Fulfillment Must Come From the Process

To compete in a World Championship is a privilege, but with heightened competition and the significant effort and expense required, fulfillment must first come from the process. Bruno Pasquinelli’s Stampede team finished sixth at the 2016 J/70 World Championship, and in this report by teammate Flipper Wehrheim, he shares their process…

Flipper Wehrheim

I’ve sailed in many great places in my life – Italy, Spain, Germany, the Caribbean, and even done a couple of Transatlantic record attempts – but nothing compares to sailing on San Francisco Bay. The bay is the most epic sailing venue you can imagine. The sailing and the scenery are as good as it gets.

Max Skelley, a good friend and colleague of mine, asked me to join the J/70 team Stampede for the class’s World Championship in San Francisco, and I eagerly accepted.

I would be replacing their regular bow man who was having his first child and could not make the event. I am 20-30 pounds heavier than he is, which meant we would have to change the way the team normally sailed the boat downwind. This was just one of many adjustments we had to make as a team.

The first chapter of this two-month journey was a team practice session in Corpus Christi, Texas. Corpus Christi is known for 20-30 knots of breeze every day and it did not disappoint. We spent 4-5 hours a day for three days practicing in windy conditions, learning how to sail the waves and do good sets, takedowns, jibes and tacks.

As a team we had to learn our timing and communication in those conditions. Everything seemed to be going great as we left Texas. We had had a very successful practice, everyone had fun, and as a team we seemed to work well with each other.

Just prior to the J/70 Worlds, we decided to sail in the Rolex Big Boat Series at St Francis Yacht Club with no expectations other than to improve as a team. But at the end of the regatta, we were left with our pants down and our jaws on the floor.

Everything we thought was solid in Texas was not in Corpus Christi. Communication was poor, leadership was really non-existent, crew work was terrible, boat-speed was nothing special. Things simply did not gel the way we wanted them to.

If we learned one thing in the Big Boat Series, it was that the Worlds would be a marathon, not a sprint. It’s a 4 to 6 mile sail out to the race area, either in flood or ebb tide. It blows 15-25 knots every day. It’s sunny, foggy, wet and COLD, but never warm.

You leave the dock at 9:00 and return between 4:30 and 5:00. After sailing three windy races, you get to sail 4 to 6 miles back to the yacht club (upwind!). In these conditions, our minds and bodies were going to have to be on-point at all times and be able to last the full five days of the Worlds.

It was obvious that our Owner/Skipper and our Tactician were not on the same page. We are all friends, but sometimes that just isn’t the best scenario and we decided at the 11th hour that we had to make a switch.

I have a buddy, Jeremy Wilmot, whose brother Nathan is a gold medalist and five- time 470 World champion. We reached out to Nathan and he was keen. Nathan’s credentials spoke for themselves and he was around 20lbs heavier than our original tactician which was a bonus, but also added to the adjustments we had to make in our teamwork.

When sailing I am all about having fun, working hard as a team, and sailing as efficiently as possible. I sat down with Nathan, Max and Bruno to discuss our attitude and goals before going into the regatta. We all agreed that our goal for the Worlds was to have FUN, and to get the best result possible within reason.

Between us we had 10 to 15 World Championships and a gold medal. Winning the regatta was a very long shot, but not out of the question. Our goal was to win, but given the depth of competition, a top ten finish would make us very happy. Mind you we finished in the 20’s out of 30 boats in the pre-regatta a week earlier.

Our Strategy:

1. Get off the starting line in the front row. With a front row start we were confident we would be in the top 20 – at the very worst – at the top mark. From there, we would out-sail the boats in front and gain as many places as possible

2. No letters. With the strong ebb current pushing us from behind, it was very easy to be OCS. With the black flag and or the U flag being displayed at 75% of the starts, we did not want to put ourselves in a vulnerable position on the start line. We also wanted to stay out of the protest room so no DSQ’s or other infractions that could impact our score.

We did not fully achieve this goal. Nathan is a very aggressive sailor, there were times we put ourselves in positions where we had to do circles. Once we had to defend ourselves for tacking in the zone, resulting in a DSQ. We corrected the problem going forward.

3. Sail Smart. Sailing in clean lanes with positive current: “Current behind us, pushing us at all times”. Seeing the big picture and communicating with other boats would be a big deal with this fleet and venue. There were a lot of “Cross or Tack?” situations. Looking and communicating under the boom with other boats prevented us from having to crash tack or tack away from the way we wanted to go.

4. Boat Speed. Always getting faster every day, every race. Our goal was to make the boat as fast as possible, a fast boat makes tacticians look smart, drivers look like experts and crew work look flawless. Observing and chatting with the best guys in the fleet allowed us to learn tricks and sail trim that helped make us really fast.

5. Team Chemistry. Laugh, have fun, be serious when needed, go the extra mile to be the best team mate, make sacrifices when needed to make the team better, admit fault and learn how to do a better job. Smart Communication is knowing when to talk, what to talk about and being confident that when you do have input what you say is more a less a fact.

