Interview with Saskia Clark
by Mark Jardine 8 Oct 2024 19:00 BST
Athena Pathway - Group A - Puig Women's America's Cup - October 5, 2024 © Ian Roman / America's Cup
I met up with Saskia Clark, Olympic gold medallist, pro sailor, and now racing in the PUIG Women's America's Cup together with her 470 helm Hannah Mills.
Mark Jardine: First of all, what was it that drew you into the Women's America's Cup?
Saskia Clark: To be honest, in the first round of applications I assumed I was too old and this wouldn't be the place for me. Then you start thinking about what it's going to take to win in these boats, and what skills you need in the campaign. Hannah [Mills] and I had a conversation, and she asked me to do the simulator trials that they were holding. In these campaigns you need a balance of full raw talent that has grown up foiling, and you need some of the racing stuff, then you need some of the maturity and campaigning experience. This gets the right blend in the team. So I went to Weymouth and did the sim stuff, and it went all right!
Mark: It must really help having your relationship with Hannah, that you know each other extremely well. Gelling as part of the team - did you find that part easy?
Saskia: Yes, that part has been easy. Obviously, the roles and responsibilities are completely different, both shoreside and on the race course - a 470 crew and helm relationship, and what observations you're making, and the decision making part, is totally different to the helm and trimmer relationship in an AC40. But what crosses over, is that total trust and honesty, that you're turning up, you're on the same page, you're working towards a goal. Mistakes are okay because you can talk about them, you don't have any ego about that conversation, and you just move on with the project. This is something we're trying to bring to the younger athletes to help them on this journey - some of them will go on to have long careers in sailing, and maybe go back to the Olympic side, so we give them a bit of insight into what it will take.
Mark: You've got this younger generation, the foiling generation, that are so comfortable with that. Is it the team element that they find most difficult?
Saskia: I think we are a real mix because of where our talent has come from - a lot from the British Sailing Team, Olympic classes, a few foiling specific sailors. We all found that early part hard, getting to know each other. We all turned up in April, not knowing each other, particularly the shore team as well. The shore team are an integral part of getting these boats out on the water, more so than in anything that I've ever done. You're really relying hard on those people, and it's long days for them, they're on the water then they come ashore and put the boat back together and get it ready for the next day. The blend of getting all that work done and still having an eye on performance, has definitely been a journey, figuring out how we all get there.
Mark: The Women's America's Cup, I feel, is possibly one of the most exciting things of this whole Barcelona event. We've seen so many areas which have raised women's sport. Do you think this is another huge opportunity?
Saskia: I'm super excited that you think that, as someone with your sort of overview of what sailing is and where it's going. I think women's sports at the moment, globally, is a huge boost area. And it's a business, you know. It's really cool that this America's Cup cycle has opened its eyes to that. For sure, I'm an older athlete, and we're in the early stages of trying to create that pathway, but I think that this will be a proper established route - either from a foiling background or from your Olympic background - for females of the future. So it's great.
Mark: The AC40, the platform itself, is exciting. They are nimble. They're really eye-catching boats. They have a feel of something that's skittish, especially when the breeze is up. What's it like to sail them?!
Saskia: For sure, that word skittish applies when you don't have grip on the foil and you're sliding sideways. We might have all done windsurfing or dinghy sailing, but you get caught, and it feels quite different and intense. You're like, "when's it gonna grip?" Then it suddenly kicks and you're off again. They're incredible machines. I think you're totally right. The racing we've seen already with the six boats in Villanova and in Jeddah looked awesome. You can really throw them around. I think the racing will be ace.
Mark: They have the opportunity to be as accessible a foiling boat as any, with the battery power on board. Do you think they could extend the AC40 racing to have almost anybody sailing?
Saskia: Those kind of discussions are happening in the background, and there's obviously the America's Cup tension with who becomes the holder of the Cup and where they might take the future of the race. So there's a bit of politics in how that would affect a future AC40 circuit. In the background, as a women's group from across the teams, we're talking about what we would want in our best case scenario, what we would want it to look like if we can take charge of our own destiny, perhaps separate from the Cup or separate from our Cup teams.
Mark: With the boats being one design, you don't have the secrecy, and the separate bases, which are effectively locked down to the other teams. Is there a camaraderie between you, the Swedes, the Americans, in this base?
Saskia: We've been so lucky to have our own base. And essentially we are independent from our Cup team. From a health and safety point of view, we've been very linked together. It is so hugely important to all of us that we're safe. If anyone capsizes, the other team's chase boats have been out there to act as support. But ultimately, it's a competition. A lot of the boats we all sailed before are one design. But there's still a huge amount you can do in terms of the setup, and the mode of how you sail the boats, to be faster. So from that point of view, we're not sharing anything. I guess that feeds down from our Cup team too. We still have the mystery. That performance side is very much under lock and key.
Mark: Talking of moding - when it comes to you and Hannah, you are so used to that from the 470 world, where all of those different setups that you have for the different conditions, and working that out, is well developed. Would you regard that as one of your major strengths in this campaign?
Saskia: Every time I sail the big boat, I still try to ooch it down as if I'm on the trapeze [laughs]. Obviously, the physicality of what that looks like from a moding point of view is never there, and always disappoints me in a big boat. But we're moving into that sharp end of performance now, and what that looks like around other boats. In a 470 when someone tacks on you, you can put the bow down, foot off - but those sort of judgement calls in the AC40 depend on bad air; that 'gas' is huge, and we're just finding out where the limits are of that are, and what that requires from a moding point of view. So that's our next phase.