Later today we SHOULD be leaving the quaint French village of St Chely d’Apcher.

But we have more important news today… Continue Reading…

A big shout out to our buddy Jon Emmett who is launching his spanking new sailing book at the Boat Show this weekend, called Be Your Own Sailing Coach. We like the title, mainly because we can’t afford to hire our own coach.

Team Madcap have actually got a bit of an exclusive on this one - Continue Reading…

 
It’s time for a follow up to our Palma journey misadventures.

The good news - the clutch is fixed. Yippee!

The bad news - we need a new gearbox.

Our bags were packed… morale was high… we even had a window of opportunity where we might even have made the 11 o’clock Barcelona ferry. The mechanic had even washed his hands from the job, and when a mechanic washes his hands you KNOW you’re almost good to go.

Max ran to the hotel room to pick up the final bits and pieces. Meanwhile the mechanic emerged and as usual started speaking too much French too quickly. After about 5 minutes I picked up on a few repeating phrases:

‘deux problemmes’

and

‘boite de vitesse’

A quick look in our French-English dictionary confirmed the worst… Continue Reading…

It has been a bad 48 hours for Team Madcap.

 As we write this we are stranded in a cheap hotel room in a small village called St Chely d’Apcher somewhere in the French mountains. Unfortunately I can’t say that we’re here for the altitude training.

Any sailor who has come through the youth squad system has been spoon fed the concept of only focusing on ‘controlling the controllables’.  A different way of saying the same thing is that anything you are in control of, it is your fault if things mess up.

Normally, when something goes wrong we can isolate the cause by something we failed to prepare for (that’s how we learn). But, on this rare occasion I think we can genuinely say that we’ve been handed some rotten luck.

In short, the Slug has let us down.

We think it is something to do with the fact that her clock was on 99,400 miles - and she is reluctant to get older (she thinks it’s all downhill after 100,000 miles).

Here’s an account of the last 48 hours - Continue Reading…

It is the ability to prioritise and make the right decision at the right time that wins you cups in sailing. Nowhere is this more evident than in the mission critical decisions you have to make in a full-time campaign…

… like choosing the colour of the gel-coat for the new boat you are about to order.

It has been proven that the right colour gel-coat equates to 6.5 boatlengths up a 20-minute beat.

Fact.

So naturally we sacrificed training on the water to discuss this key decision, and the debate got pretty heated. It turns out we have a difference of opinion, and we spent over 90 minutes putting forward each of our cases.

Unfortunately ISAF rules tie your hands when it comes to external hull colour - you’re allowed any colour as long as it’s grey. But on the decks you can exercise your stylistic flair (which realistically gives you a choice of 3-4 colours that the boat builder offers).

The boat we’re going for is a Mackay, and we have the choice of White, Grey, Blue or Green.

We both ruled out white and green immediately. Yuck. Which leaves us with the showdown:

Blue vs. Grey

I think the choice is pretty obvious, and I’m confident everybody is going to agree with me, but Jonny thinks otherwise. Here are a couple of pics:

Suffice to say, I don’t like the blue.

Here’s my choice:

Here’s a snippet of our discussion:

Max - You cannot be serious, I can’t believe they still make these in blue.
Jonny - Yeah, I used to hate it too, but it’s really grown on me. It’s retro, and retro is so in at the moment.
Max - You don’t say, it makes me want to grow an 80’s moustache, pull down my wetsuit and go for a wee in it. I’m sure our toilet used to be that colour when I was a kid.
Jonny - Grey is so bland though, it’s got no character. I feel more calm and relaxed even just thinking about that blue colour. I think it’ll make me a better sailor.
Max - Nice, I’ll remind you of that when you’re calmly asleep while we’re stuffed in the 2nd row at the start.
Jonny - all the top guys go for blue, it’s a statement of intent.
Max - I’ll give you a statement of intent in a minute…

Ok, so maybe we told a white-lie. Maybe gel-coat colour doesn’t figure quite so importantly in the boatspeed equation. Maybe it doesn’t warrant an hour and a half discussion. But when it is -4 degrees celcius and blowing 3 knots on a freezing reservoir in February, then you do anything you can to avoid the freeze-fest awaiting you on the water.

What is your opinion - blue or grey? I’ve a fiver riding on grey getting at least 80% of the vote.

The word on the grapevine is that the 2nd edition of Frank Bethwaite’s epic High Performance Sailing book is about to go to press.

This is both good and bad news - good news in that the sailing world will gain a further insight into the theories of one of the sport’s most respected authorities. The bad news is that once again we shall have to cope with feeling about as confused as Paris Hilton at a Particle Physics Summit.

 That’s what High Performance Sailing does to me - when reading it, I feel like what I am reading is profound and groundbreaking, yet I’m never quite able to grasp exactly what he’s actually saying - even after reading single paragraphs for about the gazillionth time. I think he’s just an a higher plane of intelligence than me.

High Performance Sailing is now 12 years old, but it is based on 25 years of Bethwaite’s research. I just pray and hope that the 2nd edition is an Idiot’s Guide to the first edition, but I have a nagging suspicion that there’s been a lot of progressin the last 12 years…

Either way, this is the Harry Potter “Deathly Hallows” equivalent for the sailing world. It’ll be sleeping bag and thermos flask waiting in line outside my local chandlery for this one

What do you expect Bethwaite to cover in his new book? Which of his concepts did you find most fascinating yet most inaccessible? We’d love to hear from you, you can post your comment at the end of this post.

A special Valentine’s message from Team Madcap: 

Roses are red,
Starboard is green,
Our love has no bounds,
For ‘2 for 1′ Soreen

Thanks to the Coop for their Buy One Get One Free malt-loaf special. You certainly know the way to our hearts.

It seems like the Southern Hemisphere is hogging all the wind at present. While the Lasers are enjoying champagne sailing conditions Down Under, we seem to be stuck in the doldrums back in the UK. The wind averaged 0.2 knots today. Frustrating, because we are only 7 days into the new campaign, and 3 of them have already been wiped out due to lack of wind.

 So how do we amuse ourselves without sail juice? Here’s a quick snapshot of today:

 - Palma Regatta is fast approaching, so sort out transport - attempt to book Ferry by phoning Spanish ferry company over a dodgy Skype connection. After the 8th attempt at giving the partially English-speaking customer rep my card details, fingers crossed it is booked, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.

 - Kit out the Slug (our aptly-named Ford Transit Van) for its maiden European voyage. Ever optimistic, we think the boat will fit on the roof, so we spent about 5 hours padding out the roof bars. But again, I wouldn’t hold my breath!

- Replenish our woefully archaic toolbox - the equivalent of cleaning out the shed for normal people

Jonny decides to add some ‘flair’ to the process. Typical helmsman.

- We learn that the Coop is having a Buy One Get One Free on Soreen Malt Loaf. Along with Jaffa Cakes, Malt Loaf forms the staple of any serious athletes diet.  So, phone bank to get overdraft extended in order to stock up on 3 months’ worth. The Slug handles the heavy load with ease.

- Go for 90 minute run in the ‘fat burning’ zone. I’ve managed to drop by 5kg for the new season, but Jonny still has a few kilos to go. Sarah, I’m sorry but the beach muscles have gotta go, here is one last glimpse before they disappear for good…

Today’s Stats:

• Average wind speed - 0.2 knots
• Time on water - 0 hours 0 minutes
• Number of stores visited before finding adequate roof-bar padding - 8
• Number of Soreen Malt loaf needed to make human-sized valentine love heart - 36
• Percentage of females passed in Rochdale, under the age of 20, who weren’t pushing prams - 3%

The floating Olympic Village - get the full scoop here