I
t’s hard to think of a parallel in
sport. Two great competitors —
one a sprinter, one a long-
distance specialist — coming
together to race alongside each
other and doing so when many might
consider their careers to be over.
But that’s what the 53-year-old
double Olympic gold medallist
Shirley Robertson and the 49-year-
old solo round-the-world record-
setting sailor Dee Caffari will be
doing this summer as they team up
on board the SunFast 3300 Rockit to
take part in the UK Double Handed
Offshore Series.
Sailed in 30-to-38ft production
yachts rated under handicap, the
season consists of a series of tough
races across the English Channel,
after which they will enter the
formidable challenge of the 1,805-
nautical mile Sevenstar Round Britain
& Ireland Race, which starts from
Cowes on August 7.
Robertson won the second of her
two Olympic golds at Athens in 2004
in the Yngling keelboat and life had
since been dominated by motherhood
— she has two young children — and
a successful career as a sailing
commentator and journalist. She
recognises that racing offshore in a
small boat with only one other sailor
for company was never among her
ambitions.
“I wasn’t sure if I would like it in
the beginning because, unlike Dee, I
haven’t spent decades crossing
oceans,” Robertson said; for her this
will be a third season in double-
handed racing, but her first with
Caffari. “Apart from the basics, I can’t
really navigate; I like my home
comforts and I’m not amazing at
sailing at night.”
But the Scot,
who also won gold
in the
singlehanded
dinghy Europe at
Sydney 2000, is
playing herself
down. Robertson
has taken to the
discipline
extremely well and,
alongside the
British sailor Henry
Bomby, finished
second out of 59
starters in the two-
handed division of
last year’s Rolex
Fastnet Race.
Caffari, the first
woman to sail solo
and non-stop both
ways around the
world, believes they will prosper in
what is a very competitive fleet. She
knows they will be among the
favourites with, as she put it, “a huge
target” on their backs. “It would be
silly to try and reinvent the wheel, so
we want to play to our strengths,” she
said. “What I’m excited about is that
Shirley knows how to make a boat go
fast and I want to try and pick up
those skills. But I will also pass on myexperience and knowledge when it
comes to navigation and weather.”
The season will start for the stellar
pair with the Royal Ocean Racing
Club’s Cervantes Trophy Race from
Cowes to Le Havre on April 30, but
the big focus is on the Round Britain
Race. Robertson, who always packs
some chocolate buttons among her
offshore rations — Caffari prefers
Haribo — is nervous about a race
that is likely to be accompanied by
bad weather at some stage and
features a myriad of challenges:
headlands, tide gates
and obstacles like
islands, oil rigs, wind
turbines, fishing
boats and shipping.
“I have asked
outside opinion
about it and they
are like, ‘Holy shit,
it’s harder than a
transatlantic
[race],’ ” she said.
“And we are going
really far north
around Shetland.
That is really far
north.” She said
she was “properly
apprehensive”
about it and that
even thinking
about the race
makes her feel “all clammy”.
Caffari, meanwhile, brushes it off.
“It’s going to be wonderful,” she joked.
“It’s going to be a coastal cruise
around England, Wales, Ireland and
Scotland and we are going to take it a
day at a time.”
Joking apart, this is a serious
contest that will take the winning
team up to two weeks, and feature the
sailors working round-the-clock on a
constantly moving platform, trying toDream team ready to test
the waters of their alliance
the times | Saturday April 9 2022 1GS 21WEEKENDQUIZ
England lost by
71 runs to
Australia in the
Women’s World Cup
final despite which
batsman scoring 148
not out?Who won the
Valero Texas
Open on Sunday to
qualify for his first
Masters tournament?Which England
wing scored a
hat-trick in her side’s
74-0 drubbing of Italy
in the Women’s Six
Nations?Which hooker is
the Gallagher
Premiership’s leading
tryscorer this season
on 13?Whose second-
half goal gave
Manchester City a 1-0
win over Atletico
Madrid on Tuesday?Karim Benzema
scored a hat-trick
in Real Madrid’s 3-1
win over Chelsea on
Wednesday. Who
scored Chelsea’s goal?How many
times has Jack
Nicklaus won the
Masters?Who won her 17th
match in a row by
thrashing Naomi
Osaka, right, in the
Miami Open final?And who beat
Casper Ruud in
the men’s Miami Open
final to win his first
Masters 1000 title?West Ham United
drew 1-1 with
Lyons in the EuropaLeague despite
playing with ten men
for the entire second
half. Who was sent off
for them?Alastair Cook and
which other
Essex opener made
centuries against Kent
on the opening day of
the County
Championship
season?Who won the
2021 County
Championship?How many
times did Red
Rum win the Grand
National?Name this golfer
playing at the
Masters using the
following anagram:
Holy Answer.Toulouse won
their fifth
Heineken Champions
Cup last season.
