Long road to London

Victorious in Australia, Paul Campbell-James updates us on his 49er campaign

While Skandia Team GBR continues to bask in glory, its Gold medallists picking up the Raymarine/YJA Yachtsman of the Year award, that latest in a several of accolades that has included OBEs and even a CBE for Ben Ainslie, a slightly less glamorous tale is that of the British 49er crew of Ben Rhodes and Stevie Morrison at the Games. Surefire favourites when they arrived in Qingdao with two World Championship wins under their belt, Rhodes and Morrison ended the regattas in a disappointing ninth place.

Of course with the next Games being held in home waters, the fight for Olympic selection will be even tougher this year, a situation made no better with the demise [at present] of the Tornado that has seen several cat sailors such as Andrew Walsh and Chris Rashley take to the Olympic skiff.

Getting off to the strongest start among the Team GBR 49er Olympic hopefuls have been Paul Campbell-James, of the well known sailing dynasty and Mark Asquith, once upon a time Paul Brotherton’s crew. The duo have been together for around three years since Asquith recovered from a very serious motorcycling accident.

“We have been wanting to do as many events as possible and put in as much time as possible while all the Olympic crews are having time out, just so we can get a good jump on people this year. We were able to have a bit of a break while the Olympics was on, so we could come back on it pretty strong,” Campbell-James told us.

Over recent weeks he and Asquith have been down under, competed in Sail Sydney and Sail Melbourne and impressively won both, although it of course can be argued that the crème of the international fleet were not competing at these. We spoke to Campbell-James when he was in Perth, carrying out a recce for the Perth 2011 where the ISAF World Sailing Games will be taking place and is likely to be the crucial spot for Olympic team selection as well as country qualification. Many National championships have been taking place in Perth recently and Campbell-James took part in the 420 Nationals for fun but also to get some bigger fleet training (60 boats were taking part).

“And I did it with a pretty little blonde girl as well, which was advantageous! We were 13th or something, but I got protested for trapezing and things like! The crew was only 53kg and it is pretty windy in Perth. It was a bit of a token event for me really.”

While this was out of Mounts Bay and the Royal Perth YC, the World Sailing Games in two year’s time Campbell-James understands is likely to see the 49ers racing in the mouth of the river at Fremantle where it is a bit more protected and the sea breeze kicks in later in the day.

Impressively, despite starting his 49er campaign three years ago, Campbell-James claims his objective was always the 2012 Games. “To get to the top of the fleet in the 49er in the UK you need to do six or seven years at least. So realistically, we thought China could possibly be on the cards, but realistically we were always aiming for London. Actually we did quite well in the first few years, which made it a little bit more of a possibility for China…but if at the beginning of the campaign you’d said that we weren’t going to China, it wouldn’t have deterred me from sailing the 49er, because to be able to do it properly you are going to have to put in seven-eight years. It is a commitment, but it is what you have to do with Olympic sailing at the moment, especially in the UK.”

With Ben Rhodes and Stevie Morrison believed to be going again (they will make their return in April), Campbell-James and Asquith are the UK no2 at present, but with the latest Tornado additions combined with old faces such as Simon Hiscocks (now sailing with Dave Evans) and Dylan Fletcher, and the up-and-coming John Pink, there are now six or seven good campaigners in the 49er squad at present. “We could easily get all seven into the Gold fleet and even three or four into the top 10,” suggested Campbell-James. “It is great having everyone tuning and everyone out training together.”

Where Campbell-James and Asquith are hoping to make their big break is in the 49er having been recently ‘turboed’, moving to a lighter, stiffer and 25cm taller carbon mast, a larger square topped main and a slightly larger jib. And in the new boat they have been training hard.

“Ben and Stevie are a hard act to follow,” admits Campbell-James, “but in the same way that a few changes to the boat helped Stevie and Ben beat Chris [Draper] and Simon [Hiscocks], we are hoping that a few changes to the boat, like the rig and the mast, meaning you need a bit more crew weight and height on the wire, things like that - will help us.”

So how different is the ‘turboed’ 49er to sail? “A surprising amount actually. I actually love them, I think they are fantastic. The sailing the boat is great, you can bury the nose bow in a massive set of waves and while the old mast panted forward and the kite would really want to pull forwards and it would flap and be really horrible and it would feel like the mast was going to break and you had to pull the main in to stop the mast breaking - with this it is really firm in the bottom of the boat, and you let the kite flap on the back of a wave to miss the front one and you sheet back on and it just fills again and it feels really good. And you haven’t got quite the momentum of the mast going downwards if you do bury the nose.”

Even upwind Campbell-James says it feels like there is a lot more power and they can sail both higher and faster.

The most evident difference on board is that they are now flatwiring in just 7-8 knots compared to 12-13 with the old rig. But despite the extra power Campbell-James says that they feel more confident manoeuvring: “Gybing seems to be actually easier, if anything. Tacking seems to be quite hard, but because you have to ease so much main sheet on the exit to stop the top of the square top main rounding up into the breeze, tacking seems to be harder, but gybing seems to be easier.

“So it is resetting all the speed and all the tuning and all the boat handling stuff, which is a pretty good thing, especially when we have been putting a lot of time whereas all the guys who went to the Olympics have been taking a bit of time off. So it should give us a good jump on them.”

The school is still out how this will change the shape of 49er crews. “Considering we are flat-wiring in 3 or 4 knots less, it could be that the crew weight goes up a bit. We have been dieting hard for the last three years, to keep down to weight. There was one point just before the Olympics when Stevie and Ben were dieted in when they weighed in at 10-12kg less than us! But it has yet to be seen. The weights will inevitably go up and then maybe they will come back down when people get used to it.”

While next up for the lads will be Rolex Miami OCR, they move on to the Princess Sofia Regatta in Palma where the 49er with its new black rig will make its competitive debut.

In terms of their program for this year, Campbell-James and Asquith are taking to the new Sailing World Cup. “We are basically looking to try and win that. The first regatta was Melbourne and the next one is Miami and it will go on from there.”

So what is the Olympic sailors perception of this new series? “I think it has yet to be decided, because there has only been one event down in Melbourne. I hope by the end of the year everyone will realise it could be quite a big thing and a good thing for the sport, [but until then] it is going to be a bit up in the air how everyone takes it. Hopefully it will be big and it will mean that all the events on the tour will have really good turn out, with 50 odd boats at every regatta, which would be fantastic.”

What will clinch it, as we mentioned in a previous article, is if the Tour comes with good TV and can attract a well-heeled sponsor. Other than the Tour, the big event in 2009 is the World Championship which this year is being held in July at the skiff racing mecca of Lake Garda. “Last time the Worlds were in Garda they had 160 boats. It will be interesting to see if that there are that many this time,” says Campbell-James. Unfortunately the Worlds potentially conflict with Kiel Week, which features on the Tour.

While the duo have spent much time training in Australia over the winter once they are back in Europe they will return to training out of Weymouth or Palma. They are being coached by former 49er Silver medallist Ian Barker, who is also working with Rhodes/Morrsion and Evans/Hiscocks while Harvey Hillary looks after the development squad 49er sailors.

So if ‘Ben ‘n’ Stevie’ peaked too soon in Qingdao – how will they prevent themselves from doing the same? “We have just got to plan what you do and not do too much and not blow out. I have not always been a big believer of peaking and troughing at the right times, but it is more just not over doing it and losing concentration and losing the love for it basically. If you are enjoying it, you will do well. If you are not enjoying it, you don’t do well. You have to want to go sailing and want to do it and inevitably the results will come with that.”

The fight for the Brit 49er spot for 2012 we suspect will be as interesting as the Games themselves.