Two blondes in the boat

Double Gold medallist Sarah Ayton and Saskia Clark talk about their new Olympic 470 campaign

There’s nothing like getting a double Olympic Gold medallist to come and helm your 470, but this is the case for Saskia Clark who following a sixth place with Christina Bassadone on the tiller at the Beijing games, and a season with Pippa Wilson last year, now has Sarah Ayton on the stick.

Ayton, who turned 30 last week, is one of the world’s most talented female sailors of her generation. Following the traditional path of Optimist-420-Laser Radial, she became a career Olympian, campaigning a Europe to the highest level, winning Spa Regatta in both 2000 and 2001 and Hyeres in 2001. However the shining light in the Europe within Team GBR at the time was of course Shirley Robertson, and with the Europe retired from Olympic disciplines post-Sydney, she joined Shirley Robertson in the bow of the Yngling for Athens where she won her first Gold medal. After Athens, Ayton then set up her own team taking the helm, with fellow Athens Yngling medallist Sarah Webb, with Pippa Wilson in the bow. Winning the World championship in 2007 and 2008, the ‘three blondes in a boat’ went into the Beijing Games as favourites and delivered, Ayton and Webb coming home with her second Golds.

Following Beijing, Ayton dropped out of the limelight busy having her first child, son Thomas, with husband Olympic Mistral bronze medallist Nick Dempsey (the Skandia Team GBR gene pool also remains small with Ayton’s 470 crew, Saskia Clark hooked up with Laser Gold medallist and World Champion, Paul Goodison). Since last year she has been looking at her options when it comes to her future Olympic sailing.

The obvious move, which many other former Yngling sailors have chosen is go down the Women’s Match Racing route on the Elliott 6m. However Lucy Macgregor and her team were quick out of the blocks with their campaign and are now back into the top spot in the Women’s match race rankings. Unfortunately given the way the Women’s Match Racing is set up with supplied gear it is very difficult for B-teams to get off the ground.

“I tried that for a bit and did enjoy it and it will help in the medal race,” says Ayton of her brief foray in the Elliott 6. “But you don’t find out if you have got an entry to an event until a week or two before - how can you plan a program around that? And the qualification was unclear – I just couldn’t lead my life like that. I like having control over everything.” And we believe every word of this last sentence – she has the same singleminded take-no-prisoners approach, an unwavering absolute focus to a degree we have only ever seen previously in Shirley Robertson and Ellen MacArthur.

The call to the 470 came out of the blue when in January shortly before Rolex Miami OCR, Saskia Clark’s helm, the same Pippa Wilson who was Ayton’s bowgirl in Beijing, made the bold decision to duck out of Olympic sailing.

“Out of the blue I got a call from Saskia asking if I could come 470 sailing. She was out in Miami - so it was quite appealing!” recalls Ayton. “But what an opportunity - to team up with the best 470 crew. It absolutely made sense. So we went sailing, both got on really well and we did okay in Miami [at Rolex Miami OCR where they finished 13th] and I couldn’t be with a better person. Sas’ dream is all about winning a gold in Weymouth and I believe we can do it.”

In fact Ayton adds that her getting into the 470 was on the cards anyway and she had already had a go sailing one prior to Clark’s call.

An interesting feature of Skandia Team GBR over the last three Olympiads is that the team has always been the dominant force in whatever class Shirley Robertson or Sarah Ayton has featured, but has consistently failed to make the podium in the other women’s class – the Laser Radial and the Women’s 470.

Ayton reckons that this is partly down to the mindset we mentioned earlier. “It needs someone to go quite within themselves to take ownership of what they are doing and really make it happen and not settle for anything else except the best. We are going to have a really set program that has milestones between now until the Olympics – to make sure we are working with the right people and have the right support and remember where we are now and what the end goal is.”

As simple as that? “Well it is simple,” Ayton retorts. “Sailing is a complex sport, but if you keep it simple and put your head down and get on with it, you get there in the end. The biggest thing for me - which I learned in the Yngling - is that it is all about the team. If you have got the energy from the team and are really solid, when you are really in difficult situations you default to what you know is strong and every day you have raced with that intensity - that is where I get my confidence and I know that works. So that is what we will continue to do.”

