No return to the Star boat can ever have been more emotionally charged than that of British three time Olympic medallist and Beijing 2008 Star champion, Iain Percy.
Andrew ‘Bart’ Simpson, Percy’s best friend, his crew in China and for London 2012, drowned during the break up and capsize of the Artemis AC72 catamaran on San Francisco Bay on 9th May 2013. Aside from being a highly respected, accomplished Olympic sailor, Bart was of a generous nature, eager for example to help up-and-coming sailors and extremely popular as a result. His death left a massive hole in many many people’s lives.
Thus stepped on board the Olympic keelboat, his home for three Olympic cycles, for the recent Bacardi Cup was most poignant. “Obviously it’s been a big deal for me,” said Percy. “I haven’t sailed in a Star race since the last race of the London 2012 Olympics which in itself is emotional. Then to go through everything since with Bart it’s quite a big thing for me.”
Fortunately Percy’s return could not have been more comfortable. Miami’s Coconut Grove, the venue for Bacardi Cup, was where Percy first sailed the Star. Plus the event was a regular for him and Bart, although the 91 year old event was one of the few where victory eluded them.
For Miami, Percy had also teamed up with an old friend of his and Bart’s - Swedish friend of the Star Sailors League, Anders Ekström, who, as crew for Freddy Lööf, won the 2004 Star World Championship and, four years later, Olympic bronze in Beijing. Oddly, despite looking more like Thor than a cheeky American skateboarding cartoon miscreant, Ekström has a surprisingly similar temperament to Bart. “They got on really well and were very good friends, with a similar outlook on life - both really into their families and home and their lifestyles. They made chairs together. They both saw sailing in its place…” While today Ekström is a professional carpenter (and is technically an amateur sailor), Bart also had a business making composite wood-carbon fibre furniture.
As to his return to the Star this year, Percy explained: “I could have done it before, but I don’t think I was mentally ready to sail a Star with someone other than Bart. It is not a bad emotion, just quite a powerful emotion…” No doubt Bart would have been wondering what took him so long. “He’ll be up there wondering why we’re going so slow and why we are trimming it wrong – like he used to tell me!”
In Bacardi Cup, Percy entered his entire three boat armada of Stars, sailed by his nearest and dearest. His brother Richard, CEO of the Andrew Simpson Foundation, was sailing with Aussie Finn sailing buddy of theirs Anthony Nossiter (now a Star evangelist, post-Bacardi Cup). The third boat was sailed by their London 2012 training partner John Gimson and Artemis Racing powerhouse Chris Brittle, another ex-Finn sailor.
Going into Miami, Percy and Ekström were already on the back foot arriving a day late after coming directly from an RC44 event in Lanzarote. They had no training time and were also light at 185kg combined weight. “The old rules had you at 200kg, but for Bacardi Cup there’s no limit,” observed Percy.
After posting a promising eighth in race two, they had a small collision in race three that put them out for race four too. “We got hit by our old friend from North Argentina, Torkel Borgstrom, my mate Juan Garay’s partner! He made a mistake in a strong wind gybe and swung into us at the bottom mark, so we had a good hole and…were sinking. But he did his turns - he wasn’t being difficult.” Fortunately Percy argued for and won redress for these two lost races.
Finally it all came together, achieving what Percy famously didn’t at London 2012 – winning the last race. “We really started to get in tune. In the last race we were slow upwind because we were light, but then on the last run, it felt like old times for both of us because we managed to pass Robert [Scheidt]. About half way down we got bow to bow and then just sneaked out to beat him across the line by a couple of lengths to win the race. It was cool. We were starting to move as one, which is what you need to do in a Star downwind in waves. We both really enjoyed finding that again.”
And just maybe someone ‘up there’ was helping them? “Not for upwind speed! Down the last run maybe! At first you feel the differences more and you think about Bart by the bits that weren’t going so well. But it was definitely the case in the last race of feeling you were back with Bart in board. You could close your eyes once in a while and it felt like he was on board.”
Considering the number of races they missed they did an admirable job salvaging a seventh place overall in the field of 76 boats, immediately ahead of SSL President and old foe, Xavier Rohart.
“I had an amazingly fun week. It was more of a social week more than a racing week for us! We made good use of the relationship with Bacardi!” summarised Percy.
Now that he has survived his first go back in the Star in almost six year, Percy is contemplating coming to the Star Sailors League Final, if he is invited. He had hoped to take part last year however it coincided with the birth of his first son. “The Star Sailors League is a breath of fresh air in the sport of sailing. The fact that it is in the Star is important because it is such a levelling boat that tests you on so many different levels. It has really caught the imagination of the top sailors which is important.”
Aside from his new found return to Star sailing and his move from tactician to mainsheet on Torbjörn Törnqvist’s Artemis Racing in the RC44 one design class, Percy continues to head the Swedish campaign, although it seems increasing less like that the Swedes will be on the start line of the next America’s Cup.
SSL Press Officer since 2015