Allianz Sailing World Championships: Scheveningen’s current conveyor belt

The next 10 days of competition are very likely to test a broad range of skills, and there are a number of reasons why. Arguably the most significant factor is the strong current coursing through the North Sea, sometimes moving at 2.5 knots or more.

With the current moving in the same direction as the wind, the water will be fairly flat. But in light winds, the challenge will be making it to the first mark. When the current is against you as you attempt to make progress upwind, the tacking angles get much wider and the slower boats like the ILCAs will have to battle to make progress up the course.

Once around the top mark, however, you’re on a fast downwind conveyor belt as the wind and the current shoot you along at high speed. Until you get to the bottom of the course and have to turn upwind for the long slog back up to the top again.

Having wind with current is like having a ski lift that helps push you down the mountain, and having no ski lift to take you back to the summit again. Instead, you have to side-step on your skis all the way to the top of the slope.

If it’s current against wind, at least now the ski lift is working in your favour. Happy days! All good then? Well, in lighter winds, yes thanks. But once the wind kicks up to more than 12 or 14 knots, the friction of the wind blowing one way versus the surface of the water moving at 2.5 knots in the other direction, this starts to create a new challenge.

The wind captures the tops of the waves and blows them into bigger and bigger shapes until you’re faced with huge walls of water, moving mini-tower blocks that create an obstacle course upwind and a wild rollercoaster of a ride on the downwind legs. Great fun in a slower boat like an ILCA or 470, but potentially terrifying on a skiff or a foiling boat or board.

Then again, one sailor’s ’terrifying’ is another sailor’s ‘terrific’. No one goes sailboat racing for an easy life, and certainly not these Olympic aspirants.

The Hague, the waters of Scheveningen, are ready to pose one of the greatest challenges of these sailors’ lives. For Tamara Echegoyen and Paula Barcelo, the Spanish 49erFX team can’t wait to test their skills on this ever-changing race track.

“We don’t have so much experience racing in this much current,” smiles Echegoyen, “but we are in the North Sea and this is what we have to expect. We of course will make some mistakes, but I think our super-strength as a team is the ‘Plan B’. Learning from our mistakes and working out what to do differently the next time, maybe on the next lap or in the next race.”

It’s an adaptable approach that has served Echegoyen well, winning a shock Olympic gold in women’s match racing at London 2012 and since winning two world titles in the 49erFX skiff, one of those titles with current partner, Paula Barcelo.

“Another one of our strengths is our trust in each other,” grins Barcelo.

A few days before the competition they ventured out into the skyscraper waves and capsized twice.

It’s quite possible that the eventual 49erFX World Champion will have capsized a few times on the way to victory in The Hague.

“The FX is an unstable boat and easy to capsize in difficult conditions,” she says. “But there is a lot of trust between us, and we will always fight together as a team, all the way to the end. We are ready for the fight, and tonight I’m going to get a good night’s sleep, to be ready before the first day of racing.

“We will be in bed by 10pm, before most Spanish people have even thought about having dinner.”

By Andy Rice, World Sailing Event Correspondent