Graduating up

Four time Olympic medallist Robert Scheidt discusses his move into big boats

Making the transition from little boats to big boats, is always a major for the individuals involved. The latest world class Olympic sailor to have made this jump is Brazil’s four time Olympic medallist Robert Scheidt, who has now signed with the newly re-created Luna Rossa team, ready for the America’s Cup, whenever that may happen (don’t hold your breath). In the meantime Scheidt and his fellow crew members, are having to ‘make do’ with an STP65 program that, surprisingly for what one might think of as an inshore-orientated team, will have a significant offshore component in its program for 2009.

“They invited me to sail together with them at the end of 2007,” claimed Scheidt when we met up with him in Palma recently. “But in 2008 I was still very involved with the Olympic Games, so I only sailed with them for the first time in November 2008 at the CNEV regatta in the Cup boats. So that was my first Cup boat experience, doing strategy for them.”

At that point he says the team had already lined up the STP program, however following on from the CNEV regatta they also competed in January's Louis Vuitton Pacific Series where the US Virgin Islands moustachioed hotshot Peter Holmberg helmed while Scheidt called tactics.

As mentioned in our previous article about the STP65 itself, in creating the new Luna Rossa sailing team, Patricio Bertelli was keen to start pretty much from scratch. “I think it is a good team. There are a lot of people in it who already have a lot of America’s Cup experience, and some others not. So I think it is a good mix between experienced guys and new guys,” says Scheidt of his colleagues.

The logical step up for Scheidt, now 35, and possibly the ultimate step after his lengthy Olympic career, is the America’s Cup, although he is taking a more cautious approach than many other former Olympians who have launched straight into it. “I will go step by step. This [the STP] is a good program to learn a lot about these type of boats - about sailing with 20 guys on board, about the communication, sailing to the numbers, computers, etc. Of course the America’s Cup is a dream and if it happens it would be a very good thing. I’ll just take it as it comes. I am not in a rush to do it. I’ll wait and see what happens.”

He also acknowledges that there remains a significant hurdle to overcome before he can become a fully fledged AC skipper – he has to learn match racing and the best school for this will certainly be the World Match Racing Tour. “For this year that will be a bit too much for me, because I have already got two programs, but probably next year I will start to get more involved with that. But nothing is decided yet. For this year I’ll do these two and at the end of the year I will decide what direction to go.”

So how does he find the quantum leap from his Star to the STP? “It is a big step up, especially because it is such a big boat. You have to learn all the timing, the acceleration tables, communication with the crew, the manoeuvres on the boat... It is coming on. I still need to spend about 40-50 days doing it every day to get to a certain stage.”

Fortunately surrounding Scheidt on board are many with a similar, if less successful, Olympic background to his own. Strategist Mark Mendelblatt for example was the US’ Laser representative in Athens, and like Scheidt graduated up to the Star for China. This was a similar story for their American tactician, Andy Houghton, the sole survivor of the 2007 Luna Rossa afterguard.

“I think for the team it is not too difficult because a lot of the guys have huge experience and whenever we don’t know something, everyone is really open and you can ask whatever you want to know and we can trade experience because we have a way of sailing the big boats and small boats and now we have to fine tune it. You just cannot go and sail them the way you sail smaller boats.”

Sadly at the beginning of this season their training out of Valencia was severely curtailed when the forestay strop broke causing the mast to come atumblin’ down. At the time Scheidt wasn’t on board as he had injured himself in a skiing incident. “It was a big set-back because we were scheduled to sail with Container which would have been really good for training. It is a big step back but we have a good season ahead of us. We have six regattas scheduled – a lot of sailing.”

Aside from this major set-back Scheidt says their preparation has been coming on well. “We have a good speed loop and I think it will take a little bit of time.” Thanks to their dismasting they had managed to squeeze in just six days’ training prior to their first regatta, Palmavela along with the delivery to Palma. And yet in the combined Pro driver/Amateur driver mini maxi fleet, they managed to win the regatta.



Meanwhile Scheidt, like Ben Ainslie, intends to run his Olympic campaign in parallel with the rest of the sailing he does. Despite it being a relatively quiet year immediately post Games, Scheidt says that he and his Beijing crew, Bruno Prada, still plan to compete in five Star regattas this year, including the Delta Lloyd in Medemblick, the Eastern Europeans, the Garda Olympic regatta and the Worlds in Sweden.

