Impressing the unimpressionable

At the elite end of the sport, the coaching pool is small. The gang sat in the RIBs, giving the briefings, leading the morning Pilates, sat near the star helm at dinner, or poring relentlessly over the data screens are known by everyone - and know everyone.

In the America’s Cup and SailGP, these coaches are paid to recognise the moves of the best, advise, adapt and demand execution. The good ones stay for a long while on the circuit, the poor ones get churned...and quickly. One thing they all have in common is that they are almost singularly unimpressionable. They have seen it all: from the years of Ben Ainslie re-defining downwind sailing, to Pete Burling re-defining winning in the America’s Cup. They know the real deals when they see them.

Interesting then to see Hamish Wilcox sat at the windward mark at the recent Moth World Championships down at Manly Sailing Club with his mouth open, video camera at the ready, and utterly astounded at what he saw the top sailors do.

Hamish is no spring-chicken, nor is he impressionable. A gold medallist in his own right as well as a key member of the coaching staff at Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli, Hamish has bought the T-shirt on coaching and sailing and wears it well. But what he will have seen at Manly Sailing Club was something out of the top drawer of innovation. He saw foiling technique unseen before and execution that is the stuff of dreams.

The top two sailors were Mattias Coutts and Jake Pye who topped the standings by a veritable country mile, regularly over the horizon race after race. The most obvious change in technique was at the bear-away and all the way down the run. Coutts would prefer hiking the boat dead-flat and running deep whilst Pye would induce windward heel downwind to match the angles.