Andy Rice
DINGHIES
A
boat like the Musto
Skiff requires practice,
and lots of it. At least,
if you want to be any
good at it. Yet somehow
part-timer Jamie Hilton managed to
finish third in the ACO Musto Skiff
World Championships in Australia.
Finishing ahead of him were two very
accomplished Aussies who are local
to the venue, Blairgowrie, an hour
and a bit’s drive out of Melbourne.
The winner, Jon Newman, was a class
apart. His boat handling is exceptional
and he has an uncanny ability to
sniff out the breeze in unpredictable
conditions. He is also a past world
champion from 2014 in Perth and a
former full-time 49er campaigner.
Runner up was Will Phillips, fairly new
to the fleet but also a full-time 49er
sailor who, with brother Sam, has been
Australia’s second-string Olympic talent
for more than a decade, a very capable
understudy to double Olympic medallists
Nathan Outteridge and Iain Jensen.
Jamie works in the oil industry, and
is often posted to places like Norway in
recent years and currently Aberdeen.
He doesn’t get to spend much time in
the Musto Skiff but somehow manages
to roll up at a worlds and turn it on for
the big occasion. He missed winning
the Australian Nationals, the warm-
up for the Worlds, by a single point.
He was pipped in a photo finish for
the title by Arthur Brett who, aged 56,
is also a phenomenon – a former top
windsurfer who later got into sailing
and then won three Contender worlds.
Jamie scored two bullets at the Worlds
and sailed out of his skin. What could
he do if he put some time into the boat?
The same goes for my room mate George
Hand, who finished on equal points with
Jamie but just missed out on the podium
on tie-break. Now George, like me, likes to
eat. The difference is that, being almost half
my age, George converts burger into bicep
whereas I convert it into belly. But even
George admits that, while 92kg might be
good in the breeze, his ‘avoirdupois’ leaves
him at a disadvantage in the lighter stuff.Hats off to the weekend warriors giving the pros a run for their money.
How do they do it? And what could they go on to achieve if they were to sail full-time?too. He sails the boat quite differently to
what we’re used to in the UK. It’s always
fun for the Aussies and the Brits to get
together at these championships and
realise just how differently we approach
sailing the same boat. The Brits sail with
a soft rig and foils fully down most of
the time while the Aussies hold a harder
rig and pull their foils up – daggerboard
and rudder – in nearly all conditions.
Somehow both approaches seem to
work. If this was an Olympic class we’d
probably find out quite quickly what
worked and why. But thankfully it’s
not Olympic and while newcomers
like Will Phillips certainly showed just
how good they are, the professionals
weren’t running away with it.
Meanwhile across the pond in
Tasmania, Nick Craig and Toby
Lewis had just won the B14 World
Championships. Nick was very happy
with the win because he’s been working
on mastering skiff sailing for a while and
to nail victory in the B14s shows that
he’s still adding to his enviable quiver of
skills. Despite the fact that he somehow
holds down a job and manages to be
a husband and a father of twins, Nick
continues to turn in some searingly good
performances in such a wide variety
of boats. The Jamie Hiltons and Nick
Craigs – weekend warriors par excellence- never cease to impress and inspire.
Musto Skiff sailor
Andy Rice has
unparalleled
knowledge of
the dinghy sailing
scene, from
grassroots to
Olympic levelGeorge and I had been hoping – and
eating – for a windy Worlds. But of
course Blairgowrie dealt the classic ‘not
normally like this’ card for the duration.
The opening race was moderately
breezy and I decided to play my port
tack start joker card early, crossing the
fleet and getting over to the favoured
right-hand side of the course. I managed
to keep the lead at the first mark but,
with 100kg-plus of bare-armed Aussie
brawn in the form of Richie Robertson
breathing down my neck, I suffered a
touch of the yips and fell into windward
on the bearaway. Richie powered on to
an easy victory in the opening heat.
However, Richie’s score card proved
to be a barometer for the conditions. For
the next few days Richie’s results were
all in the 20s or 30s as he struggled in
the 7 to 12 knot races that predominated
for the regatta. At last, for the final
day, Blairgowrie finally turned on the
conditions that had been promised in the
brochure – four back-to-back races in 20
knot winds in blazing sunshine. Richie
was back in his element, rolling over the
top of smaller mortals and notching up
four good scores including a second and
another bullet. Even then it only dragged
the ‘wind god’ up to 18th overall.
Jon Newman on the other hand had
been the model of consistency, looking
fast in all conditions and really smartAbove
It was another
tough battle
between the
Australians and
the Brits at the
Musto WorldsPETER LA FONTAINE/MPS CLASS
Jamie doesn’t spend much time in the Musto Skiff but
somehow manages to turn it on for the big occasion
March 2018 Yachts & Yachting 17