SAILING:THE FASTEST sailors are always on the lookout for the next wave. Surfing a big one is a race-winning move so top crews will do almost anything to ride it. Following the ISAF Championships in Perth, over 1,000 of the world's Olympic helms are reviewing their performances to gain every advantage for the London 2012 regatta in just seven months' time.
The Irish review will be a buoyant one, with a high standard of results delivered in recent months. Two medal-race performances and one just outside that category are great achievements to take from Perth. Many of the 79 nations competing there would pay good money just to be in Ireland’s position.
Yacht Clubs in Belfast, Cork and Dublin are congratulating five Irish sailors on their Olympic qualification but top crews are rarely satisfied with their performances. They know there are more waves to catch. Ryan Seaton and Matt McGovern are through in the 49er skiff, Peter O’Leary and David Burrows in the Star keelboat, and last night the arrival home of Laser Radial sailor Annalise Murphy raised the roof at the National Yacht Club in Dún Laoghaire.
After many false dawns, the prospect of a medal from the London Olympics may well be the talk of sailing clubs in the new year but some inconsistent performances must be ironed out first if there are to be any bigger celebrations in 2012.
Ireland’s only sailing medal came at the 1980 Moscow Olympics when 62 countries decided to boycott the Games. It’s not popular to mention that fact or that, since then, Ireland have not had a top-eight finish. This time it will be different say the Irish Sailing Association (ISA) who have already pointed to the podium in Weymouth.
Ireland could have been in the medals in Perth, and it would have been a first for Irish sailing at an ISAF World Championships, except for race blips in both the Star and the Laser Radial classes where the Irish boats counted two bad races apiece.
In an overall regatta context, where a series of individual results count, the lesson is that it’s not only about having brilliant races, it’s also about avoiding bad ones. And in terms of difficulty, it’s the hardest nut to crack.
Take Murphy’s season. In her last two World Cup regattas, the Dún Laoghaire single-hander has finished 15 times in the top 10 and has won 10 races. Her win rate at the Skandia Sail for Gold regatta on the Olympic course itself was matched only by Britain’s Ben Ainslie. Ireland have never seen anything like it but inconsistency prevented her from taking first place in both events.
More recently in Perth, Murphy won four races, more than any other sailor in her fleet. Her average position, excluding discard, was seventh. If she had scored seventh in her two worst races, she would have won the regatta by five points. Instead a couple of bad results kept her sixth overall.
Sixth in a 102-boat fleet of such world-class competitors is nevertheless a top result for Murphy and also a personal best.
It was similar for the Irish Star sailors. So far this relatively new combination has clocked up a bronze medal at the European Championships, fourth place at the Olympic test event and a silver medal at the Bacardi Cup but having to count a 33 and a 24 in Perth was a killer blow for O’Leary and Burrows. It kept them out of the medal race and the top 10 overall. Significantly it was no improvement on earlier successes.
Consistency paid in the 41-boat Perth fleet; only one of the top three overall won an individual race but the top three rarely fell out of the top 10.
Murphy, O’Leary and Burrows will not be satisfied with results as they stand. Olympic qualification is in the bag so the question now is what can be done to turn them from world-class sailors into medal winners.
These campaigns resume in January, when the Star and the Laser Radial will be based in Miami and the 49er will be based in Europe. They are only six regattas out from the Olympics itself.
Just like a sailor looking for the next big wave, Irish sailing should pay any price to help this team with specialist support. Whether it’s starting technique, tactical decision-making or boat speed issues, now is the time to put all possible resources into a squad that has shown it’s got the greatest chance of moving Irish sailing on from Moscow.
