Masters preview
While you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, sailing is one sport where more mature participants may have an edge over their younger counterparts.
Older but wiser sailors take on the newbies.
Masters’ sporting competition is growing in popularity worldwide, fuelled partly by an ageing population, but also the realisation that getting older doesn’t have to mean slowing down.
Last year’s World Masters Games, hosted in Auckland, was the largest multi-sport event on the planet, attracting 25,000 athletes from 100 countries, including more than 200 sailors. Next year, the second annual masters’ championships will be run in Auckland in the MRX fleet. So what is it that’s attracting the more mature to get out on the water and prove that it’s not just young sailors who have all the fun?
Sailing has been a lifelong passion for Colin Maddren, who at 75 is “quite well into being a master” but still a regular on the racecourse. Maddren was one of the original owners of the MRX fleet, 28 years
ago, and still owns a half-share in a boat.
Maddren alternates keelboat racing with sailing his Zephyr at the Pt Chevalier Sailing Club. Over summer he’ll takes the helm of the MRX for the Richmond Wednesday night series, while boat partners Matt Bouzaid and Andrew Barron will take on “the tougher stuff” in the Squadron series.
Maddren was one of the instigators behind last season’s inaugural Masters’ Championships (sailed in the MRX fleet earlier this year) and has been promoting next year’s event around the country as he has travelled to campaign his Zephyr.
“I’ve seen regattas like this around the world, especially one that’s been running in San Diego for about forty years, with some of the big names from around the US competing. These regattas have been a big success overseas, so I thought why not do something similar here?
“Being in the age group of sailors who are possibly not as competitive
against the young guys as we used to be, I thought it would be good to have the opportunity to do something like this.”
Maddren has a regular crew, most of them dinghy sailors from the Pt Chevalier club: “It’s an easy way to find a crew. Two are 75, two around 65, and the other a relative youngster in his late 50s – and it works OK.
“The experience we have seems to help, especially when sailing around the harbour, with tides and wind shifts. We can still be pretty competitive. When you’ve been sailing on the Waitemata for more than fifty years, you do learn a bit – or you should. We’re also very familiar with rounding marks and don’t get in too much trouble. Maybe that helps to make up for a lack of reaction time.”
For Andy Ball, who won the inaugural MRX Masters’ Champs, the biggest attraction was getting his former crew back together for the regatta. “One of them said ‘let’s do this’ so we got some tee-shirts and got out there and had a lot of fun,” he says.
Sixty-five-year-old Ball, who raced Olympic classes and the Admiral’s Cup – as well as Half-, Quarter- and Onetonners in his younger days, currently owns the classic yacht
Aramoana and is club captain of the Classic Yacht Association. He says one of the advantages more mature sailors have is better people-management skills – “being able to listen and communicate and really build up the teamwork aspect. You just develop that with life experience and can apply it in sailing. As long as you’ve got some natural ability, the management side of it only improves with age.”
Ball, who was a MRX owner in the fleet’s early days, says the boats are well-suited to older crews, being easy to sail and well laid-out. Like Maddren, he has enjoyed seeing the resurgence of females sailing in the fleet, which has seen numbers climbing and some super-close racing on Tuesday nights and at the women’s nationals.
One of them said ‘let’s do this’ so we got some tee-shirts and got out there and had a lot of fun.
Sailing instructor Mike Lanigan (73) is proving that you can indeed teach an older dog new tricks, taking on the Weta doublehanded trimaran class at last year’s World Masters Games with his 60-year-old wife Sheryl and finishing second in their division.
“The main reason we did it was because it was a major competition being held on our back doorstep, but there was also the aspect of competing at a masters’ level against all these other different crews from all over the world,” he says. “For people who have been racing for most of their lives, it gives them the opportunity to compete against each other in a similar age group.”
Lanigan says taking on the competition was an enjoyable challenge. “The Weta is a fun boat to sail, but to sail it efficiently and effectively and be competitive at that level we had to put in a lot of practice. We put a huge amount of effort into what was a ten-month campaign for us. We didn’t go into it just to make up the numbers.”
Like any couple who sail together, the Lanigans had their moments: “Some of the conversations on board were pretty direct, but both of us were making a contribution to making the boat go faster,” he laughs. “We both had the same aim and objective, so there was that sense of shared responsibility.”
Lanigan says he thinks age and experience help sailors approach competing in a more mature way. “Although you’re still extremely competitive, you have a greater respect for the other competitors in close situations, like port-starboard or at mark roundings.”
Now he just needs to find himself a crew of able-bodied older sailors to compete – and acquit themselves well – in the MRX Masters’ Championships next year. “Usually you’ve got to ask yourself if you just want to participate or if you want to race. Masters sailing seems to be a bit of both.”
The 2019 MRX Masters’ Championships will be held on March 29–31. The regatta is open to skippers over 60 and crew over 45 and will provide both racing and social activities off the water.