Victory after 15 attempts

We talk to Ian Pinnell who has finally added the 505 World Championship crown to his list

While younger, nippier boats may have come onto the scene, few have stolen the hearts of so many top sailors as the 505 has done. Two weeks ago the 505 World Championships took place in Palermo, Italy. The regatta was won by Ian Pinnell - who has been trying to win the event for more than 18 years, having attended the worlds on 15 different occasions - and his crew Carl Gibbon - the 27 year old is a new crew to Pinnell with the pair only having teamed up at the end of the last World Championships in Adelaide.

Well known throughout the sailing community, Pinnell started sailing in Mirrors and Enterprises. He has since sailed all manner of classes including the N12, 420, 470, Miracle, Enterprise, Fireball, 505, Soling, Mumm 30, Melges 24 and International 14. Impressively Pinnell has won 36 World, European and National championships and won the 1989 Endeavour (Champion of Champions) Trophy. However, up until this year the 505 World Championships crown had always eluded him. Partly due to this and partly due to his love of the boat, the 505 class has become his main focus over the last five years or so.

So passionate is Pinnell about the 505 and particularly the calibre of sailor it attracts that he believes winning the event is materially harder than winning the Olympic Games. “When you look at the number of boats – 122 this year – along with the skill of the sailors and the fact that more than one boat is allowed to enter from each country, I think it is fair to say it is harder to win than the Games.”

The sailmaker is, understandably, pleased with his win at the Worlds and it is clear this result is not just a boon for him, but will also help the sales of his Pinnell and Bax 505 sails as well. “I should imagine it will help sales,” he comments. “There are quite a few more teams in Europe wanting to buy a set now and that is probably helped by the weak pound or the strong Euro depending on how you look at it.” The 505 European Championship – which also served as a Pre-Worlds - also took place from the same venue and directly preceded the World Championship. Although Pinnell did not win this event – finishing fifth in the end - he is still pleased with the outcome of this regatta from a business point of view. “The German guys who won the Europeans - Findel and Tellen – were using our sails too, so we have the European and World Championship titles now,” explains a clearly elated Pinnell.

Conditions for the Championship were similar throughout the course of the week. “It was generally light throughout, we were either not trapezing at all or it was marginal trapezing. Typically, those have not really been conditions I have excelled in, in the past.” These light conditions actually saw the regatta lose a few scheduled races, including the final day. In the end the championship was made up of six races over the course of four days, while the schedule had nine races over six days planned. Pinnell does not seem to think too many mistakes were made by those running the event and insists it was just unfortunate that a high pressure was sat over the venue the whole time.


Above: Some Pinnell and Bax sail in action last year.

With Pinnell admitting the lighter conditions are not his forte, it might be easy to assume the Brit just managed to squeeze to victory after a hard fought week out on the water. In truth, though, a quick look at the scoreline suggests otherwise. In the event, Pinnell’s winning margin was a whopping 17 points, only scoring one result outside of the top five throughout the course of the week. So if it was not years of top form in light weather, what does he put his phenomenal result down too? “It was very important being at the Pre-Worlds,” he explains. “Basically there was a big high sitting over the venue for two weeks so the Pre-Worlds were exactly the same conditions as the Worlds. We did not feel very quick during that event but we made a few small changes to our rig set-up and that seemed to help us with boatspeed for the main event.”

Pinnell adds that they ended up with very radical settings compared to their usual set-up which was instrumental in their attaining decent boat speed for the actual regatta. However, boat speed in and of itself is not what he attributes their impressive victory too. Not only was the wind particularly light throughout the course of the week but decidedly fickle too, and it was how they handled this that Pinnell says helped in their domination of the event so totally. “As with all the events, sailing well tactically was very important. Obviously having good boat speed really helped us in getting off the line and finding a good position on the course, but I think we did sail the event better than the rest which is evident in the results.” Many competitors on returning from the venue have commented on just how shifty it was at the Worlds. It is worth noting that almost every other boat had at least one terrible finish which is, in itself, testament to just how well Pinnell and Gibbon sailed.

One of those who had one particularly bad finish was Howie Hamlin (USA) who scored a 56th on the first race but went on to finish in second overall. With Pinnell having tried for so many years to win the 505 World Championships he can sympathise greatly with Hamlin. The American has won the event once before, but this season represents yet another second place to add to many others over the years. “I guess it must have been hard for Howie,” Pinnell comments. “Quite early on in the event it was clear he was going to be our main competition for the title, so we did spend the later part of the regatta keeping quite close to him and keeping an eye on what he was doing.”

Currently there are no plans for making any major changes to his sails between now and the next World Championships, due to take place in San Francisco next year. Again, Pinnell reiterates that both the European and World Champions are currently using Pinnell and Bax sails, so it really would not make much sense to fiddle around too much with this winning set-up.

As we know, the 505 is not the only class Pinnell is known for sailing. He has, over the years, been a part of a wide variety of classes. These days, though, he admits there is not as much time as he would like for sailing so he is more or less limited to two boats. While he remains an ardent fan of the 505 fleet, and particularly enjoys the old style of racing with one race a day over very long courses, he also gets a buzz out of more modern high performance racing and for him that comes in the shape of the international 14. This year, however, has seen Pinnell doing less 14 sailing than in previous years, only sailing the National Championships in the class. He is still keen on the 14 though and would like to do more next year. However, over the winter competitive sailing in all classes will be done a lot less with Pinnell seeming more than happy to effectively end his season on this Worlds win. It seems the next time we are likely to see him in action on the global stage will be defending his title next year in the States.