Stevie Morrison & Ben Rhodes' Blog
June 2008
G4S has provided us with a camcorder for video diaries...
Racing in Palma Palma Hike Post Holland Bad RunJanuary 2008
After a few glasses of personality to see in the New Year we have been hard at it out here in Sorrento, Australia (near Melbourne) trying to defend our title of World Champions. The place itself is a beautiful sailing club overlooking the bay with a great bar and balcony that you could sit and relax after sailing. On the water we have had the full range of condition from really windy and shifty conditions to light and steady winds early in the event, this offered us a full test of skills.
Yesterday was the medal race which proved to be a showdown between the local heroes Nathan Outeridge & Ben Austin, the Ukrainian silver medallists in Athens and us the mighty team G4S. We all went into the medal race tied on points after 16 races and this meant that the finishing order in this race would determine the colour of medal we won. The race was held in perfect conditions with a steady 20knots of wind and beautiful sunshine (real champagne racing). We had the best of the start and led away from the line but sadly the Australians had a slight boat speed edge in the windier conditions and were able to just slip past at the first mark into a slight lead that they wouldn’t give up we came home 3
rd in the race and so therefore 2
nd overall.
Clearly this would normally be an awesome feeling and in hindsight is a great start to such an important year but it is tinged with a little sadness as to be honest I quite liked being World Champion and guess we can’t get that title back for a while now! But another event another medal and now we will head back to the UK and then to Palma Majorca at the start of February to begin the real hard work with plenty of training and total focus towards China in the summer.
That is of course if we get out of the place! I should be packing a container rite now but in what is the fun and games of trying to sort the logistics of shipping multiple boats and kit around the world our container hasn’t turned up so we are trying to sort that now so that we can leave on the 12
th as planned. Ben has gone off snorkelling as has been his main activity when we haven’t been sailing which to be honest has been a real blessing for the rest of the house mates as there has been minimal guitar playing back at the house! Don’t tell him I said that though.
.....
December 2007
We arrived in Sydney on 1
st December and took a connecting flight to Melbourne. A further 2hr drive saw us arrive at Sorrento (SE of Melbourne) where we would be training from for the next two weeks. As usual there was a delay with the container, something to do with fumigation. Annoying to be delayed so soon into the trip, but with the help of the local boat yard we were set up for sailing by the 3
rd.
We were fortunate enough to have Chris Draper out with us to run the training and provide us with a coach for the two weeks. Obviously this was a great opportunity for us to get an insight into how Simon and he had run their campaign. This worked really well throughout the training and we learnt a lot from him.
The venue is pretty amazing. The club house is under a year old and is right on the beach looking over the sailing area. The sailing area is very shallow and you can see the bottom the whole time. It’s also very tidal and there are some strong currents running down the deeper channels. All this makes for some pretty remarkable sailing. Especially as there seems to be good breeze and sunshine most days!
The only drawback to the place we’ve found so far is the plague of flies! They’re everywhere. I’ve had to invest in a mosquito net to keep them off my face whilst working on the boat. But fortunately we seem to be able to get away from them on the water. This has meant we’ve done more hours on the water per days here than at any other venue this last year! We’ve been doing around 5 hours over two session’s everyday with a break for lunch between. We seem to be sailing well and the trainings been really productive. With the only minor hiccup coming at the end of the two weeks when at the pre-start of a practise race we collided with one of the French boats. Oopps! Fortunately only caused a bit of cosmetic damage, although by the French’s reaction you’d have thought we’d sunk them!
We’ve been staying in a beach house with a couple of other members of the squad and Chris. It’s a cool place and almost backs onto the beach. We’ve been able to get up early a few mornings to go snorkelling or surfing before the wind picks up.
In the middle of the two week stint we had a day off when we got the ferry over to the SW side of Port Phillip Bay and drove down in an ’81 Land Rover to Bells Beach for the day. It was a hilarious trip with 6 of us plus boards crammed in the back of this Landy! Its top speed was around 45mph which left us with huge tail backs behind us. And to top things off it broke down on the way home! Great fun trip though.
Everyone over here seems really friendly and helpful it’s been great so far. Stevie has now flown back to the UK to catch up with family over Xmas, whilst I’m staying out in Aus but flying up to Sydney to meet my girlfriend who’s flying out to meet me.
