19/06/2009

Double Olympic sailing champion Iain Percy admits it has ‘felt weird’ preparing for his first event back in the Star since he and Andrew Simpson clinched gold in the class at the Beijing Games last summer. With the pair having originally planned to spend this year preparing for an America’s Cup challenge with the British Team Origin, ongoing legal wrangles with the event have put those plans on hold for now, giving Percy and Simpson the chance to compete together again in the men’s Olympic keelboat class at the penultimate leg of the ISAF Sailing World Cup series in Kiel, Germany, which takes place from 20-24 June.

“Our plans have changed slightly,” Percy explained. “We would have been pretty full on preparing for the America’s Cup now but with the uncertainty still surrounding that, we realised we had an opportunity to get some of the building blocks in place for our Star campaign towards 2012.” “It has definitely felt weird – the last time you sail in the class you’re at your best and now after time away in different boats it feels clumsy and you’re making mistakes, which is just a reminder of how much difference a lack of practice makes!

“This event is part of that building process. It’ll help us to keep our hand in and it’s good for us to be able to do some Star sailing again so we can give something back to our sponsors, Skandia and Citroen, as well.” Percy and Simpson will be among 33 Skandia Team GBR sailors from eight classes who’ll be competing at this sixth leg of the World Cup, which also sees the first outing for the new modified Elliot 6m keelboat, which was selected for the women’s match racing event introduced for the London 2012 Games.