BRITONS SAIL AWAY A SILVER BORN OUT OF TRAGEDY
Silver lining: Mark Covell and Ian Walker of Great Britain celebrate at the Opera House after receiving their medals for the men's open Star sailing on Sydney Habour
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OUTSIDE the harbour, in the big ocean swells off Sydney Heads, the final race in the Star class brought a dramatic reversal of fortunes for the pre-Olympic favourites and a silver medal for British crew Ian Walker and Mark Covell.
Going into the final race in second place, Brazil in front of them in the points table and America behind, the pair had to decide whether to be bold or protective in terms of their medal chances.
"We had to choose between covering the American, who was behind us at the start, or chasing the Brazilian who seemed to have a good break off the line just ahead off us and going for the gold," said Walker, a silver medallist at Atlanta in the 470-class dinghy.
"We decided to go for it and chase him but unfortunately the wind went right in a big way and lifted the American past us. We chased him for most of the race and ground it down to within about 30sec but never caught him."
Once back ashore the British crew learned that Brazil had been disqualified due to a pre-start rules infringement and they had been chasing a boat that couldn't win. The gold medal went to America with Britain second.
Their silver medal is a stunning achievement for a pair who have only been sailing together for a just over a year, in a class of boats designed in 1908 and reckoned to be so hard to sail that a five-year apprenticeship before you win a race is not uncommon.
The names of men who have won gold medals or world championships in the Star is like a who's who of sailing. Dennis Conner made his reputation in one; Lowell North who founded the sailmaking company of the same name was a champion; in recent years Paul Cayard, winner of the last Whitbread round-the-world race has named it as his all-time favourite boat.
It is a partnership born of personal tragedy. Covell had planned to campaign the Star with helmsman Glyn Charles, drowned in the 1998 Sydney-Hobart race. He met Walker, whose lifelong sailing partner and co-Olympic medallist John Merricks died in a 1997 car crash, after a consoling phone call for Charles's death.
"Originally it wasn't about sailing together but I really did want to carry on, but only with somebody who could match up to Glynn," said Covell.
"It just sort of emerged from those long phone calls in January 1999."
Walker had been planning to do another Olympic campaign with Merricks, prior to the latter's death in the mountains of Italy.
The two had been at a regatta based in Punta Ala and were driving to a restaurant for the prizegiving when the four-wheel drive vehicle they were passengers in rolled over on a hairpin bend. Walker was lucky to survive but Merricks was thrown out of the vehicle and killed instantly.
"We hadn't decided what boat we were going to compete in, although we'd both had enough of the 470 and I haven't been in one since Atlanta," said Walker recently.
"It just put all my Olympic plans on hold because there was so much other stuff to deal with such as John's girlfriend and family. At the end of the day, sailing's just a sport."
Even those who sail regularly with Walker say that it's hard to tell how much he was affected by Merrick's death. Although the two had sailed against and with each other since they were teenagers, they were very different.
Walker is a laconic, ultra-cool Cambridge graduate with a nice line in self-deprecating irony. Merricks was a former apprentice electrician, a cheeky chappy who left school at 16 and was happy to live on his wits.
In the early Nineties before the days of lottery funding for elite sailors, the two toured Europe in a battered van, towing their 470 from regatta to regatta and sleeping in a leaky tent.
Walker once caught mild pneumonia from the combined effects of camping, wet days at sea in a small dinghy and a diet consisting largely of Mars bars - all they could afford to eat.
After Atlanta they began to be invited to race larger yachts for wealthy owners, where the regime was more good hotels and dinner parties than tents and chocolate, but Walker's competitive heart was still in dinghies.
"My best man Tim Robinson asked me if I fancied doing some sailing in a 49er with him so I went along with that for a while. It was great fun and an Olympic class although we still hadn't decided whether to do a full-on Olympic campaign.
"We had a few top 10 finishes at the worlds but I'm not sure I'm the best person at the front of a skiff, so I didn't really want to commit wholeheartedly," recalled Walker. "I guess I was a bit lazy really. I just wanted to jog along and sail with my mates in warm places.
"Then the chance came along to this with Mark and the whole chemistry of the thing seemed right - although I'd never been in a Star in my life before. They looked a bit scary with those huge spindly masts and enormous sailplan."
Glyn Charles was spending a month or two racing in Australia over the Christmas and New Year of 1998. He was a great man for long-term planning and he had already put everything in place for a Star campaign with crewman Covell.
When 80mph winds and 60ft seas hit the Bass Strait on the day after Boxing Day, Charles was swept overboard from the yacht he was tactician on, despite being clipped on with a safety harness. It was days before his body was recovered.
Among the things he left behind was a brand-new Star. Annie Goodman, Charles's long-time partner, was insistent that Covell should try to find somebody to sail the boat with and keep the Sydney dream alive. Coincidentally, Walker's wife Lisa was urging her new husband that he should find a new Olympic campaign to get involved with.
"When Ian called me up from Key West he'd gone straight to America from Australia where he'd seen a lot of Glyn and it was sort of a way of me finding out more about what had really happened," said Covell. "Obviously it helped me that Ian had been through a very similar sort of experience when John was killed, so those conversations were a huge comfort."
Even then, as Walker's transatlantic phone bill mounted, Covell didn't think of Walker as a potential helmsman for the Star because he had always perceived him as a dinghy sailor, which is a long way from guiding a two-ton keel boat with the handling characteristics of a jumbo-jet.
Paradoxically, Walker had only given up steering a boat because of his partnership with Merricks. He was by far the lighter, so in terms of balancing the lightweight 470 it made perfect sense to have Walker out on the trapeze where his bulk could do more to stabilise the boat.
In the end it was Walker who said: "Well, I'd love to come if you'll have me."
Their first regatta together was the Bacardi Cup in Miami, which has the title of an unofficial world championship. Almost 100 boats and many of the class's top sailors from North America and Europe turn out for a little winter sunshine and keen competition.
They came 17th, an incredibly good result for an untried pair in a new boat with a helmsman who had never driven a Star before. Fortunately Charles's legacy amounted to more than just the yacht. He had left copious tuning and set-up notes which Walker was to find invaluable as they began to progress up the rankings.
As well as immense technical skill it requires an enormously heavy (Covell is 18st) and athletic crew-member to compensate for the small keel and keep the boat upright.
"The Star needs a big man to hang over the side but hopefully this week I've been more than a lump," joked Covell. "We've worked fantastically well together."
It may have been an accidental partnership but it has borne unexpected and wonderful fruit, tinged with melancholy.
"I learnt my trade from John and Glynn planned this whole campaign so in a way there ought to be four medals at the ceremony, because there were really four of us on the boat," said Walker.
KEITH WHEATLEY
Sunday Times
