have definitely bridged the generation gap. He has slowly bought me out of student mode and I have used my degree in Sports Science to get him the fittest has he has been in years.

At the time of writing Andy and I have just returned from our second Star trip were we competed in the 78th Bacardi Cup. Unlike our first Olympic event we did not have much training time leading up to the event as we had other sailing commitments prior to the regatta. This proved to be a big factor in the week, as we never found top gear until the last day where we finished fifth. At the beginning of the week we could not get a first beat right. We did not go round the first mark inside the top 15 until the last day. That meant we spent most of the week overtaking people. It was a good exercise in choosing overtaking lanes and recovering results from being in the 30s. We would much rather have been fighting it out in the top 10 all week. We finished 11th which on reflection was a respectable result - a lot learnt in a great week's sailing.

Since returning home we have now been set a pretty stretching goal of coming in the top three at this years European Champioships if we are to get meaningful funding from the RYA. No-one said this was going to be easy!

As a kid I sometimes went to regattas with my Dad as he coached the Olympic team. I remember sitting in the back of his RIB at the Soling Europeans in La Baule in 1991 as a 9-year-old watching the late Glyn Charles, Andy and Chris Gowers compete [and playing soccer with them after racing] I thought then, and still do, that Olympic sailing is the coolest thing in the world. Who would have thought then that I'd end up crewing for Andy....funny old world isn't it?