Contender Worlds 2025 at Fraglia Vela Malcesine
by James Ellis 6 Aug 14:51 BST
28 July - 3 August 2025
I've just spent 7 weeks sailing in Europe with my friend Mark Bulka which ended with him winning his 5th world championship. Mark has won many regattas but in his acceptance speech he described this one as the highlight of his sailing career.
More than 170 boats from a dozen countries created a true world championship. The fleet was stacked with previous world champions including Graeme Wilcox (UK), Simon Mussell (UK), Andrea Bonezzi x7 (Italy), Soren Andreason (DEN), Antonio Lambertini (Italy), Max Billerberck (GER) and Stuart Jones (UK).
My son Sam also had the highlight of his sailing career, finishing 5th overall. I'm a proud father, I really am, but I dunno where he's gunna get his t-shirts now to accommodate his growing head size.
I am interested in decision making so this report is about that.
Mark labours over decisions. When he wanted to buy a caravan he took more than a year to research and decide which one. He said his family thought he would never get there. Similarly, after sailing one morning on Lake Garda prior to the Worlds, Mark went to the supermarket. He emerged an hour later after wandering around, agonising over what to buy, and announced that he hates going to the supermarket. Impulse buying is not his thing. Mark has very high standards of decision hygiene. Most of us just use our feelings to decide what food to buy, what to have for dinner or how to get from A to B. We use heuristics (mental shortcuts) because detailed research takes too much time. These shortcuts are unappealing to a committed decision hygienist.
Mark's boat preparation and his post-race debriefs are methodical and analytic but he is also quick to say "this is only a theory but perhaps....". He works closely with Lindsay Irwin who is now making nearly all of the Australian Contender fleet's sails. Lindsay, like Mark, is wary of his own opinions, which is incredibly refreshing. Between them they have developed an iterative, experimental approach to sail development. They keep each other honest by constantly declaring what they don't know.
Mark had been focussed on his body weight. Left to making decisions based on feelings, like the rest of us, I suspect Mark would weigh in at about 95kg. But that's not what he does. He applied himself to a diet that brought him in at about 88kg. Perhaps the magic number that allows for downwinds in light and lumpy conditions without giving away too much upwind speed in 18+ knots. I reckon he nailed it.
Last year Sam spent hours modifying his boat. When I thought he should be sailing he was cutting holes and screwing on fittings and changing up systems. In the lead up to the Nationals last January I don't know how many hours he spent but he didn't go sailing. His Nationals were a disaster. He finished in the back half of the fleet and was thoroughly disillusioned. Given his time and effort on boat work he was deep into the sunk cost fallacy. I reckon we should have renamed his boat sunk cost. But then he did something most don't do (including me). He overcame his sunk cost and decided that, despite his hours invested, he would go back to a standard set up, almost. That is unusual.
Another heuristic we all use to overcome the problem of not having enough time to research solutions is to proxy out our decision making to others we trust. We put faith in others' opinions (faith = belief without evidence). This isn't as easy as it sounds because we have to discern who to listen to. Our WEIRD (western, educated, industrialised, rich and democratic) culture places a high value on confidence and when we have common interests, whether they be political or religious or just trying to make a small boat sail fast, there are no shortage of overconfident experts. I hasten to add, the expression of opinions is mostly collective sensemaking rather than arrogant lecturing. When we discuss politics at a dinner party or tuning in the boat park, we are testing our opinions on others as an exercise in understanding. The problem is that this sensemaking is polluted by our desire to look and sound intelligent, or at least not too dumb. That desire limits our learning and prevents us from asking the "dumb" questions.
In all classes there is an illusive vein of tacit knowledge. That is, it exists inside the heads of experienced group members. It isn't written down. The challenge for a newcomer like me is to work out who is making sense about what. It seems like a good idea to listen to the sailors who perform well but the problem with that is that they often don't know. Their knowledge is embodied and non-conscious, their skill comes from feel and their explanations may or may not be sound.
