Good numbers

While evaluating rig options for their current proposal to update the 49er it was important for Julian and Frank Bethwaite to find the best ways to measure and then accurately quantify on-the-water skiff performance

Measuring performance
Over breakfast during the last ISAF conference in Estoril Edward Ramsden, in Portugal as chairman of the RYA, but who in 2000 was on the jury of the 49er Worlds in Mexico, was recalling the final day of that year’s championship. The course was windward-leeward with the marks exactly 2km apart. Breeze was up at 23-25kt and sea state was ‘lumpy’! The Spanish crew who won the last race (and the 2000 worlds) did their two laps in approximately 19m 50s. Assuming they got every lift uphill and every knock downhill, then they maintained a minimum average speed of 33kph or approximately 16.5kt through the water for the 20 minutes… including mark-roundings, tacks and gybes. Nice!

At the same meeting in Portugal I talked once again to Janet Baxter. In 2005 Baxter had been the president of US Sailing, in which capacity she was out with me in a Protector RIB on San Francisco Bay one day watching the 29er Worlds, tracking a young lady from Denmark downwind who at the time was lying in around 10th place. The numbers I noted were 23.4kt on the RIB’s log and 24.2kt on the GPS. Equally impressive...

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Below: Former world champions and Athens gold medallists Iker Martinez and Xabi Fernandez demonstrate the abuse asked of the current 49er spar during the Olympic test event