We’re back in Sorrento on the 29
th Dec ready for the Worlds to start on the 4
th Jan.
.....
26 November 2007
After a relaxing couple of months the training has begun again. We have been fairly fortunate with the weather and managed to get on the water quite a lot in the last three weeks. We’ve been sailing from our home sailing club in Exmouth rather than travelling to Weymouth everyday. There’s going to be so much travelling in the next ten months that it’s pretty nice to be able to get in some good training hours at home. Although there’s no one else to sail against, because we’ve not sailed in a while just time on the water counts and gets us into a more natural way of sailing.
We’ve had some time off which has given us a good chance to get on top of our fitness which is often hard to do when we’re sailing as well. I’ve been out to Palma, Mallorca for a weeks intensive cycle training camp and Stevie’s been working hard on his balance work with our physio Dave. The cycle camp was great and I managed to notch up some long rides as well as squeezing in a bit of climbing. It seems to have paid off and at a recent fitness test our results were pretty good. We’re now just looking forward to getting the sailing fitness back but that comes with long hours of intensive training on the water. Fortunately that should be possible as we’re off out to Melbourne this coming Wednesday in preparation for the World Championships held there in January. We’re both really excited especially after the long break that we’ve had, and can’t wait to get back in to training.
Stevie’s then flying back on the 15th December for Christmas so he can see his family whilst I’m staying out in Australia and my girlfriend’s coming out to meet me. It should be a good Christmas!
.....
23 October 2007
We’ve had a great couple of weeks. Having some time off and away from sailing getting to do some of the other things in life we don’t get a chance to do when the season gets up and running. We’ve both managed to get in loads of mountain biking and whilst Stevie’s spent some time with his family I’ve been on holiday to Iceland with my girlfriend. So not much sailing! Although whilst I was in Iceland Stevie won a National ranking event with Simon Hiscocks crewing for him with a series of straight firsts! I think I might be out of a job! But, it was a great chance for Stevie to sail with one of the best 49er crews in the world and hopefully he picked up a few ideas we can work on this autumn.
Stevie has also been testing a new boat designed by his father Phil Morrison and Derek Clark. The boat is aimed at filling the new Women’s Olympic Skiff slot which is up for decision in the next few months.
This last week we have had our first proper training week back in the boat since our break. It’s all gone well and it has given us a chance to put some of the ideas we’ve had whilst away to test. We also had the pleasure of opening a new Gul clothing store down in Plymouth on Thursday. It made us feel like real celebrities!!!
We’ve now got another National ranking event this weekend in Weymouth and then we’re back to training next week.
12 October 2007
Skandia Sail for Gold regatta was always going to be a pretty exciting event for us. Not just for the sailing but because the first British Olympic Association nominations were to be announced. As far as the trials process was concerned we had done everything asked of us results wise but to hear our name announced was a pretty special feeling.
As far as the sailing event was concerned it was kind of low on our priority list! Obviously when you’re out on the water you put 100 % into the racing but the event was scheduled right in the middle of our rest period so our preparation was non-existent!
The best thing for us was the chance to catch up with sponsors and supporters of our campaign especially G4S.
The racing was cancelled on the first three days due to too much wind and this then only left one full days racing on the Saturday. It was pretty light winds and although we sailed well in the first three races we made numerous mistakes in the fourth race of the day. This put us in second place overall but a way off first place, held by John Pink and Simon Wheeler, who sailed exceptionally well.
Sunday was medal race day and as we were ten points back we needed to be 1st and John and Simon had to be worse than 6th. A very hard task as once again the wind was back and the standard of the fleet was pretty low, therefore making very unlikely that they would be worst than 6th. We attacked them on the start and gave them a penalty to do within the last 30 secs before the start gun. But they recovered from it and rounded the top mark 5th with us 4th. On the next lap we managed to reel in a couple of boats and nearly won the race but John and Simon hung on to 5th to win the Gold.
A little disappointed not to have won, but its great to see the guys we plan to be training with in the run up to the Games next year, sailing really well and pushing us hard especially in the light conditions similar to which we might encounter in China.
During the race the organisers had us rig up some new onboard camera system that seemed to work really well and hopefully the technology will be used more in the future to provide more interest to the spectators at onshore and at home. I think some of the footage from the event will be shown on BBC soon.
