Musical Chairs

Paul Brotherton and Simon Hiscocks go their separate ways as the UK 49er fleet goes through some marital strife

Brotherton and Hiscocks in Palma

Simon Hiscocks has teamed up with Chris Draper following his split with Paul Brotherton in the 49er. Despite being consistently the best team in the UK at major international events over the past year, Brotherton and Hiscocks have decided there was no future to their partnership.

Paul Brotherton told madforsailing: "The partnership had run its course, and it was time for both of us to move on." Doubtless the reality was a good deal more complex than that, but it goes to show that two good sailors don't always make a great team.

Not that their results were bad. A win at Hyeres and Kiel last year, followed by a slightly disappointing 7th at the Worlds in Garda, the pair seemed to be moving in the right direction. But clearly the chemistry wasn't working. Now Hiscocks has joined forces with Chris Draper (pictured left), who has only been sailing the 49er for a year and a half but has made rapid progress to the sharp end of the fleet. The crew who has been sailing with Draper for the past year, Mark Asquith, has had to make way for Hiscocks, who holds the advantage of having won a silver medal at the last Games. Acknowledged as one of the fittest members of the sailing squad and one of the most knowledgable about the subtleties of the 49er, Hiscocks' experience was doubtless a big attraction for Draper.

But Asquith is no slouch either, and is unlikely to sit on the sidelines for long. With Paul Brotherton also seeking a crew, it would seem obvious for these two to team up, but things aren't always as straightforward as that. While there is no doubting the abilities of these two sailors, again they must question whether they can work together as a team.

Olympic campaigning is as much about how you get along off the water as it is about how you perform in the heat of battle. Brotherton, a tearaway in his youth, is more of a family man in his mid-thirties, while Asquith is in his early twenties and has spent little more than a year on the Olympic trail. It is up to Brotherton and Asquith to work out whether they could work together effectively as a unit for the remaining two and a half years to the Athens Games.

In the short term, it wouldn't be surprising to see these two team up for a shot at the World Championships in Hawaii in little more than two months' time. With boats due to be put in the container in the next fortnight, Brotherton will doubtless be keen to keep his hand in at the Worlds even if he is not firing on all cylinders in the way that he would have hoped.

Asquith is his best bet to remain on the pace in the short term. Longer term, though, Brotherton will be aware of the fact that the market for 49er crews will get bigger after the end of the Volvo Ocean Race and the America's Cup. His former crew Mo Gray is part of GBR Challenge, as for that matter is Ian Budgen. And Brotherton's crew before Gray was Neal McDonald, currently skippering Assa Abloy in the Volvo Ocean Race.

Whether, of course, any of these sailors could bear to forfeit their hefty salaries, in favour of a year and a half of underpaid hard graft for another shot at Olympic glory, is another matter. With Peter Harrison showing all the signs of rolling straight into a second America's Cup campaign, Gray may be unwilling to go on a sabbatical when he could be nailing down a place on the A squad in GBR Challenge.

And with McDonald's stellar performance in the Volvo, he has moved himself well and truly into the big boys' division, alongside the likes of Grant Dalton and John Kostecki. A lucrative future beckons in the world of professional big boat racing, and the idea of putting those opportunities aside to go through the grind of an Olympic campaign against sailors almost half his age may not be that appealing.

But despite his troubles, Brotherton claims to retain the same enthusiasm for the job that he has always had. Now on his fourth Olympic campaign, he has seen it all before and he knows that there is still plenty of time for another shake-up.

He turned up at last weekend's RYA National Ranking Event in North Wales with one of his Youth Squad disciples, Henry Clarke, who himself has recently given up his 49er campaign with helm Alex Tobutt. "I've come here to show I'm still here, and sailing with a friend like Henry, there is no pressure, no expectation," Brotherton said.

Draper was newly teamed up with Hiscocks, whilst Asquith stayed home on the south coast.

Unfortunately, gusts of 35 knots put paid to any racing on Saturday and an almost complete lack of breeze on Sunday meant the gathered 49er, 470, Finn, Europe and Mistral sailors had to get back in their cars for a six-hour trip back down to the south coast, with no races completed.

It means that Draper and Hiscocks will be going straight into Hyeres Olympic Regatta as the first serious racing they have done together. The only squad team that remains unchanged, after four years of sailing together, is that of Alister Richardson and Peter Greenhalgh. Not only do they sail well together, they have a good laugh together too. That was a recipe that served John Merricks and Ian Walker well, and in the ever more professional arena of Olympic campaigning, good chemistry between a crew is more vital than ever.