Hardest nationals to win?

Originally posted by fizzicist According to last years, that would make it the Cherub Class.

But then those guys have never won the Cherub Champs either... Also I rarely note the Laser champ winning the Endeavour...

If you've read Bethwaite's book he has an interesting story about top Laser Sailors doing badly in a Tasar champs because they lacked the appropriate skills.

Because skills don't transfer well between the more demanding classes then you can draw webs of A beats B in class 1, B beats C in class 2, therefore A would win in class 2 which would be complete nonsense.

For instance the current B14 World Champion was a top end but not winning Cherub sailor, and the current Cherub Champion did as well in Moths as Olympic class sailor Adam May does. I suspect that does not mean that Andy Paterson, talented sailor as he undoubtedly is, could step in a B14 and win their worlds or into a Tornado and compete for a UK team place at Weymouth.

I don't think Andy would push Ben Ainslie too hard for a Finn medal, but if you were to detach Ben from his world class support and present him with the pile of carbon, foam and plywood Andy starts with, I wouldn't expect Mr Ainslie to beat Paterson at a Moth or Cherub champs.

As I've said elsewhere differnt classes require different campaign skills, and its easy to make comparisons that aren't really very valid...

The Laser Champs is I imagine the most difficult champs to win amongst single soft sail SMOD dinghies...

Originally posted by Rupert Originally posted by feva_sailor Originally posted by Rupert Maybe only Nationals winners should be allowed to comment on the easiest class to win in? After all, the rest of us haven't managed even that? Mind you, as race officer for the Comet Zero Nationals, I'd say the winner of that couldn't have found it any easier - he was the only one! But, you have to be in it to win it! but then this thread woudnt be very long.how many people on this fourum have won any nats? My point exactly...Can't be so very easy, can it, then!

isnt that the whole point of this thread?how hard nats are.

I'm always in two minds about the ability of Laser sailors to adjust. Frank Bethwaite's tale of the two Laser-ers unable to make the switch to Tasars fits in with the fact that we generally found that hot Laser sailors (3rd and 4th in worlds etc) to finish about 8th in the Tasar states!

However (1) sailors from other "tweakier" classes  (ie the 3 time world Fireball champ) generally did little better in the same event, and hot skiff champs/sailmakers can get done like a dinner in Lasers. I think it's merely the case that (as you say) different classes need different skills and very few people can make the shift straight away unless they come from a similar class. In Tasars, for example, no one trains as hard as the top Lasers do, so the best Tasar is not as close to optimum as the best Laser.

It should also be mentioned in that context that I'm sure I remember that Frank says (in the same paragraph) that he believes the Laser worlds is the hardest of all dinghy worlds to win! I can also recall Mark Bethwaite - long after his good Olympics in FDs, and his J/24 and Soling world wins - saying it would take him 3 seasons to get to club level in Lasers!

And Laser sailors I know have been America's Cup engineers, designed the boat that lead to the Tasar, the boat that got 3rd in the Cherub worlds, and got patents on boat designs - they didn't use those skills when they sailed Lasers only because they didn't need to.

The best Laser sailors aren't experts at tweaking or building, but they are also not experts at imitating the Subterranean Widemouth Goose or playing Britten on the viola - but guys like Ainslie have proven by winning in the biggest class that if those skills WERE what was needed, they'd learn them!

Originally posted by CT249 but guys like Ainslie have proven by winning in the biggest class that if those skills WERE what was needed, they'd learn them!

Or at least that they are capable of putting together a campaign which contains the relevant skills so that they can use the appropriate ones on the water.

Not everyone does succeed in making that transition any more than sailors from the more open classes always succeed in achieving the tighter campaign focus required by something like the Laser. Mr Ainslie's achievement in walking into the Finn from the Laser and winning the Gold medal, was, I'm sure most would agree, exceptional.

But I think its fair to say that had he been a Finn sailor from Noumea or wherever without the world class backup that Ben inherited from Ian Percy's campaign then the task would have been more difficult.

Its still a brilliant achievement to be able to take that backup and make such rapid use of it: I don't think to say that backup was vital to kickstarting the campaign is to in any way diminish the achievement. You also have to admire the fact that he continues to be world beating in the Finn with rather less backup, doing it part time from the AC.

Edited by JimC

Originally posted by jeffers ...it is hard to win the nationals in a Fireball.

Personally speaking I've found it impossible to win the Nationals in any class...