Patience feeling 'dangerous' on eve of 470 Europeans
by Lindsey Bell, RYA 9 Jul 2014 15:55 BST
10-15 July 2014
Luke Patience & Elliot Willis © Paul Wyeth / RYA
Olympic sailing silver medallist Luke Patience will be eyeing a medal-winning return to Athens when the 470 European Championships (10-15 July) get underway at the former Olympic host city tomorrow.
The Helensburgh sailor last raced at the Greek venue as a youth back in 2003, when he won silver at the 420 class European Championships – and returns to the venue this week with Elliot Willis for an attempt at the senior 470 Europeans podium.
"I was here 11 years ago for the 420 Europeans when I was a much younger lad. It's been a long time!" the 27-year-old Patience recounted.
"Elliot has been out here as well as a training partner for Nick Rogers and Joe Glanfield around the Athens Olympics so I think we're all quite pleased to be back.
"Conditions-wise it's a fairly radical change to what we've been sailing in all year, especially with the heat, so the few days of build-up have been all about feeling comfortable and sailing the boat well in the very light and fickle conditions that Athens produces.
"We've been getting used to the heat, getting used to how soft everything feels and tuning our minds and bodies into a bit more finesse than we've perhaps been used to in the last few months of sailing."
Patience claimed silver at last year's European Championships in Formia, Italy, with former crew Glanfield prior to his retirement. With a busy summer events calendar, with three significant regattas spanning the next three months, Patience admits that this Europeans challenge does carry less significance for him and Willis than next month's Olympic Test Event in Rio, or the World Championships at Santander in September.
But the Scottish helm says in spite of that, and his relatively new five-month partnership with the two-time World Championship-winning Willis, they'll be giving it their all and are still expecting to put up a good fight in the 75-boat international fleet.
Patience explained: "It will more be about testing for Elliot and I in these light and fickle conditions, which you can almost say are a bit Rio-like from what we know so far. That will be a nice thing to learn through the regatta, and take away moments that will help us in Rio.
"Elliot and I feel we have a good bit of finesse in the boat in these conditions and we really enjoy the tricky, choppy and soft winds and finding those little millimetres that make the boat go quicker.
"We feel in a good place going in to the event, and like always, we'll be gloves off and going out there to win those races. To go out there and be the best in those sorts of conditions by the end of the week is something I feel we're more than capable of doing."
"We've done a lot of hours this summer now," Patience continued. "I don't think me and Elliot ever go into any of these regattas with any excuses of having not been in the boat very long together. Both of us are feeling great about the team, great about what we've done with our coach Steve [Lovegrove] in the last couple of months having pulled some good things together, and I think we're feeling in a good place right now.
"I'm looking forward to it and I think we'll be dangerous!"
Patience and Sevenoaks's Willis will be joined in the men's fleet by British Sailing teammates and Podium Potential sailors Mike Wood and David Kohler, while Olympic silver medallists Hannah Mills-Saskia Clark and 2013 European bronze medallists Sophie Weguelin-Eilidh McIntyre will be among the four British Sailing Team crews vying for European honours in the women's 470 event.
For Weguelin and McIntyre, the European Championships will provide a vital role in the building process towards the Santander Worlds.
"This is the first event where we've had a proper build up to it with our new coach Romain [Bonnaud], so that will be really useful in terms of finding out what works and what doesn't work with our routines and how we want it to be for the Worlds. We're also refining our communication in the boat and making sure that it's productive and that we talk about the right things.
"Although a medal is not a huge focus for us here, but it would be realistic to say that we're in with a chance. If all goes well and everything slots into place there's no reason why we shouldn't be up there."
A three-month injury lay off for Hannah Mills and Saskia Clark, however, has caused them to reassess their goals for the European Championships. A hernia operation and subsequent recovery period for Clark, followed by a back injury for Mills, has meant they are down on their sailing hours heading into this event, and have readjusted their expectations accordingly.
"The Europeans has changed in our programme really from a performance perspective," Clark admitted. "It's more of a process event for us having had pretty much the best part of three months off between us.
"It would be foolish of us to launch into this expecting a result having had that time off and with the rest of the fleet having been pushing hard in the meantime. We've reassessed our goals for this period and are happy that we can get some things done here that will really add up and help us push towards a result in Santander in September."
The two women's Podium squad pairings will be joined by teammates Anna Burnet-Flora Stewart and Amy Seabright-Anna Carpenter as the British entries in the 51-boat event.
Racing at the 470 European Championships gets underway on Thursday 10 July, with the final medal races scheduled for Tuesday 15 July. For full results and regatta information from the 470 Europeans visit europeans.470.org
Stay with www.britishsailingteam.com, or join us on Facebook or on Twitter for all the latest in a full week of European Championship action in the Olympic Classes with the Nacra 17 multihulls also racing (7-12 July) in La Grande Motte, France, and the 49er and 49erFX classes with their Europeans in Helsinki, Finland, up until Sunday 13 July.