Finn veteran

Athens silver medallist Rafa Trujillo talks to us about his 15 years of Olympic sailing

One of the Finn class’ most venerable Olympians is this week doing his best to keep up with the fresh influx of talent at the Finn Gold Cup in Vallensbaek Sailing Club to the southwest of Copenhagen.

At the end of day two Spain’s Rafa Trujillo was lying in 10th place, on equal points with British favourite (no Ben Ainslie remember) Ed Wright, having finally posted a top ten result, a fourth, in yesterday’s second race.

“I don’t feel really comfortable,” admiited Trujillo, who currently heads the ISAF rankings and is third overall in the ISAF Sailing World Cup standings. “I always make a bad decision on the first beat, but in the last race I was happy because for the first time I rounded the first mark in front. You need to make a good start and keep your head open because sometimes the wind shifts are coming and then it is not shifting back again. So I think I need to get my head out of the boat more - I am having problems with my speed, so I think I am looking too much at the boat when I am sailing and I need to have my head up and sail a bit smarter, like in the last race.”

As to his ISAF no1 ranking, he feels that the no1 at present (no Ainslie remember) is GBR’s Ed Wright, who has podiumed at most of the regattas he has sailed at this year and is the most consistent of the top ranked sailors at present.



Heralding from La Linea, on the Spanish side of the border from Gibraltar, Trujillo doesn’t come from a sailing family. His father preferred fishing, however living by the sea they were a member of the sailing club where he started out on the normal track aboard Oppies. Unfortunately like most Finn sailors, Trujillo was a large teenager and he recalls that by the time he had graduated up to the Cadet, aged 15, he was already 1.84m tall and weighing 94kg, ie Finn sailor-sized.

Of the current crop of Olympic Finn sailors, Trujillo is now one of the most seasoned, having joined the class back in 1994. However he took some years out in the middle.

“At that time my performance in the Finn wasn’t good enough for the Spanish federation and there were a lot of Gold medallists from Barcelona sailing in keelboats," he recalls. "So the Director of the Federation said that the best thing to do to improve was to sail with the best sailors in Spain and that would make me a better sailor in the Finn.” As a result he first ended up in the Soling with two time world champion, Manuel Doreste, before jumping ship to join Spain’s 1992 Finn Gold medallist, Jose-Maria van der Ploeg, in his Star campaign. “It was a really nice experience, because we were always top five. We arrived in Sydney no1 in the world rankings.”

Sadly, the Sydney Olympiad didn’t go well for them, with one DSQ and one OCS putting them out of contention, into 7th place.

Returning to the Finn, his first Olympiad in the men’s heavyweight singlehander in Athens 2004 went better, when he secured the silver to Ben Ainslie’s gold. However despite a win at the World Championship/Finn Gold Cup in 2007 in Cascais, Trujillo says he didn’t get on with the necessary weight loss and the change of equipment that came hand in hand with it - both necessary for the light conditions they expected in Qingdao last year.

“When you lose 12kg, you think that you will be better in the light, not so good when it is windy and you will be faster downwind generally. But in the Finn, everything else has to change too – the mast, how the sail looks with the mast, etc. And all the masts I previously used weren’t working with my new weight. And the sail looked bigger and for the same reason I wasn’t as fast as I expected in light and worse when it was windy! And I went from being one of the fastest guys in breeze and no good in the light to being medium in light and medium in the breeze that left me fighting for medals, so I was disappointed at the beginning of the 208 season and eventually I was coming in close but late.” In Qingdao he ended up a disappointing 9th.

So what is special about the Finn for him? Obviously it is mainly a size issue - physically it is the right boat for him, but there is also excellent competition. “A lot of people think they should jump into the next class, to do the Star, because there are better sailors. But for me in the Finn there is already Ben Ainslie and he is the best sailor at the moment, so why do I need to jump into another class?” Saying this Trujillo admits he might have made the break into the Star had his result in Beijing been better and the world not being mid-economic recession. “I am 33 years old and I feel I have power enough to make my last campaign in the Finn and it is cheaper, I have more experience, I still like the boat and that is why I keep sailing the Finn.”

Ainslie of course remains the dominant force within the Finn class having secured the last two Olympic Golds and having won the Finn Gold Cup an unheard of five times. “For me, Ben is not a regular sailor,” says Trujillo. “He is a natural winner. His constant performance is to win in the Finn. For me, his special talent is saving bad days with good regular results and after when he has a good day, he destroys the rest of the sailors. He keeps performing super well in pressured situations. That is the key. He is very cool and it is a good challenge for every sailor sailing against him because are always learning. And for me it is one of the best things about the Finn class – that Ben is still sailing against us.”

Thankfully with the sailing for London 2012 taking place in Weymouth, Trujillo says he will be able to return to his more typical Finn weight, whatever that might be. He reckons 94-98kg. “I think the Finn in normal conditions, with windy days and light days, the weights have a big range. In Athens for example we had two windy days, two light ones and two days of medium and the Gold medal was Ben at 95kg, and the silver medal was me with 104kg and the bronze medal was 100kg. So 9kg different. The problem in China was that we had special conditions and the weight went to 88-92kg. But I think for London we will come back to our normal sailing weight. We’ll see the regular sailors coming back to be at the top, although special sailors like Ben are always going to be there.”

Following the Finn Gold Cup, Trujillo is coming to Weymouth for the Sail for Gold regatta. He was previously there a couple of years ago when the weather, he reckons, was typically British – rain and bad weather. However he likes the course area. “After Sail for Gold we’ll try and take the maximum information possible and I hope that it comes back to being a normal Olympic Games - that we get to use our hiking pants, that we barely used in China. We only used it in the medal race!”

We point out that it is possible to have zero wind in Weymouth, as proved to be the case for the Moth Worlds last year. “We had the same situation in Athens. In Athens you have no wind, but no wind for Weymouth is windy if you compare it with China…”

As to the new sailors coming into the Finn class with this start of the new Olympic cycle, Trujillo says there are the normal crop of talented ex-Laser sailors. In his opinion the GBR Finn sailors are still the strongest with Ainslie, Ed Wright and the increasingly competitive Giles Scott. Then there is Kiwi Dan Salter and the Estonian Deniss Karpak. “He won the bronze medal in Cascais in the Laser - he is 2m tall and 96kg! So I am sure he is going to perform well. He is one of the new generation of sailors, big Laser boys coming into the Finn where they can eat properly!”



Aside from his Finn sailing, Trujillo is, like most of his contemporaries, trying to expand his sailing experience. In 2007 during the America’s Cup in Valencia he was on main sheet as part of Iain Percy and Luca Devoti’s posse of Finn sailors on +39. He says he would love to join another Cup campaign whenever that particular event resolves itself and reverts to a multi-challenger event.

In the meantime his non-Olympic sailing consists of racing on the Audi MedCup as tactician on board the GP42 Madrid, his latest appointment having sailed on the TP52s Orlanda and Audi Q8 in previous seasons. “It is a good experience sailing with Madrid. We have the oldest boat in the fleet, but we are getting better and better and we have a good team and I hope that as the season is going on we’ll make some more modifications on the boat and get better and better.”