Ian Walker's Olympic Diary - 13th September

Ian Walker's recovered from his cold, and phoned with an update on his preparations in Sydney, writes Mark Chisnell

Ian Walker's last diary had him struggling with a cold, but we're happy to report that he's now recovered and has been back out on the water. Ian didn't have time to write today, but he phoned madforsailing.com to provide a quick update. Ian managed to time his illness just about perfectly, leaving Mark Covell to sort out the measurement problem, while he took to his sickbed. The rest put him back on his feet pretty quickly, and with the Star past final measurement they were out on the water again on Wednesday, sailing some training races. Ian also reported that all the British boats were now through measurement.

The opening ceremony is on Friday, 15th September, and the first classes start racing on the 17th, that's the Mistral, Tornado and Soling. The Star and Finn classes are the last to begin on the 23rd. That means there's plenty of opportunity for more sailing, but Ian tells us that they will be restricted on the courses they can use after the other classes start racing, but they should still be able to get some time in on the water.

Ian also told us that the weather has improved for the better. The pattern of westerly wind and gales - blowing off 3,000 miles of land and about as shifty as it gets - has ended, and the air warmed up. That's produced a run of sea breezes over the last couple of days. The sea breeze blows from the north-east, either through the entrance to the harbour or over a much narrower section of land, depending on where you are sailing. Either way, it's a lot less shifty.

There's definitely some nervousness about the conditions in the harbour. Madforsailing.com spoke to Chris Mason after he had returned from Sydney, where Chris and Derek Clark had been tuning partners for Ian and Mark. Chris' comment was that the conditions in the westerly were 'shocking, worse than Queen Mary reservoir'. And I think most people who've sailed there would agree, that's not the kind of place you'd like to settle the outcome of four or more years work.
As Ian had told us in an earlier diary, Derek and Chris had also been doing the work on the keel of the new Star. Chris explained the thinking behind the project. It's been a long held belief in the Star class that of the boats from the different builders around the world, the Lillia has the best keel and the Folli has the nicest hull. So why not put the best keel with the best hull? And that's what they did.

Chris told us that a big problem in the Star is getting rid of the weather helm, the boat seems fast with neutral or even lee helm. Reducing the drag on the mainsail is one solution and achieving a clean exit on the leech is part of that. But the slightly more vertical leading edge on the Lillia keel also seems to help, certainly, the new boat has less weather helm.

The other advantage of the Lillia keel seems to be that all the joins between the fin section and both the hull and the bulb have a fairer radius. Instead of a 90 degree join, it's been radiused across 40 mm. This reduces the wetted surface area, and makes the keel lower drag. These are tiny details, but that's really the point, the team - and as Chris emphasised - in every class, has left no stone unturned.

A lot of the testing in Sydney was about confirming that the keel change had worked. Chris told us he was confident that Ian had made the right choice of boat. With measurement now completed successfully, the experiment is just about to get fully tested.