Simon Hiscocks diary from the Musto Skiff Gold Cup

(Webmasters note: For those who don't know Simon is a double Olympic Medallist in the 49er so knows a bit about skiff sailing!!!)

Day One. Hang Over Travel.

Following a rather drunken party in London I made my way to Stanstead for a seven o clock flight to Brescia or Verona in Ryan air speak which is like calling Stanstead London. Hangovers and patience are don’t generally go hand in hand, patience and Simon don’t go hand in hand either the two together can a potential disaster. To start with the queue to go through security virtually began at the check in desk. One long wait as the announcer asked people to empty metal objects from their pockets. Would this be better asking them to place metal objects on there bodies so as to prolong the queuing of those behind. It really can’t be that hard, Can it ?

There was a plan that Bov ( Ian Turnbull mast builder extraordinaire ) would pick me up from the airport, thus saving me taxi / hire car dosh. However he and fellow Geordie’s ( sorry Sunderland ) had encountered some teething problems with their trailer and were still in the middle of France. Quick booking of hire car and a new problem in patience appears – that of navigating whilst driving whilst still hung over. There are two options in driving from Verona ( sorry Brescia ) to Garda, there is a motorway and there is an A road equivalent. The A road takes a bit longer but not as long as the motorway when you drive past the exit. There must be a good reason to only put the name of one destination on the exit sign for the next motorway. Probably to confuse hung over, patience lacking hire car drivers who only looked for signs for towns in the direction they want to go. So Modena is on the same road as Garda but in the opposite direction. New lesson look for where you don’t want to go.

Having eventually extracted my self from the real Verona and made my way back towards Brescia and then on to Modena but taking the opposite direction I found my self in Malcesine in search of the Geordies ( sorry Sunderland ). Locating them in a bar in the old part of town was at first a relief, which quickly degenerated in to a 3.30 stagger home.

Take one hangover and add a 3.30 drinking session and a night’s sleep in the Geordies ( sorry Sunderland ) van and you have, in the morning, one Olympic athlete ready for some virgin Musto Skiff sailing.

Day Two. Hung Over Virgin Sailing.

I find Paul Manning and get introduced to my boat, which I am pleasantly surprised to find is rigged and ready to go. Taking it easy I listen to Mark Rushall’s coaching group go through the manoeuvres on dry land. I am on holiday so partaking in coaching and serious training is work and mustn’t be undertaken at any cost. Anyway the lads have been running through sailing these boats all night ( sorry morning) long and I should be an expert?

Sailing the musto skiff requires mainsheet trim, kite control ( ie hoist, drop, gybe, trim ) and boat balance via the trapeze, easy all the tasks expected of a 49er crew, just like the day job. Except one thing there isn’t a helmsman ! Problem.

Immediately I start to rig and get changed there are many hands offered to help, I later spot many items on the boat that I didn’t rig and would have been quite oblivious to had some kind soul not taken it upon themselves to carry out these tasks. Later I realise that the camaraderie between the sailors is born out of the lack of helmsmen, without one there is no one to hold the boat whilst launching and recovery and no one to check on all the rigging errors.

Not without some trepidation I set off on my Virgin voyage (photo right shows I I got it right some of the time). The boat is narrow, it has tubular racks, unlike the 49er, which means places to fall through, it has big sails and more than one of them. It is quite scary but also tempting to drive hard.
Luckily there wasn’t much wind a genteel 8 – 12 knots enough to get on the wire and enough for the boat to let me know how it would punish mistakes when the wind blows a bit more.

It is surprisingly similar to 49er sailing the techniques for gybing, tacking and other manoeuvres share the same basic principles just with fewer steps. I am impressed at how well sorted the boat is and how there seem to be few compromises to make in finding techniques.

It is closer to windsurfing in the fun from simply sailing around with a bunch of boats trying to out do each other ! After several hours of sailing and only two capsizes I am starving hungry having had just two slices of toast all day. Time to find accommodation and some food.

Day Three. Supposedly no Hang Over.

Felt worse this morning than any other for the last few days. Not helped by most people asking if I was Hung over this morning ? Perhaps there is a problem here, also felt worse when sailing the boat, an inadvertent main sheet uncleat going in to the first tack led to my first capsize, not the only one, but the only one I can put down to near non driver error ! Where is the helm ?
Lots of fun today all the boats racing each other up and down the lake, no formal course and certainly not a formal start, it seemed you started roughly where you thought it right, I let a few go and tried to play catch up !
A few goes at this and I am thinking this really is good fun, also naively thinking I might be getting the hang of it….. Off to the opposite cliffs where more wind can be found and it’s a whole different story ! Still feel a bit happier that come some wind there might be a vague chance of survival. One more day of practice tomorrow then its in to the racing, personally I cant wait its one thing sailing up and down quite another when there are marks to go around and other boats attempting to do the same. Off for some beers in Malcasine tonight, o dear a definite hang over is looming tomorrow and I told my self this would be a sober holiday.