Paul Cohen is an amateur boat builder and enthusiast in the Contender class who lives near Canberra. He knows the class history and he has a catalogue (inside his head) of suppliers of masts, sails, fittings and details. He knows mast rakes, spreader lengths, side stay thickness and class rules. Paul's boats are immaculate. My boats are used. We frustrate each other (right Paul?) but we're bonded by this exercise of how to make a Contender sail fast. So when Paul told me he was selling his boat I nabbed it for Sam.
Fast forward to Lake Garda several months later and Sam turned up and joined our training group. In the early morning Peler he was fast upwind. Something was brewing.
My point is this, we are collectively sensemaking. A bit from Mark, a bit from Lindsay and a bit from Paul. Add to this super coach, Brett Beyer, who lives near us in Point Clare and has been helping Sam and I to develop our sailing. Not to mention my regular chats with my Gosford mates Humps, Bucket and class boat builder Tony Arends (a friend since childhood). Collective sensemaking is a thing, there is a body of academic work that tries to explain it (perhaps I'll have a go at that in a future piece).
Lake Garda is awesome in the true (non-teenage vernacular) sense of the word. Malcesine has cobblestones and archways and markets and espresso and pizza and affogato. As I rode my bike to the club each morning the lake was alive with hundreds of foilers and kiteboards and windsurfers. The back drop of mountains is spectacular and the highly localised pressure differential that generates the daily Peler and Ora is mysterious and exciting.
The first day of racing was in a mid-range 12-15 knot Ora, the second day a confusing 5-10knots, day three we tried and failed to finish a race and then the finals produced a seriously fresh Peler over two days that humbled and energised us. This regatta had the range of conditions you would script if you could. Mark had planned for this. The rest of us turned up.
Pual Verhallen (NED), a charismatic and witty class veteran, lead after day 1. But day 2 was a mess that only an inland lake could throw up and Paul had his drop quite early, as did a lot of us. Antonio Lambertini picked his way through the mess better than most and lead after day 2. An all rounder (and amazing host) who didn't win a race but was always near the front in all conditions. Graeme Wilcox, the current world champion who has done a lot of sail development of his own, was always lurking near the front. The Contender community is small but we are geographically widespread so there is room for parallel playing on the development front. Pim Van Vugt from the Netherlands was also at the pointy end. Pim a relatively young (30 is very young in Contenders) newcomer who came 6th in the 49ers in Tokyo. Marco Ferrari (ITA) was also pushing for a spot after winning some of the lead up regattas.
And then it blew. After the first three days got progressively lighter the finals series was scheduled for the morning Peler and the fun and games began. Simon Mussell (GBR), a previous world champ and humble nice guy, shone in the breeze going 1,1,2,1 but his light air results prevented him from getting onto the podium. The salt-free waves smacking us in the face were invigorating and they made for an obstacle course to navigate, especially downwind. The steep walls either side of Lake Garda form a corridor and bend the wind dramatically and the volume of boats (did I mention 170?) caused boat handling mayhem. We knew we were alive.
In an exciting finish on the final day three competitors (Graeme, Antonio and Mark) were on the same points and Mark got it on a countback. After a nervous wait in the boat park I learnt that my mate Mark had won and my son had come 5th. I shed a few tears and Sam called me a pussy.
Olga Henneberg, the always smiling German turned Dane meteorologist (don't ask her what the wind will do today) became the Womens' World Champion ahead of the equally likeable German, Wiebke Stiemsen, after a close regatta tussle that ended with them 3 points apart. Olga had to overcome gear failure when a side stay broke but her resourceful partner Frank was there to effect a speedy repair.
Frank's daily reports were a highlight. The translation from Danish to English created a whole new language. I highly recommend seeking him out on fb and reading his updates.
For Mark & Sam, I am still emotional. The vicarious pleasure is hard to describe. I did the 5 hour training sessions with Mark in Melbourne before we left, I watched him agonise over dinner decisions and I saw him go back to his boat in the evening after dinner to make two half turn adjustments to his spreader angles. Those 7 weeks were exhausting, exhilarating and, my favourite thing, full of learning. Something that really stuck with me... Mark says after winning a world title, nobody really cares. He doesn't mean people are uncaring, the praise has been flowing. The message is simply that the stimulation comes from the struggle, not the winning. It is such a pleasure to be part of the Contender community!
Full results here