Once again it was great to see some of the G4S team and we look forward to catching up again in the future.
30 August 2007 - Competing at the Pre Olympics Qingdao, China
After a short holding camp in Shanghai to acclimatise and relax prior to starting the regatta we flew back to Qingdao and sailed around from our training venue to the Olympic marina. The Olympic marina is only open for a certain number of days a year to keep security tight. To enter the marina we needed accreditation and to pass through airport style x-ray machines.
Once in the venue we set about getting the boat measured and organised ready for the first race. The team has a great set up inside the venue with an athlete container with air conditioning and bean bags to stay out of the heat on! It’s a pretty hard place to have to wait around for wind, the heat and humidity is oppressive and as there isn’t often a lot of wind, a lot of time was spent in the containers!
The event started slowly for us. There was very little wind for the first couple of days and the race committee quickly fell behind the schedule. We weren’t sailing at our best either. Having just come from Cascais and the World Championships where we had prepared for stronger winds our preparation for this event wasn’t as thorough as we would have hoped. This meant we were learning as we were competing and lead to a few mistakes early on.
After the first couple of days we were down in 7th overall and the wind still wasn’t complying. It was a very stressful few days lying in a poor position and not being able to do anything about it, as well as seeing the final races approaching.
 | Fortunately after a couple of days the wind trickled in and we got some races in. We sailed really well for three races prior to the final medal race and whilst we thrived in the conditions our main competition fell apart. At the end of the day we’d shot up the leader board to 2nd and equal points with 1st.
The medal race was completely different conditions to the rest of the event. Big, steep waves and plenty of wind. We had a poor start but sailed a good first leg and got to the top mark third, but it all went wrong and in the waves we hit the mark meaning we had to do a penalty turn. After completing that we had dropped back to 8th knocking us out of the medals. The next two legs were uneventful and it was looking bad for us but in those conditions it’s always a challenge just getting around the course without capsizing so we kept our fingers crossed. We sailed solidly down the last run and to our delight saw four of our competitors capsize! Moving us up to first overall by one point!!! |
Crossing the line all I felt was pure relief, no joy or pleasure. It was an odd feeling especially after sailing so well in Cascais.
The medal ceremony was straight away and was great to have most of the rest of our team there cheering us on.
Some of the other classes had more races the following day so after a few beers that evening we went back down the next morning to cheer them on.
It was an amazing event for the team winning 5 gold’s and 1 silver medal. Hopefully a good sign for what’s to come next year
..........
August - 2007 - Heading out to the Qingdao Test Olympics, China
After the World Championships in Cascais, we flew back to England as our local sailing club put on an evening to celebrate our results. It was great to be able to say thanks to all the people who have supported us since we started sailing.
Unfortunately the celebrations came to an end after the weekend and we were straight back into preparations for the Pre-Olympics.
Our result at the Worlds has won us the single British 49er slot for the competition and given us a very real chance of qualifying for the Olympics themselves depending on a good result this month in China.
Our boat, the 49er is very lightweight, fast and responsive and because of this our body weight can vary the boats performance depending on the wind strength. Basically if it’s windy you want to be heavier and if its light winds you want to be very light. It’s all a matter of balancing the forces generated by the sails with our own body weight and positioning. The World Championships last month were at a windy venue so we had trained hard to stay strong and fairly heavy, but with the Pre-Olympics the winds are often very light so for the last 3 weeks we have been dieting hard. We have followed a strict diet created by our team nutritionalist specifically for us and have done a lot of cycling and aerobic exercise. Doing this we have managed to lose around 5 kgs each, a substantial amount, which should make a big difference in China.
We are now out in Qingdao and have been since the 1st August. It’s our 3rd trip here so we are fairly accustomed to the surroundings, which is a pretty important factor in a venue so different to that of home. Since we’ve been here we’ve got a few hours training in which is pleasing but the weather has been pretty terrible. We’ve had a thunderstorm almost everyday we’ve been here! We got to meet Sir Clive Woodward this evening, who with the head of the British Olympic Association have stopped off to see us on their way home after having a meeting in Beijing. It was very exciting meeting him.
The team is well looked after and we’ve been making the most of the local G4S officers on trips to the local markets to aid bartering!
We have a few days of measurement now and then the event starts on the 15th August.
..........
