The Iain Percy column

Iain responds to those who say he won gold through technology rather than sailing skill

I recently read some feedback from Andrew Hurst [editor of Seahorse magazine], who was wishing to open the issue of carbon and Mylar rigs versus the traditional metal and Dacron combination. The focus of his contribution was on the relative costs of these differing approaches, so I shall stick to this comparison when attempting to give the debate some further clarity.
For those who are less involved in this end of the sport the argument in favour of change basically goes that although Mylar and carbon are more expensive materials than Dacron and aluminium, they are longer lasting, and this longevity more than compensates for this additional cost.

The counter argument is that the change to new materials necessarily incurs R&D costs that end up making the new rigs more expensive again. It is indeed an interesting debate that must be looked upon analytically by weighing up these conflicting variables. Before I do this I would quite like to put a few things straight with regard to my campaign that I have read in various contributions, some from people who should surely know better.

I have become increasingly annoyed by articles such as Andrew's which, although I'm sure was not his intention, display the battle for gold in the Finn class as an arms race. The implication being that through my sponsors I was given an advantage over my competitors reducing the need for sailing skill.

Although this is not the case I must take a degree of responsibility for this view. During my two-year campaign in the Finn I was sponsored by BAE Systems. They were particularly interested in supporting the Finn class because of the obvious links between the carbon wings on their planes and the carbon mast used by the class. At first the intention had been that BAE systems would make me a super mast, and clearly much was made of this in the press.

It became clear that this was not practical, and anyway was not the best use of their financial input. I therefore never used a special mast made by BAE systems in any international competition. This fact has never been stated openly before, so understandably the common belief has been that I used this so-called super mast at the Games and it assisted me to win the Gold; it is clear why this misconception was better for all parties involved.

What did I actually use at the Games? What was the secret weapon that made my win so easy? In fact all I actually used was a two-year-old, off-the-shelf mast made by an Italian builder called Antonio Latina. More than that, the bend characteristics of the particular mast - not that it is anything special - were known to my competitors who in a number of cases used an identical mast at the Games. There you go, I said it; probably will get me in a lot of trouble but at least I've set the record straight.

Back to the point of the article, then - what are the true costs of moving to modern rig materials? I believe that the debate should be polarised into exactly the three sections I began on: Firstly the materials are more expensive, secondly the new materials last longer, and thirdly, such a substantial rule change will inevitably result in R&D costs as sailors search for the new optimum.

It is only fair to include all of these competing variables, as they were all brought up by Andrew, although it appears to me that point three is more of an argument against change per se, which has surely been concluded in the favour of development, assuming of course that development makes a better boat.

This argument must be made on a class-by-class basis, so although I am keenly interested, I don't think I can comment on the Star class just yet. The reason for this is that the relative cost savings associated with enhanced longevity and the cost increases associated with raw materials vary hugely on the type of boat.

In the Star class, for example, I imagine it is less relevant that a carbon mast can potentially last forever, when one crew slip-up will always assign it to history anyway, regardless of its make-up.

With regard to the Finn however, in my opinion the savings undeniably offered by the increased longevity of new materials rigs about equates to the increased cost of each individual item. You will have to take my word on this because I've never been a good accountant so I can't produce a barrage of figures, and indeed, I was not even in the class for any notable time under the old rules.

My rationale for this belief, which also answers the question on development costs, is based on the quantity of equipment I consumed over my two-year campaign, and my knowledge of the spending patterns of my predecessors.

On the mast front I used three masts, one of which was my Games mast that cost £1000, one of which was my back-up mast which was identical to my Games mast (kindly lent to me free of charge by the British Finn Association chairman John Greenwood) and thirdly a mast from a Swiss manufacturer which I bought at the last minute to cover myself a bit. It cost £1700 but snapped anyway.

On the sail front I used a fair number, can't be sure exactly how many, probably about 17 at a reduced cost from British North Sails. There were some slight development variations from the original designed by Norths and David Howlett in 1998, but essentially that number represents about 350 days' use, but then again I was quite spoilt in terms of normally using new sails in training.

The issue on development is an interesting one. It is clear from the above outline that there was very little development cost associated with my campaign. This is not to say that there has never been substantial spending on development. This pattern is seen everyday in all technologies. With a fixed set of rules one will always transcend on an optimal solution and the incentives to move away from the norm will decrease over time.

The question is really how long does it take for that agreed optimum/one design to be found? My experience of the Finn is that it is reached fairly quickly because, although leading up to Atlanta there was fairly active development, in Sydney, contrary to popular belief, it was all pretty quiet. Something that I have not even mentioned, but is also highly relevant to this whole debate, is that technical ability should not been seen as a substitute for sailing skill, on the contrary it should be seen an integral part of it.

To finish up, let me take you back to the conditions we experienced in Sydney Harbour. In most races we were faced by wind that was, as Jim Saltonstall puts it, up and down like a whore's drawers, and extremely variable in direction, so please, don't try and tell me that Shirley and myself didn't win our gold medals through sailing skill.