Olympic challenge: Windsurfing

Chopping the waves with an Olympic windsurfer is not plain sailing

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12 July 2012

Before I’m even in the water, I can tell the all-male group standing around me: “Don’t expect me to stand up on the windsurf board planted beneath my feet on the slipway, let alone make it move in the water.”

Olympic windsurfer Nick Dempsey, the Standard’s photographer and Tris Best, my coach for the morning, are looking at some nearby sails, flapping furiously in the 24-knot wind. They look back to me and all have a sharp intake of breath.

“Don’t worry too much about getting up,” says Dempsey, who can look over the bay from Weymouth and Portland National Sailing Academy, where we are standing, and spot his house — bought three years ago so he could train non-stop for the Olympics.

The sum total of my water sports experience consists of waterskiing (moderately successful) and surfing (hopeless). But the positioning seems relatively easy — on dry land at least. You stand, feet apart, either side of the mast and pull, hand over hand, on the rope attached to it to bring the sail out of the water.

Using small steps, the next stage is to face the sail into the wind by walking around the back of the mast — thereby turning the direction the board is pointing — and grabbing the boom, the bar which goes across the sail.

This works like an accelerator — the closer you pull the boom and sail to your body, the faster the board will move. If you let the sail slack, you lose speed. I manage to execute all these moves on land but forget everything as soon as I slither down the seaweed-y slipway into the water.

Which way is the wind blowing? Which way should I be facing? And where on the horizon does Dempsey — who by this time is whizzing back and forth around me — want me to head? I’m not really sure how I manage it but I face the right way, successfully haul the sail up, edge around the mast, turn the board, grab hold of the boom and — before I even know I’m doing it — shoot off in roughly the direction Tris Best and Dempsey want me to go. There is an outburst of applause from the men. The photographer — seeing that he may actually get a shot of me on a moving board in the water — scrambles into the rib and is whisked across the bay to capture me and Dempsey windsurfing side by side.

Yes, me and an Olympic bronze medallist actually windsurfing in tandem. I am so chuffed and surprised that I fall off. Which is when I realise that starting from the shore is relatively easy — jumping on to the board in deep water and hauling the sodden sail out of the choppy waves is difficult and tiring. Out in the bay, you also have to work much faster because the wind changes direction all the time and you soon find yourself back in the water if you don’t get into position rapidly.

I manage to get up another couple of times and windsurf across the bay, shouting to Dempsey for help with my direction. As only a professional who has windsurfed since he was seven can be, he is hopeless at teaching others how to do what comes utterly instinctively to him.

Eventually I half-windsurf, half-swim — dragging the board behind me — back towards the rib. Back on shore, most of the praise comes from Dempsey himself. Incidentally, his wife Sarah Ayton is one of the so-called “Three blondes in a boat” who won gold in the Yngling sailing class at the Beijing Olympics in 2008.

Ayton — who won gold in Athens in 2004 and is an OBE — retired from sailing last year to focus on spending time with their son so that Dempsey, who came fourth in Beijing, can focus on winning a gold medal in London.

“The run-up to the Olympics is always an emotional time for Sarah because she loves sailing,” says Dempsey, “but she also loves being a mother and she wanted to make the sacrifice for me to continue doing a sport that I love. I hope I can do enough this summer to make her and all my family proud.”

Nick Dempsey

Age: 31

Home town: Norwich

Measuring up: 5ft 9in, 11st 5lb

Training hours: In the run-up to the Games, an hour a day windsurfing plus eight hours cross-training, six days a week.

Sporting bling: Olympic bronze medal, Athens, 2004.

Starting block: Age seven, on a lake in Peterborough.

Olympic dream: “My wife Sarah [Ayton] has succeeded, she can hold her head high. I haven’t — I’ve not performed to my potential. I know Weymouth Bay like the back of my hand — if there was ever an optimum time for me to win gold, it is this Olympic Games, this summer, in Weymouth.”

Deborah’s verdict

Winner or loser? Winner, then loser.

Loved it or loathed it? Loved it, will definitely try it again.

Olympic hopeful? 6/10.

Olympic challenge: Windsurfing

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Nick Dempsey