"It feels like we are having 10ft swells"

Hugh Styles describes the tough conditions at the F18 World Championship in Australia

Having suffered a minor breakage on the first day of racing, followed by a day too windy to race at all it was a relived Hugh Styles who spoke to us after a very positive four races on Thursday at the Seawind F18 World Championship in Australia.

Styles and crew Tom Peel, sailing the new Nacra Infusion (below) at the event, managed to come away from the third day of sailing with a tenth, two sixths and a fourth. Styles says although the first day was not great for them they are very happy with how the boat is going. "There is loads of potential in the boat and we have done some good training out here. There are times when we are going really fast and times we are not so we are aiming to just stay focussed and as consistent as possible. The speed we have seen so far bodes well for the rest of the regatta."



Staying consistent may be the key to the championship as the big winds look set to continue for the next couple of days. "I am really looking forward to [Friday]. The big thing at the moment is like always getting off the start line and being able to hold your lane properly," Styles comments.

Holding your lane has evidently been an important part of the regatta so far because though the wind is strong it is less consistent than one might expect, with large shifts coming across the course. Styles explains: “You come off the line on starboard and it is all about hanging on in there until the shift comes through. If you can do that you are good usually in good shape.”

Styles says the major difficulty out on the race course is coming from a series of rolling fronts they are getting daily. These fronts push in and send the wind left by anything up to 20 degrees. With the shift there is usually an increase of about five knots. Although five knots of increase does not sound like a significant amount Styles points out that when you are already racing in 20-25 knot winds an additional five knots becomes a much bigger issue. “Although it is windy - conditions you are used to putting your head down and making the boat go fast in - you actually have to keep your head out of the boat quite a lot to keep on top of the shifts. There are some pretty big gains to be made out there."

Although there are a lot of gains to be made on nailing the shifts according to Styles the racing at the front of the fleet is not incredibly compressed. He says it is not the sort of regatta where you are losing big numbers of places on mistakes as there seems to be quite a bit of spread throughout the fleet most of the time.

In addition to the high wind speeds and the varied shifts coming through the course one of the major factors out on the water - and perhaps the thing that caused much of the carnage on the first day - is the sea state. "They are really, really testing conditions," Styles continues. "It feels like we are having 10ft swells coming through but the wave patterns feel really messed up. Upwind you are trying hard to just keep the boat going without it stopping as it stuffs into waves. All you can do is attempt to avoid the really big waves so you don’t just keep hammering into the back of them."

Although these conditions are making for particularly tough racing clearly Styles is loving his time out on the water. "It is quite a challenge; there is lots of crash and burn stuff going on. Everyone is coming in off the water at the end of every day with their eyes really wide. They all have this salty stung eye look from all the spray but they are all smiling and happy really," he enthuses.



Evidently the waves have been causing some major issues off the race course as well as on it: "Here you get ready to go in the morning put the boat on the beach and there is this huge 5ft surf coming in. In the UK people would not even consider going out in it and that is all part and parcel of the sailing here really." Hence photos as appeared on thedailysail homepage yesterday that ressemble past Worrell 1000s.

The event is taking place not at a regular sailing club but at a beachside resort making for an interesting regatta. Styles describes the venue as a nicer version of Butlins or Centreparks but on the Queensland coast of Australia. "It is based just behind some sand dunes which you have to walk down to get to the beach and then the boats are just raked up over this massive 20 mile long sandy beach it is awesome," he concludes. Very appropriate for the leading beach cat regatta.

Styles is sailing the Nacra Insufsion at the F18 Worlds. More information about the boat here, http://nacraeurope.com/nacraF18.php