Having two Olympic Gold medals already in the trophy cabinet must boost confidence too. “It does, but now we are right at the bottom of this really steep curve that I’ve got to climb. But for sure when you get to the Games – you only have to look at the Yngling class, Sofia [Bekatorou] had never won a medal at an event and at the Games all of a sudden she won a bronze. So the Olympics is a totally different event and I think as a medallist going into that - hopefully if we qualify - that will bring a whole load of strength to that.”

With the newly announced backing from Volvo, Ayton will also resume another key feature of her Olypmic campaigning – having the best possible resources. “It is all about now adding the detail to the program, - having the best coach, having the best equipment, having the best training partner and doing all the events you can. Knowing that support and money are no issue and when we line up on that start line we have the edge and the best people around us. It is a massive massive deal.”

This is also necessary due to Ayton’s new status as a mother. She and Clark are not part of the existing Skandia Team GBR 470 squad as she explains with her baby Thomas, training time is more limited. One wonders how possible this would be if the 2012 Games were not in the UK. “Whenever we sail, it has to be 100% all about us. So we are just doing our own thing. We will get people in when we can. A risk we take doing our own thing is that we don’t have access to the squad, but the beauty about the 470 is that obviously there is the men’s fleet. And the ideal thing would be to tune up with them.” But she adds that at the moment they are not at that stage – she is still familiarising herself fully with the boat.

Aside from securing Volvo sponsorship, their biggest coups to date has been in managing to get Joe Glanfield, Nick Rogers’ long term crew, to be their coach. “It is fantastic,” Ayton admits. “You can’t get away with anything on the water - if you do a bad tack he is on your case, you make a bad decision upwind, he is on your case. And that’s how you move forward. He is an awesome guy, he is fully on the ball and very well organised and really professional.”

For Saskia Clark it is hopefully third crew lucky. Her Beijing helm Christina Bassadone has recently set up her own company in Chichester called Task Angels, and while she gave the Radial a go last year, it is unclear where her Olympic sailing future lies.

Compared to how she tackled Beijing with Bassadone, Clark says that their approach now with Ayton and Glanfield, sees them taking a step back and they are better at prioritising things. “In our last campaign we had an uphill struggle. Conditions didn’t play to mine and Christina’s strengths, so we had that big mountain to climb as well as delivering on the day. I feel we almost did quite well on the whole light wind side of things, but then we didn’t deliver on the day. Weymouth – it is a different kettle of fish, in terms of where our strengths lie conditions-wise. We have two and a half years which is not a lot of time, but it is enough time.”

Clark says Glanfield has been happy to work with them – he doesn’t miss the sailing, but she reckons that over the last months he has been missing not having that single goal and focus that Olympic sailing provides.

As to Ayton’s strengths, Clark says she brings considerable clarity of direction. “She is very level headed about things. At this point of time we are not very good, but that’s alright. Sarah has had two months in a 470 – we are not expecting to be World Champions this year...”

Meanwhile Ayton is very much enjoying the move to the 470 from the rather more sober Yngling. “I go sailing with a smile on my face now – if you put the bow down you are planning. I remembered why I like sailing when I got in the 470,” she says. The move is also requiring her to find some new muscles in her upper body that are having more demands made on them than in the keelboat.

However compared to the Yngling, the 470 doesn’t forgive any mistakes. “We had the national ranker last weekend and having not raced before in that environment it was great because if you make a single mistake someone is there. That was different in the Yngling where you could get away with a few little things.”

In terms of their program for 2010, Ayton and Clark will compete at Hyeres, Delta Lloyd Regatta and will roll straight into the 470 Worlds in the Hague in July before heading back home for Skandia Sail For Gold in Weymouth. Aside from thee Worlds, Sail for Gold will be the most important regatta of the year, as Ayton says: “It is important not to be beaten there. You want to line up on that start line in race one and everyone knowing that you are bloody good in the venue.”

The big travelling will happen next year when the Olympic world decamps to Perth for the en masse ISAF World Championships.