July 2007 - 49er World Championships, Cascais, Portugal
Pre Race preparation
We travelled out to Portugal on the 1st July to prepare for the World Championships. The boat and all our equipment was already in the venue ready to go after our last training week, two weeks earlier.
It was a massive event with all the Olympic classes competing in one place, although the organisers spread the different fleets out around various beaches and slipways. The entire venue was completely cordoned off from the general public and people were only allowed in after showing an accreditation pass. This event only happens every 4 years so it always feels pretty special.
The Championship started early in the week although our racing only got under way on Friday 6th. From our point of view it was quite nice being able to follow the other classes and it provided a welcome rest from worrying about our own competition.
For us the few days before racing started were spent testing our new G4S logo'd spinnakers and getting our boat measured and weighed so as to be certified to race in the event. Everything went smoothly and we were able to stick to our schedule, which is highly unusual in sailing!
Qualifying
Racing began on Friday in what’s called the qualifying series, where all competitors are split into four equal sized fleets and supposedly equal standards using World rankings, . Each fleet then completes the scheduled number of races for the day (usually 3). At the end of the day the fleets are re-grouped using the overall results and racing then commences again the following day.
Whilst in qualifying it’s really important to be consistent and not pick up any bad results therefore using your discard. We had an amazing start scoring a 1st and a 2nd on the first day. We’d hoped to be scoring in the top 5 but this was better than we could have wished for.
The wind throughout the qualifying was often strong and also very gusty and shifty making the possibility of picking up a bad result that much more likely. Fortunately we managed to avoid that whilst most of our rivals were affected in some way.
After qualifying the fleets then split for the last time into the Gold, Silver and a Bronze fleet. The top 27 boats compete in the Gold fleet. .
In qualifying the fleets are varied in the standard of sailor. However, in the Gold fleet all the top names are racing, making any results in the top 8 a good result.
We topped the overalls going into the Gold fleet giving us a nice point’s cushion to the second placed team.
We sailed a great series and managed to extend our lead after four Gold fleet races.
Medal day
The event then has its climax in the Medal race, where the top 10 boats in the overall standings go into a final double point’s race.
As the results stood we could at worst finish in Bronze and to keep Gold we had to be within 5 places of the second place Austrian team. This task would usually be fairly straight forward but the course area was tucked up very close to the shore (to aid media coverage) thus making the racing tricky and hard to predict.
The wind for the first time in the week came off the sea and was very light. We didn’t have the best start but stayed close to the Austrians. By the last lap we were well ahead of them and relaxed a bit and sailed our own race to the finish. In doing this we overtook another two boats finishing in 4th place in the race and therefore winning the World Championships by 17 points.
Celebrations
From then on everything is a bit of a blur! We had hundreds of cameras flashing away at us; we were thrown a British flag from the team and a couple of bottles of champagne.
The organisers then rushed us in to the shore where we had TV interviews and had our medals presented whilst topping the podium. After that followed a press conference and interviews with BBC 5 live.
For a couple of hours it was a full whirlwind of activity and emotions before being brought back to the less glamorous side of sailing and having to pack up our boat and load it on to a trailer so our travel partners could get off back to the UK.
Having been home a few days now and inundated with congratulatory texts and emails, what we have achieved is just starting to sink in, but I think it will be a while before we come off this amazing high of being World Champions! |  |
| Ben celebrating the win |
July 2007
There’s just two days until we start racing at the ISAF World Sailing Championships in Cascais, Portugal, and all is going well for Team Morrison-Rhodes.
We’ve spent about three weeks out here training prior to the event so feel we’ve got a pretty good handle on the conditions. Our preparation has gone as well as we could have hoped, so we’re pretty excited about getting the regatta underway so we can unleash our brand new G4S spinnakers on the racecourse.
The Worlds are a major event in the selection process for British sailors for the Beijing 2008 Olympic, and as such, the next couple of weeks will really be a defining moment in our sailing careers. There’s stiff competition within the Skandia Team GBR 49er fleet for that single British spot, but with the training hours we’ve put in out here and our form at major events so far this year, we feel we’re in pretty good shape.
Racing for the 49er class starts on Friday 6 July with 15 races scheduled, after which the top ten boats go through to the final medal race on Friday 13 July.
You can keep up to date with our progress at
www.skandiateamgbr.com
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