Conditions for the week:

We were to leave the dock in a flood tide in the morning and return in an ebb tide at night for most of the racing. Having the current help us in and out was a great thing, but it also meant that it would go slack and switch during racing. The bay is tricky if you do not know it well. I think by the last day of the regatta we finally had a pretty good grasp of the current in the racing area.

Sailing in an area with an average depth of 10 to 20 feet, we would cross what I would call rivers of current that were much stronger than in other parts of the bay. This was especially true near the weather mark. A wind direction of 190-240 was what we were to see all week with various wind strengths, and depending on the time of day, the wind and current directions would change.

For the first couple of days of the regatta, we were all learning how to work together and with Nathan. We had only about 4 hours of practice together going into the first race. Immediately we jelled and were sailing well together.

As I mentioned earlier, a goal of ours was to stay out of trouble. In the third race, we approached the top mark in about 10th on the port tack layline. With a wall of boats approaching on the starboard tack layline, we tacked inside the zone on a very thin layline. In the process of rounding the mark we hit the mark and were protested by the boat directly to weather.

We didn’t think we had fouled the weather boat, so after rounding the offset mark we did a one turn penalty for hitting the mark and sailed on. We then sat in the protest room all night and ended up being chucked out of the race. This all being said, we “spent” our throw out on the first day of the regatta which was a real bummer. With four more days of sailing ahead of us we could not afford to make another major mistake.

As we the week progressed we were looking to get top tens. Those were the keepers, they would keep us in the top ten overall and maybe top five. The forecast showed that we were supposed to have the most breeze at the end of the regatta. We wanted breeze, but of course the bay in the fall will play tricks with ya, and we ended up sailing in 7 to 10 to mid teens. I call these “hero conditions”.

In these conditions, everyone pretty much goes the same speed. There isn’t a lot of separation in the fleet, so we really had to focus on tweaking our crew weight position fore and aft and side to side, as well as tweaking the set-up and trim, right down to fine adjusting leech lines and battens to maintain our speed advantage.

By the last day of the marathon, we felt we had sailed well the whole week. A team that was thrown together literally in the last two months with one new member in the last few days had really come together. This to me was an awesome achievement. As they say “there’s more than one way to skin a cat,” and our goal of a top ten in a boat most of us haven’t sailed very much (actually, it was Nathan’s first time sailing a J/70) was within reach.

Our first race on the final day was average for us – actually a little disappointing as we really could not find a great mode downwind in 7 to12 knots of breeze. We finished 21st in that race and the boat one place behind us in the standings finished 8th. What started as a 14 point lead over Tim Healy for 6th place was suddenly cut to a 1 point lead. Ugh!!!

Following this race, as the race committee read off the top ten results, we were bummed. After we had reacted as any emotionally, physically, and mentally drained humans would, we regained our composure and said to each other, “The results will be what they will be.” Let’s go out and sail the best race possible and see where we stand.

At the start of Race 12, the final race, we couldn’t have been closer to the line at the gun. We nailed the boat end of the line and tacked immediately. We rounded the top mark in the top five, maybe even top three. Following the set we extended on starboard tack for a moment as you would normally do, but after looking around, we noticed that Tim Healy – the boat we were just 1 point ahead of in the overall results – had done a gybe set.

We decided to gybe to cover, but as we tried crossing him we sailed into their dirty air and slowed. We made some gains at the very end of the run but they were ahead of us and in position to round what we thought was the favored gate mark, the left mark.

As we rounded the right mark we were immediately in clear air sailing by ourselves and they were not. Tim had rounded in a very bad lane and was probably sailing a knot slower than us for a 1/4 of a leg. They had to tack multiple times to get into a clear lane and we were ahead of them by 10 to 20 lengths at the top mark. Needless to say we kept a very close eye on them downwind, and stayed in front to finish race 12 in 8th, leaving us with 6th overall for the regatta!

The talent at the regatta was amazing: Paul Cayard, John Kostecki, Bill Hardesty, Tim Healy, Chris Snow, Stu McNay and Jud Smith just to name a few. The majority of the fleet had pro sailors aboard. You cannot be intimidated by the talent but must rise to their level, always striving to do the same things that make them successful: minimizing mistakes and maximizing boat speed – and their boat speed was amazing. Putting the right amount of time into practice and learning the boat really helps any sailor excel in any fleet and this was very apparent at this regatta.

San Francisco is amazing. It’s just beautiful, you feel like you’re sailing in one of those gigantic TV’s they have at Best Buy. Everything is HD, and 3D and just bright and colorful and epic. Nathan saw a shark, Max saw a whale, I saw a sea lion. Alcatraz Island, standing tidal waves, fog, wind, current, sun, high speed ferries… San Francisco is just plain amazing.

I give Bruno Pasquinelli a lot of credit. He created a team to succeed. We had debriefs every night and morning meetings over breakfast each day. He never stopped pushing us as a team to strive to be better. He was open to criticism and was very intuitive with how the boat felt.

Our boat captain Jay Vige, was instrumental in keeping the boat in tip-top shape. We would hit the dock after many hours on the water and he would take care of everything for us. As I reflect on many of my sailing experience this regatta is definitely in my top three.

Editor’s note: Thanks to Flipper Wehrheim Racing for providing this comprehensive look at what goes on with top ten caliber teams.