ROAD TO RIO
Winning the Olympic spot won't be easy. Bundock and
Curtis are formidable opponents. While Waterhouse and
Darmanin will fight hard for it, they know they've got a
couple more Olympics in them if they do miss out.
“We're trying not to look too far ahead. There's no
point. But whichever of us gets the nomination should
win a medal,” Waterhouse predicts. “We're pushing each
other and we're closing the gap on Billy.”
Billy Besson and Marie Riou (FR A) have won both
world championships and are the unbackable favourites
for gold at Rio. Waterhouse says the French pair
adapted naturally to the fairly difficult Nacra design
and have maintained a lead over the rest of the world.
“The curved foils with no elevator on the rudder
makes the boat unpredictable but we've tamed the
threats, now we're looking for the opportunities. We're
working on foiling downwind, which is hard with no
elevator to control the ride height, but I think you'll
see foiling at the Olympics.”
Jason's program leading up to Rio is packed, with
World Cup and World Championship events in the
Nacra, four or five Extreme 40 Acts and the F18 and
A Cat Worlds all on the list.
The Olympic selection events are the Hyeres and
Weymouth World Cups, the 2016 Nacra 17 Worlds and
the Rio test event in August. Each country can enter only
one crew in each class at the test event and the Nacra
choice by the AST will be interesting.
Waterhouse shows his maturity, and the effects of
working with some of the world's best coaches when
he quotes a Victor Kovalenko maxim about the battle
between himself and Bundock.
“There are no numbers and no country flags on the
sails,” he says. This is Victor's way of telling his charges
to sail the whole fleet, not to match race one competitor
and allow others past you.
“All I can control is how I sail,” Waterhouse concludes.
On current form, that should be good enough. ✵WATERHOUSE
24
AUSTRALIAN SAILING (^) + YACHTING
APRIL-MAY 2015 MYSAILING.COM.AU
place, there didn't look to be too much competition
for the Rio spot. But then along came Bundy.
Double Olympic silver medallist and 14-times world
multihull champion Darren Bundock teamed up with
Women's Match Racing silver medallist from London
2012, Nina Curtis, and suddenly Waterhouse and
Darmanin weren't the top Australian pair.
Perhaps the youngsters had it too easy in the early
stages. They got a bit overconfident, perhaps even a bit
arrogant and when it all started to go pear-shaped they
made a lot of bad calls on the race track.
Lisa Darmanin explained it to me after the
Santander Worlds, where they had finished third and
had beaten Bundock and Curtis for the first time in a
major regatta. “We set a goal last year and set it high,
to get on the podium at the Worlds. We didn't start
too well but kept working hard.
“I suppose early on we were a bit spooked, the confidence
wasn't there, we weren't backing ourselves. So we stopped
being scared, stopped putting people on pedestals and here
we are. Silver was an inch away but we'll take third.”
Both Landy and Jason agree on when the
transformation took place – at the European A Class
Worlds. “We spent a lot of time together at the As,” said
Landy. “We became friends there.
“We basically broke it all down. In a straight line on the
water there was no-one to touch them. But they weren't
winning so it was a tactical thing, a confidence thing.”
“We didn't handle the pressure too well when Bundy came
back,” says Jason. “We started playing his game and he was
much better at it than we were. I realised 'this isn't working.'
“The light bulb moment came at the A Cat Euros.
It was a chance to get away, with no pressure and just
do my own thing with no expectations. After that, I
started enjoying it again.
“Bundy gave us our start in performance cats, he gave us
a Viper to sail,” Waterhouse says. “He's always been a good
mate. I guess when he came in we thought 'we've got to
race him and we'll learn' but now we're thinking 'we've got
to beat him' and hopefully we will.”
TOP: Roman Hagara
moved to the bow on
Red Bull Sailing Team
to allow Waterhouse to
steer the Extreme 40.
ABOVE: Waterhouse
and Darmanin on the
podium at the Worlds
in Santander, Spain.
MARK TEO FOR RED BULL CONTENT POOL
ROGER MCMILLAN