Whoops.

Beers last night took their toll, no sailing today and missed some good wind this morning as a result. Mind you this is a holiday and sailing at 9.00 on holiday isn’t the go in my book. More of a bus mans holiday going skiff racing and helping Martin fix is broken pole, a result of hitting the rocks on the way in, turned it into a working holiday. It’s been a while since fixing boats so all good fun. Rather frustrating trying to track down the necessary ingredients for the repair as we met one unhelpful Italian after another. Finally we found some encouragement and were sent of to an industrial estate near Riva. It turned out to be an F2 windsurf manufacturer and Patrick whom we met there sorted us out with some epoxy and carbon. Fingers crossed for the resin to have gone off properly.
Registered this afternoon and read the sailing instructions, must have been bored as this is normally a last minute job. Haven’t got around to reading my notes on the racing here which I made after the 49er Worlds in 2001, perhaps wont bother, some times it’s best to go with what you see rather than any preconceived ideas….
Chris is lying 4th in his Mumm 30 event in Corsica so hopefully might have some chance on the race course and see if we can both pull of a good result, with no practice it would be surprising if either of us did amazingly.
First races tomorrow, no drinking tonight am looking fwd to seeing what it will be like, so far I have thoroughly enjoyed my experience its like crewing with out a helmsman !

Who’s Jiggling ?

No wind what so ever today, lots of sitting around doing diddly squat ruminating about the jiggling flags that never got near to erect. Very very very early start tomorrow half past eight like ! It’s going to be a long day.

Breastroke, Crawl and lots of drinking.

Not beer, but Lago de Garda ! It was windy 20 - 25 knots, sometimes more….Cant say that it was very easy - although Sten and Bov and many others made it seem that way. As far as I could tell, from my lowly position on the centreboard, every one else had there share of the problems, some more than others….Rueing missing that morning with breeze to have experienced some of it before. Alas by the last race, of four, I was making the turns only to be let down by the short chop on two occasions sending the transom skywards ! A lot of fun and if we get the same again I might make it around in one piece. Making it around unscathed is a virtual top 10 result certainly top 15. This boat rewards practice and learning the techniques for each manoeuvre. I am battered and bruised but have had a lot of fun, its like learning to sail again, like when you are young, and its fun to capsize ! ( Like. )

Midday Blues.

Midday start, which is soon postponed until 13.00. The wind came in pretty quickly and fairly strong, there we were looking fwd to some light wind racing only to be met with another gale, at least that’s what it felt like to me. Managed just one swim in the first race to bag a 7th losing three boats in the process. Followed this with another 7th which is my first non capsize race with the actual joy of overtaking boats ! The later races were not so successful, being some what worn out by the early races and a headache from god knows what ? Ashamed to say I managed to capsize in very little wind whilst virtually last ! Also ashamed to say this led to me pr’ing this one. The next race wasn’t so much better which became a drift down wind. Still the front-runners were pretty much the same and I am beginning to look decidedly average.

Sleep became this evening’s entertainment and still it could have been longer.

The last day and it’s howling.

Putting the previous gales into perspective, a capsize pre start followed by the realisation that the kite is rigged wrong takes some time to resolve, I just make the start. Seeing a few boats with out spinnakers quickly made up my mind to what I should do – leave it firmly in the bag. The second round lying in a good position and feeling brave I attempted the downwind sleigh ride ! Only to stack it into the back of a wave and then precede to make a complete mess of the recovery with many more swims before reaching the finish.

Race two is just as windy I am 5th at the second top mark – wow, after leaving the kite in the bag and just one swim ! The kite is staying put and a no gybe policy firmly in place. Three boats make it past by surviving the run but still bag a result.

Nothing to be proud of no gybes and no kite, maybe if had adopted this policy early on the scores might have been better ? But how much fun is it ? Especially when enduring the post race ribbing…..At least it wasn’t for both races !

To sum up…..

Finishing 12th overall certainly wasn’t a spectacular result. But I had a lot of fun in the process, which was the general idea of doing the event. The boat is a lot of fun to sail, it’s a bit tricky but at the same time its quite manageable once some methods of gybing, hoisting and dropping are learnt. Probably fair to say that I had some ideas of how to sail that were based on perfection rather than survival and ignored some early advice of this matter, always listen to the advice of those who sail the boats regularly……O hindsight……
The fleet is incredibly friendly always there to help each other launch, recover and general advice and discussion. There seems to be a strong increase in the fleet size and, I expect, the standard to continue to improve.

A great boat, great people and good wind is the recipe for a great event which is just what is was, a great thanks to Bov, Paul Manning, Luca Modena and last but by no means least Beat Blasi who kindly lent me his boat to swim around rather a lot, he doesn’t speak much English ( none ) so wasn’t so easy to thank in person.

Would I do it again ? For sure, if I had some spare cash I would buy one straightaway.

Cheers Simon.