Sailing: Brit combo show grit on fickle course

Skipper Steve Goacher and crewman Tim Harper show their collective experience in winning race three during the Flying Fifteen World Championship in Napier yesterday. PHOTO/Jonny Fullerton

Eleven Flying Fifteen World Championships, three titles, having an unnamed boat "only as a daft thing" and a sailmaker who has an adroit boatbuilder to rock his boat.

Enough said. With a profile like that it isn't surprising that skipper Steve Goacher and his fellow English crewman, Tim Harper, won race three of the Lexus of Hawke's Bay-sponsored 21st world championship in Napier yesterday.

"We're only still trying to read the local conditions," said the 64-year-old, who last week competed in the nationals which acted as a prelude to the world champs at the Ahuriri waterfront.

"When it's light [winds] like that it's quite difficult to keep the boat moving in the chops because once you hit a wave you take all your speed off."

Goacher said it required a lot of his and 49-year-old Harper's focus to ensure they didn't end up in the doldrums.

"When you're sailing into the wind your boat is creating its own wind ... when it's a keel boat like this there's a fair amount of momentum, it takes a fair bit to take the boat to speed again," he said, drawing parallel with sticking one's head out of a car.

With a little bit of wind last week, Goacher said the swells were pushing them into extreme sailing conditions because they were accustomed to flatter waters.

Asked what it'll take to overcome the fickle nature here, he replied with a sigh: "Oh well, that's in the lap of the gods. You just have to go out and do your best every day."

The variables with winds, tides and a temperamental sea meant it wasn't like driving out a car on to a race track where the same corners greeted them at every lap.

"When the sea conditions change it's like changing the race track."

Getting off the start line well is vital and making a decision on which is the right direction is equally imperative but what complicates matters as well is that the fleet of 57 has world-class stamped all over it.

"You know, you're trying to find a clear way through which hard because the actions of all that is stopping you from getting there so it's not easy."

In race one the pair were 19th and in race two they got into the top 10 in their boat No 4021.

Goacher was in Hong Kong in 1995, Cowes in 1997 and in Western Australia in 1999.

As a teenager he wanted No 21 on his first boat "for no reason at all" but the officials turned him down to say he had no choice but to have the next registration number on the queue, No 15.

"That boat we sailed in a regatta at a club at home but ... the boat got written off on the way home by a stolen car.

"I immediately got a boat on order because someone gave me his place on the queue so when I got it, it was No 21.

"From then on I always picked 21 because it was a lucky boat ... I went on to win the worlds with it."

The Napier club pair of skipper Hayden Percy and crewman/boat owner Scott Pedersen have won Goacher's respect in winning race one in an older vessel, Fflorin, on Sunday.

"They've got my sail and they are doing incredibly well."

He believed if anyone else sailed the Fflorin they would not be anywhere near as competitive as the Bay sailors.

Goacher said using sails on a boat was like tuning the engine of a racing car and required team work.

Consequently he lauded his crewman Harper for his dexterity considering they have forged an alliance for only two years in the 2012 vessel.