Back on the campaign trail

Paul Brotherton talks about why he has returned to the 49er

One of the surprises in British Olympic sailing recently has been the reforming of the 49er partnership between Paul Brotherton and Mark Asquith. Although we must be getting old because it seems more recent, the pair last sailed together at the ISAF Worlds in Cadiz in 2003 when Chris Draper and Simon Hiscocks got the nod that they would be sailing the 49er in Athens. But following the separation of Asquith and his helm Paul Campbell-James, so just a few weeks ago Brotherton got the call… During their separation Brotherton has been receiving considerable acclaim as a coach, particularly for helping coax Olympic Gold out of Sarah Ayton’s Yngling team in at the Beijing games last year.



So what brought on their return to the 49er? “Being asked by Mark – is the long and short of it,” Brotherton told us yesterday down at the Weymouth & Portland Sailing Academy, while waiting for the near gale force wind to abate, to allow them out racing. “It went through my mind a few times to get back involved again, but I could never joint the dots to see how to make it happen to a level… because to do anything in this environment you have see yourself being able to sail at a fairly high level, otherwise there is no point in being involved. Whichever other class or other person to sail with I looked at, I couldn’t join the dots to see how it would happen. But getting the call from Mark after the Worlds – it was actually an opportunity I can’t say no to. It was as simple as that. I was fired up from the minute he made the call and here we are three or four weeks after that phone call, with the Europeans under our belt and feeling we have got a little bit of momentum taking us forward.”

Brotherton and Asquith managed to score a second place at the recent 49er Europeans in Zadar, Croatia, behind the Italian Sibello brothers and well ahead of the next British team, John Pink and Rick Peacock who were ninth – presumably a result well beyond their expectations? “We had no expectations at all going into the event, but we had done some sailing against the other British guys in the squad and they are absolutely world class, so if we were able to match them on pace I knew that, given a fair crack at it, we could get involved in a few races. As it turned out the regatta started in reasonably light conditions, which allowed some of the rustiness to be knocked off, so that when it got a bit fresher, towards the end of the week, we weren’t completely caught short. There were a lot of things that went in our favour, but we were able to hold it together, and put a reasonable series together. We made some mistakes and there’s lots of tidying up we can do, but the decision-making and the speed-stuff and the way the two of us work together - we didn’t ever once do anything that the other wasn’t expecting, which is really important in a 49er where you don’t necessarily have time to communicate what you are going to do. So all the work we’d done in the past worked well and clearly Mark has done six years of sailing since I stopped sailing at the very highest level and that has added to his game as well. Fortunately he hasn’t changed too many of his habits, so I kind of knew what was coming next, so it was good.”

Brotherton also reckons that coaching Sarahs Ayton and Webb and Pippa Wilson has also upped his game. “Working with the girls was a big insight into the kind of regime they put together and able to learn an awful lot from them and the way they work together and also watching sailing for a lot of years as well. So I’d like to think that has helped as well, but, no question, we have a hell of a lot of work to do and we have got a hell of a lot of good people to race against and the challenge is very very tough. But it is a great boat to go sailing in and Mark is a great guy to go sailing with.

As to how the class has changed since 2003, Brotherton says that everyone has continued to up their game with margins getting forever smaller. The biggest change has been the boat itself where weight correctors have been reduced and the rig has been changed to a carbon one.

“I think that the new rigs have changed the boats a little bit,” says Brotherton, who admits he is still getting to grips with it. “Where I often had a disadvantage with the old rig because it was heavier, being small at the back I used to pay a bit of a boat handling penalty and my feeling is that that is not quite as extreme now. We could get away with no mistakes in anything about 18 knots with the old rig, whereas the little bit of sailing we have done in the strong winds so far, we count a little bit more comfort, there is a little bit more margin there now.”

In addition the average overall crew weight has increased beyond what it was with the old rig. Brotherton reckons the new optimum combined crew weight is around 155kg while some are up to 160kg. “When Mark and I sailed last time around we were sailing at 146-147kg and we are probably weighing in at about that at the moment, so we need to get on a little bit. The trouble is that I will end up with a little fat pot belly and look like one of those fellows who used to fight Frank Bruno all those years ago! Fortunately Mark is a big strong lad and we can lean on him a little bit and if this problem has reduced a little bit with being smaller with the new rig I don’t feel as much pressure to put on as much weight, so I can concentrate on getting fit and I don’t have to stress my body in order to be something I’m naturally not.”

The main focus for Brotherton and Asquith now is the World Championship over 2-9 January in the Bahamas. “We have a very small period of time to sharpen up our game and get ourselves as good as we can be and get ourselves organised logistically and make sure we have enough resources to do our program, as well as get fit and remember how to tack and gybe better than we are at the moment.”

This will leave him little time to earn his living through coaching, although he admits he will have to, to pay the mortgage. “I love the coaching – there is no question about it. I seem to be reasonable at helping people get better and win things and I get a big kick out of it, so it is not necessarily bad for my own sailing to go back in and do some appropriate coaching with some appropriate teams. But certainly in the next four months, the priority is very much the sailing.”

We imagine another positive to their campaign is that they are part of a very strong Skandia Team GBR 49er squad including past World Champions Ben Rhodes and Stevie Morrison. However Brotherton says it was also strong in 2003. “That world championship in 2003, we had four boats in the top seven. So I don’t think there is any different there. Some of the names have changed, but some are exactly the same - Stevie Morrision, Chris Draper won it, we were there. It does show that it is an experience game and the squad has always been tight in the UK and that this time is no exception now. That is fantastic and provides a great springboard for whoever is going to represent GBR to go and get a medal at the Olympics.”

Brotherton and Asquith were 6th in the 49er after day two of the Skandia Sail for Gold regatta.