Brotherton tunes with 49er world champions

Lynsey Thomas reports on Paul Brotherton's early progress in his new 49er campaign for 2004

Madforsailing talks to Paul Brotherton and Simon Hiscocks on their week's training with 49er World Champions Santiago Lopez Vazquez and Javier De La Plaza.
49er silver medallist Simon and 49er 1998 European champion Paul have recently joined forces in a bid for gold in Athens 2004, and the early signs are encouraging. Their training programme has already leapt into full swing as the pair teamed up last week with Peter and Robert Greenhalgh and world champions Santiago and Javier for some top class tuning.

One of the challenges all 49er sailors are faced with is establishing settings for the new sails contracted to Pryde Sails. Paul feels the new Pryde sails are far more critical to set up when compared to the Norths. "The sail cloth used in the North sails is much thinner than the Pryde and in many ways the Norths are able to self-correct if say, there is too much mast bend or vang. The Pryde sails are made of a thicker film and although this is going to be better for longevity they are much less able to cope with incorrect settings," he said.

The week's training with Vazquez and De La Plaza was Paul and Simon's first opportunity to sail head-to-head with the new sails and check their performance profile, "Santi has always been consistently fast through the whole wind range," says Brotherton. "Santi arrived with his North Sails and all his known and proven settings became the yardstick. At the start of the week Santi was winning every tuning run but, as the days went on, we were able to slowly refine our settings and by the end of the week we were at least matching - if not better than - Santi."

When asked how the new sails were shaping up after a seven-day workout, Paul was surprised at how similar the speeds were. "The mains are pretty similar and you can get the Pryde main to look like the North. The big difference is with the jib. The Pryde jib is very straight in the back 2/3 and no matter how much you alter the settings, you can't get it to look anything like the North. The overall depth in the sail is much less which is exacerbated by the tapered batons and the way the sail is cut rounder in the front and straighter in the exit. I'm surprised that with these seemingly big differences there wasn't a bigger difference in speed, but as with all tuning we need much more time to come up with anything definitive. It was very much a first and early look," he added.

The pair have asked Jo Richards to fulfil the role of mentor in their new campaign. Jo is the1984 Olympic FD bronze medallist and one of the most respected and successful sailors and designers in the world. Among his many successes and achievements are his designs for a series of boats called Full Pelt, the most famous of which was a Formula 40 catamaran, and his design of the undefeated big lake catamaran for Bertarelli. He is currently working on the design team for the GBR Challenge for the America’s Cup. (Ed's note: Check out our madforsailing profile on Jo, plus Jo Grindley's interview with him).

Paul had the opportunity of working with Jo in April of last year during the Olympic trials and felt that Jo's knowledge and input became an invaluable asset. Paul commented: "There are only two or three people I know of who have such a wide perspective on sailing and technology. Jo is someone who has a massive range of experience and is able to solve multi-faceted problems because his knowledge and experience enables him to look at the problem from a wealth of perspectives. Jo is going to be looking at almost every aspect of our sailing, whether that be our racing technique and boat-handling down to where he thinks we should stick a bit of tape on the boat. Even though we're sailing within a strict one-design class, the small number of things we are able to change becomes even more critical to develop and exploit. I don't think there is an area in our campaign where Jo won't be able to have an input," he added.

Madforsailing asked Jo what he thought of the role and how he thought he would be able to help. "I think when you become involved in sailing to the extent that Paul and Simon are, it sometimes becomes hard to see the wood for the trees. I see my role as being able to come along with some technical experience and be able to offer a constructive opinion," he said.

Paul and Simon won every race they competed in at Weymouth recently, despite snapping a wing in the second race. The pair are very pleased with how the training is progressing and are hoping to cement their relationship with Santi and Javier with another tuning session booked for a week's time in Barcelona.