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American, it was never an issue. But you<br />
were still amateurs then<br />
Charles: It’s a job now, a job that lasts<br />
quite a few years.<br />
Iain: That’s the lucky thing about the sport<br />
now. But you were having to work<br />
Charles: I worked for Fairey Aviation. The<br />
money enabled me to buy breakfast and<br />
they were very good with time off. In a<br />
way it was a form of sponsorship.<br />
Iain: You needed to have a company that<br />
understood because the likes of Elvström<br />
were sailing everyday weren't they<br />
Charles: He certainly went sailing in the<br />
winter. That’s were he learnt to get tough!<br />
Really tough, sailing in the winter in<br />
Denmark.<br />
Iain: Did you do physical training or was<br />
sailing enough<br />
Charles: We hadn’t got the stage where<br />
we had a sexy female physical trainer...<br />
Iain: I wouldn't mind one of those! I might<br />
try and find one.<br />
Charles: I’m sure you can. Everything<br />
else is provided!<br />
Iain: Did you have a coach<br />
Charles: Just a team manager, Alan<br />
Wright. Bobby, my wife, went with the<br />
class.<br />
Iain: But there weren’t many classes then<br />
Charles: Just the 6-metre, <strong>Finn</strong>, Star,<br />
Dragon and 5.5 metre.<br />
Iain: We got five medals in Sydney. Mind<br />
you, that was with 11 classes.<br />
Charles: The big change has been the<br />
women’s classes. I’m not sure I favour<br />
that.<br />
Iain: It wouldn’t be as much fun if the<br />
women weren’t there though!<br />
Charles: Well, in Helsinki, all the girls<br />
there were sitting starkers on the rocks.<br />
Iain: Really We must go back there!<br />
Charles: Yes. It was a very satisfactory<br />
situation. I remember once that there were<br />
so many guests on the French Dragon<br />
one day, looking at the girls who were<br />
really very nice, I thought it was going to<br />
sink! It was all good fun. Excellent! We<br />
weren’t slow in those days.<br />
Iain: What about Elvström’s regime<br />
Charles: He go out in snow, rain and ice.<br />
He said ‘it’s rotten, but I’ve got some decent<br />
gloves now!’<br />
Iain: Your clothing would have been<br />
different to ours<br />
Charles: The only thing we had was<br />
ordinary golf slippers, things like that. Wet<br />
suits were high tech. We had waxed<br />
cotton, nothing waterproof.<br />
Iain: In this picture you’ve got a collar, a<br />
proper collar! Look at my top now. It’s<br />
nylon, doesn’t weigh a thing. And the<br />
shorts have battens in for hiking. Didn't<br />
your legs hurt<br />
Charles: Those battens would help. Are<br />
they allowed now No one was clever<br />
enough to think of things like that. We<br />
didn’t have weight jackets either, though<br />
I did used to get wet on purpose<br />
Iain: Nor can we now. They’re banned.<br />
Charles: So you can’t have a nice<br />
absorbent clothing jacket<br />
Iain: No, you can’t bend the rules. It’s so<br />
hot you just want to keep cool and not<br />
wear anything that weighs 2kg. Were the<br />
sails cotton too<br />
Charles: Yes. And the sails we were<br />
dished out with a Helsinki were a terrible<br />
shape. Awful.<br />
Iain: Could you change them<br />
Charles: No, what I did was much better!<br />
I had an accomplice in the little dock<br />
where we were with a nail standing proud.<br />
Someone on the dock waved his arms<br />
like a landing officer on an aircraft carrier<br />
and I got it just right. We ripped that sail<br />
one side to another! And Franklin<br />
Woodruffe of Ratsey’s fixed it. It was quite<br />
a good sail after that.<br />
Iain: You got permission to repair it<br />
Charles: It was entirely above board!<br />
Iain: I notice you didn’t sheet the boom<br />
right down to the deck<br />
Charles: Not quite. You always left a little<br />
bit in hand.<br />
Iain: We actually crush it into the deck<br />
now and then you adjust the mast rake.<br />
Charles: Can you do that underway<br />
Iain: Not in races. You’ve got to get it right<br />
ashore.<br />
Did Elvström invent the self-bailer. Is that<br />
true<br />
Charles: We used to have circular ones,<br />
a bit like a venturi. But the wedge shaped<br />
one we called Elvström bailers. They<br />
weren’t too bad for drag.<br />
Iain: What do you think of the modern<br />
Olympics. In 2000, they were 10,000<br />
athletes and probably as many 20,000<br />
coaches, administrators, team leaders,<br />
media etc<br />
Charles: I watched Sydney on the<br />
television and it looked pretty good to me.<br />
It was a very good idea to have the races<br />
right inside the city.<br />
Iain: It was very well run, but it was huge.<br />
We were lucky with some races inside<br />
the harbour and others outside in the<br />
ocean. It was a perfect, a mixture of<br />
everything.<br />
Charles: That was a very good idea. I’m<br />
glad you thought that was sensible.<br />
Iain: They are not doing it this time. I like<br />
it, though. It tests different skills.<br />
Charles: It’s very different now.<br />
Iain: But the principals are the same.<br />
We’d better pop out of the line just like<br />
you said Elvström used to do!<br />
Reprinted with kind permission of Yachting World<br />
Charles Currey<br />
Born in 1916, Currey’s career in the Royal Marines<br />
was interrupted by pneumonia, yet he proved<br />
precisely the kind of unconventional and<br />
resourceful individual who blossomed in war time.<br />
Currey knew about boats, fast boats. At the<br />
instigation of<br />
Dennis Boyd,<br />
Captain of HMS<br />
Vernon in<br />
Portsmouth,<br />
Currey jointed a<br />
volunteer unit<br />
for target<br />
towing. Rain,<br />
fog or snow, he<br />
was content to<br />
be shot at by<br />
the allied navies<br />
off Scapa Flow.<br />
“It was great<br />
fun!” Currey’s<br />
links with the<br />
British Power<br />
Boat Company at Hythe – “the only 40 knot boats<br />
that seemed to work” – saw him put in charge of<br />
procurement and crew training. With 3,000hp and<br />
vast amounts of fuel crammed into 60ft, these<br />
boats needed skifull handling. “They were<br />
absolutely lovely!” After the War, Currey joined<br />
Fairey Aviation and started Fairey Marine and set<br />
about their famous hot moulded plywood boats:<br />
sailing boats such as Firefly and Albacore dinghies,<br />
and cruisers such as the Atlanta. And of course<br />
there were the famous powerboats – Huntsman,<br />
Huntress, Swordsman.<br />
Iain Percy<br />
Born in 1976, Percy’s racing career was via the<br />
Optimist route. He started sailing aged four, with<br />
the family at Weston SC, Southampton, progressed<br />
to the children’s singlehander, winning the<br />
Nationals, before outgrowing the boxy little pram.<br />
He added two more national titles in the Laser,<br />
before<br />
placing 3rd<br />
behind his<br />
great friend<br />
Ben Ainslie<br />
in the 1995<br />
British<br />
Olympic<br />
trials, plus<br />
5th in the<br />
Worlds.<br />
He polished<br />
off his<br />
Economics<br />
degree at<br />
British University after that, unsure of the conflicting<br />
callings of professional sailing or a City career.<br />
Percy chose the former, his growing frame<br />
prompting a move to <strong>Finn</strong> where he won bronze<br />
at his first major event, the 1998 Europeans. Since<br />
then he’s won the European and Olympic <strong>Finn</strong><br />
titles, and joining Steve Mitchell, the World and<br />
European Star Championships. Italy’s +39<br />
America's Cup team have signed him on as<br />
helmsman.