OCTOBER 2004 - Finn

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