Who did they beat
22-17 in the final at
Twickenham?1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9101112131415Nat Sciver. 1JJ Spaun. 2Lydia Thompson. 3George McGuigan 4(Newcastle).Kevin De Bruyne. 5Kai Havertz. 6Six (1963, 1965, 1966, 71972, 1975, 1986).Iga Swiatek. 8Carlos Alcaraz. 9Aaron Cresswell. 10Nick Browne. 11Warwickshire. 12Three (1973, 1974, 131977).Shane Lowry. 14La Rochelle. 15Guess who answer:Oliver Giroudh
yndFOR THE WEEKEND
FILMSTIGER WOODS AT
THE 16TH, 2005
MASTERS (YOUTUBE)
“In your life, have you
seen anything like
that?” There are some
sporting clips that can
be watched over and
over, without the
magic fading (writes
Elgan Alderman). Tiger
Woods’s chip at the16th at Augusta 17
years ago is one such
moment. With the ball
in front of thick rough,
and a left-to-right
slope on the green, the
commentators talk as
if getting it to stop on
the green would be an
achievement. We know
what came next: a slow
roll towards the hole
and then the Nike tick
pausing and dropping.The
advertisement wrote
itself.THE LONGEST YARD
The second remake
of the 1974 original
casts Adam Sandler
as the disgraced NFL
quarterback who
serves time in prison
and ends up leading a
team of cons against
the guards.ementtwrottteachieve optimum speed in all
conditions. Caffari says the secret to
doing well is to make corrections
when things go wrong and not give in
to the inertia and exhaustion that can
sap a crew’s energy and enthusiasm.
“It’s not making mistakes and, if
you do, it’s correcting it, so you don’t
sit with the wrong sails or you don’t
sit going the wrong way,” she said.
“There is the opportunity to come
back in these races. Any mistake is
punished by your competitors, big
time, but there is the ability to recover
and it is recognising when you have
made a mistake and adjusting that is
the key.”
The Caffari-Robertson partnership
is helping to shine a light on an
impressively and well-subscribed
fleet. In an era where foiling boats are
making the headlines in the America’s
Cup, SailGP and the Vendée Globe, it
is refreshing to see how well this arm
of British sailing is doing — and it is a
reminder that the vast majority of
sailors are still enjoying the challenge
of boats that sail in the water, as
opposed to flying above it.
For Robertson the season ahead
presents another chance to enjoy the
thrill of competition and you sense
that, despite her pre-race nerves, she
cannot wait to get going. She is not
the least bit worried about those in
the sailing world who know her more
as journalist than sailor and will be
watching her every move.
“I’m sort of too old to feel all that,”
she said. “I’ve just got to do it and
enjoy it and learn from it. I definitely
think Dee and I have the potential to
do well. She is an outstanding long-
distance sailor who has seen and done
it all and we both have two years’
experience in this boat. We know how
to sail it... and we shouldn’t make any
daft decisions.”A British double Olympic
champion and record-
breaker are working to
conquer new realms,
writes Ed Gorman
The experienced Caffari, right, is optimistic that she and Robertson, below with
one of her two Olympic gold medals, will prove to be a winning combinationTIM BUTT/VERTIGO FILMSlh
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