Cordelia's comeback

Cordelia Eglin tells Nigel Cherrie about her fourth place in Spain and the future...

After a year out of the game to start a family, Cordelia Eglin threw together a last minute entry and gave the full timers a run for their money with fourth place at the recent Women’s World Match Racing Championship in Spain.

The world title was won by American Liz Bayliss, who beat top seed and world number one Marie Bjorling of Sweden in the final by two races to one.

The Bayliss family mantelpiece must be running out room. Her brother Trevor won back-to-back world titles in the International 14 and 18ft Skiff classes last year. Other brother Will won World Championship gold in the Soling in 1986 and 1988, the same year he won an Olympic silver medal at the Seoul Olympics, plus the J-24 world title.

Fourth place with a eleventh-hour campaign was just as surprising as actually getting an invitation to the world championship, admitted the former British women’s number one. She gathered Cailah Leask, Sarah Webb and Sarah Allen as crew and found two spare Saturdays on the Solent to get in some much needed practice before setting off to Calpe in Spain for the big event last week.

After some strong performances in the round robin series, Eglin squared up against Bayliss in the semi-final and came within inches of a shot at the world title.
"We took her to the last race and it basically was the last two gybes on the finish line that made the decision about who was going through to the final," Eglin told madfor sailing.

"We completely shocked ourselves with our result and if the breeze had come in on the final day I honestly believe we could have made the finals. There was a time limit to get the last flight off so they were going for it early rather than waiting an hour for the sea breeze to come in," she continued. The semi-final and final matches were decided in a light shifting breeze with a short chop.

Eglin also she believes their close semi-final battle put Bayliss in the right frame of mind for the final bout. "The final day came down to what match racing is fundamentally about, a psychology game," added Cordelia. "The French girl Anne Le Helley had the most incredible boat speed. She was sailing through people to leeward and around them. It was so hard to keep her under control. The only way you could beat her was to give her a penalty in the pre-start.

"Marie Bjorling sailed her [Le Helley] in the semi-final round and psychologically it really affected her as she only beat her on the last tack around the windward mark, otherwise the French girl was leading all the way. Anne Le Helley lost it because of her match racing tactics.

"Marie Bjorling was perhaps then a bit shaky as she knew her boat speed was nowhere near what it should be, but Liz [Bayliss] and I were equally matched and she just had a bit of an edge of on us. When she [Bayliss] went into the finals she knew had speed and Marie Bjorling was down. The psychological game was really coming in to play there." The final result was two-one in Bayliss’ favour.

"We unfortunately then had Anne Le Helley in the petit final [third and fourth sail off] and speed wise she was incredible. At the beginning of the day even the umpires believed there would be a French world champion." Le Helley secured third place by two races to nil. American Dawn Riley, who is heading up a new challenge for the 2006 America’s Cup finished in fifth.

Le Helley is now campaigning a Yngling for the Athens Olympic Games in 2004, as is new women’s match racing world champion Liz Bayliss.

The question now is whether Eglin’s fourth place just the tip of the iceberg and has it re-ignited her fire to compete again? "Yes, match racing still has it in me, definitely," she says. "I sailed the Yngling (women’s Olympic keelboat class) for the first time just before I went out there and spent a couple of hours going up and down, tweaking things by an inch or half an inch and after a while I thought, ‘I’m bored now, what else can I do?' Then we went match race training and everybody in the two boats had the biggest grin on their faces at the end of day. No one was bored.

"When you look at the two comparisons, people get much more out of match racing as it so much more stimulating. You have speed, tactics, boat positioning. It’s a far more interesting and an exciting game. Dawn Riley and a couple of other girls [at the world championship] have been sailing Ynglings in the United States and they are all bailing out as they were bored."

Eglin also explained that while it is a pipe dream at present, there is a growing movement to lobby for the Yngling class to swap from fleet to match racing disciplines for 2008. "There is a lot of people out there who think this a very slow boat and it would be great for match racing."

Would a tilt at Olympic gold light her fire? "By 2008 I’ll be too old. I’ll be retired", jests Eglin. In the meantime she’ll settle for a pop at the ISAF World Sailing Games title this summer sailed in the same J-22 keelboat with hopefully the same crew from Spain.

What about her year old daughter Lilly then for 2020 possibly? "Her grandmother is trying to get her into horses quicker than I can get her into sailing."

If you can get good odds.....

Final overall results:

Place	Skipper	Nation
1st	Liz Baylis	USA
2nd	Marie Bjorling	Sweden
3rd	Anne Le Helley	France
4	Cordelia Eglin	Great Britain
5	Dawn Riley	USA
6	Nina B. Petersen	Denmark
7	Sabrina Gurioli	Italy
8	Lotte Meldgaared Pedersen	Denmark
9	Sandy Grosvenor	USA
10	Giulia Conti	Italy