“I think I will be able to keep in shape just by doing a lot of racing,” Scheidt says of his Olympic campaign. “There will not be so much time as last year for training, but I think we are happy with that because no one is taking it too seriously this year. At the end of the year we’ll see what the options are for the next season and probably intensify a little bit more in 2011.”

He is clearly enjoying the Star, as an entirely different challenge from the Laser. “The Star is extremely competitive. It is a funny boat, because sometimes you think you are fast and you go out and you are slow and sometimes you think you don’t have a chance and you go out and win a race. So it is a boat with many ups and downs: Sometimes it is in training, sometime it is in tuning and sometimes it is yourself. It is like a violin - it is a very sensitive boat to trim and fine tune, but on the other hand you learn a lot as well. It is a good step from the more simple Laser/Finn class to this. I think it was a very good decision to make the transition from the Laser to the Star. Still I am sailing with guys who I sailed with me a few years ago in the Laser. So it is a good healthy young group that is coming along now.”

Looking bigger picture it is entertaining to see Scheidt following much the same path as his compatriot Torben Grael (who still has one more Olympic gong than he does) did a decade ago, Grael’s move into the America’s Cup, also have been with Prada/Luna Rossa prior to the 2000 Cup.

“For sure he is a very big reference for me,” says Scheidt of his fellow Brazilian Olympic legend. “He is a very good overall sailor - he is good in the America’s Cup, in offshore too and in Olympic sailing with five medals. It is very hard to achieve what he has, because he knows everything in all disciplines.” However Scheidt realises it is not his god given right, despite his impressive Olympic credentials, to land a Cup position. “I am very pleased to have this opportunity. It is so hard to get involved in a top program like this. Now I have this chance - I am going to take it as seriously as I can.”

So given the impressive track record of himself and Grael, how come Brazil seems to produce some many top Olympic sailors? This is certainly not the first time Scheidt has been asked this… “In Brazil there are some main clubs, like in San Paolo and in Rio, where there are good sailing schools and there is a lot of traditions, because there was in the past Germans, British and, in the case of Torben, the Danish families that founded these clubs. So these experiences are passing on from generation to generation. And Brazil is a wonderful place to sail. You can sail 365 days a year in very good conditions. And the fleets are very healthy - like the Optimists, the Star, the Laser, etc – the basic classes. So we are growing up - it is not a system like the British, which is extremely organised with coaches, etc, but in Brazil we sail a lot and we tend to be natural, intuitive sailors.”

While there is no one following in his wake with quite the same gusto and success as he and Grael have achieved, he says there is much good up and coming talent. “In the RS:X Men we have Riccardo Santos. In the Laser now we have a good guy from the south of Brazil, Bruno Fontes, who is sailing quite well. And in the 49er we also have a good team also. And the girls [Fernanda Oliviera and Isabel Swan] who won the bronze medal in the 470 in Beijing... So we have some new people coming up which is very healthy, because sailing in Brazil cannot just rely on Torben and myself getting Olympic medals.”

Despite his haul of medals, Scheidt doesn’t seem to be the national hero that perhaps he should be. Sailing, after all, is Brazil’s top Olympic sport. Perhaps he needs a better press agent? “Locally in my club, the guys come and ask for tips and I try and help as much as I can. Sometimes I go and talk to the kids in the club and so on. Of course I have achieved a lot in the Laser so people want to know how and why. It is no big secret. It is just a lot of hard work…” Scheidt’ training regime and in particular the time he spends on the water are the stuff of legend.

Personally with his Olympic campaign and now with Luna Rossa and having got married recently, Scheidt has found it necessary to move to Europe and has adopted Lake Garda as his temporary residence (who wouldn’t?!)

Of course no interview by a British journalist and Robert Scheidt is complete without a Ben Ainslie reference. The two titans of the Lasers may have gone their separate way in the Olypmic arena, with Scheidt into the Star and Ainslie into the Finn, however should a multi-challenger America’s Cup ever come to pass then they will get to do some more match racing against one another in earnest.

“I think Ben is pretty advanced now,” says Scheidt of his rival. “He has been doing a lot of match racing and a lot of big boat sailing. So he is one step ahead. He can afford it. He doesn’t have to train so much in the Finn to stay on top!” Ouch, although it is not meant to be a dig. “He is very good, so he made it easy for himself.”

While it is great to see titans from the Olympic world graduating up, all we need now is an America’s Cup for them to sail in….