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Jordi Xammar and the Spanish SailGP catamaran: history of 200 days sailing on the edge

2022-11-12T16:15:24.840Z


The physical and emotional vicissitudes of the Spanish boat and its crew to establish themselves in the formula 1 of the sea gives substance to a documentary recorded behind the scenes, 'Racing in the Edge'


The Spanish catamaran, on the right, collides with the American in San Francisco.SailGP

Sailing on the edge

is the title of the documentary that, from behind the scenes of the races, recounts the adventure of the Spanish SailGP team, and you begin to see it thinking that the edge of the title refers to the thin sheet of the

foil

over which the F50 catamarans rise when they fly, and it only takes a couple of images to realize that the true edge is the razor's edge that Jordi Xammar walks at full speed, and sprints.

Seven months as a driver, a leader, adrenaline, a sudden rush, and a slump that touches him so much that he is even willing to cancel his honeymoon in Kenya to try to recover and strengthen his leadership, and he sobs before the camera that records him. .

An adventure that a month and a half after the Cádiz stage, in which the team found some stability, continues this weekend in the waters of Dubai, where, on the first day, this Saturday, the lightness of the wind did not help the spirit of affirmation among the greats of the young Spanish team, which finished ninth, far from Ben Ainslie's Great Britain,

Peter Burling's New Zealand and Jimmy Spithill's United States ship.

No chance to qualify this Sunday in the final.

It is the story of 200 days to the limit.

Accelerated learning, and bumps.

And the determination to never give up.

San francisco California.

March 25, 2022. Last day of the SailGP season.

Xammar, 28, a bronze medalist a few months earlier with his 470 at the Tokyo Games, and recently appointed leader of the Spanish team, has sat down for the first time at the table of the greats.

Press conference with Tom Slingsby, Nathan Outteridge, Jimmy Spithill.

The most of the most.

They are the drivers of the F50s from Australia, Japan and the United States.

All three will be played in the bay, not far from the Golden Gate, the final victory.

Pointing at them, Xammar adoringly and defiantly says, “I was just running after them to take pictures of myself, and now here I am, sitting with them.

It is the opportunity of our life.

We want to be the Three Wise Men”.

Jordi Xammar.Thomas Lovelock / SailGP

The next day, in the first race of his life behind the wheel, boom.

The Spanish boat is the first on the starting line.

They all look at him with their mouths open.

Nobody expected it.

They exceeded all expectations.

In one regatta they finish third, in the other second.

Xammar is in the clouds.

“The debut wasn't bad, was it?” he says, and smiles, and only 24 hours later he drives to the port in a van.

He is going to start the second day, the one that will decide if

Victoria

, the Spanish F50, goes to its first final.

“Any tips?” he confidently asks Outteridge in the van on the way to the harbor before the season finale.

“I only ask you not to hit us, heh, heh.

If you give to any that is red, blue or green”.

Xammar obeys.

He hits a beat at a buoy.

He does not give it to the Japanese ship, but to the blue one, precisely to the United States.

They wreck his ship.

They knock him out.

“We have killed the American, man.

She is going to fall very fat, man ”, comments Xammar, despondent, to the rest of the crew.

And, later, before the cameras: “I felt that it might be the last time I took an F50″.

And Diego Botín, the

flight controller

of the ship, the one who manages the height of the

foils,

agrees: “The priority was not to mess it up.

Not being the center of attention for a mess."

They have made the favorite, the United States boat, lose the grand finale, and in its waters.

Lower can not fall.

Or if?

Lisa Darmanin, sailor and journalist, sums up the situation: “The clash showed Jordi's character.

He went in with everything, but the blow crushed his self-confidence.

So the next time he would think about it more and stop being him.

He would no longer have confidence in his decisions.”

Have passed.

Britain.

Third race of the 22-23 season after Bermuda and Chicago.

The Spaniards, downcast since San Francisco, have not done anything outstanding, but on the first day, they are once again protagonists, sadly protagonists.

July 30.

They look for a hole in the exit.

Day one.

Race one.

Sir Ben Ainslie, driver of the British team, British waters, block the way.

Spain does not stop.

Blow.

Crew member Florian Trittel recalls it: “We were paralyzed.

It was a shock.

What do we do now?"

Xammar: “I had my confidence back and wham, again.

Boom.

I was in shock.

It was a smaller collision, but it made me take a really big step back."

Australian leader Slingsby discusses the problem, the great danger Xammar is in.

“It's like F1.

If you lose confidence and have to think about going into a turn, and you ask yourself, do I have to do it now?

Do I have to wait?” he explains, with the Kinks song in his head,

should I stay or should I go?

"That's hesitating.

And people like me, like Peter Burling, like Ben Ainslie, we're going to see it and we're going to go for it without hesitation."

Lower than ever, they arrive in August at the Copenhagen race.

Russell Coutts, the skipper of the SailGP, writes strongly against Xammar.

"Maybe he should leave the steering wheel to Diego Botin," he says.

The team meets.

The CEO of the Spanish team, María del Mar Ros, says that nanay, that Jordi follows.

“His leadership of him in the team has to grow.

We have to give him time,” she says.

But in Copenhagen things do not improve.

Trittel: “We had no confidence or initiative.

We were not proactive."

Lisa Darmanin: “In his short time, Jordi has beaten Jimmy Spithill and Ben Ainslie.

He has been scared.

Since then, he flees ship-to-ship battles.

He doesn't want to have them.

But that's exactly what SailGP is all about, ship vs. ship battles.

And you have to participate in that party.

The team sits down again to talk.

The meeting turns to drama because Xammar, who plans to go on his honeymoon those days, says that he has told Carmen, his wife, "we are not going on our honeymoon because... well..." And he breaks down sobbing in front of the camera .

However, he is on his honeymoon in Kenya, and although he confesses that 90 percent of the time, instead of enjoying the safaris or the giraffe races, he only thinks about the fights with his F50, the vacations as a couple they transform him

“In Copenhagen we left scared, worried about what Russell would say.

Let's take for… I'm going to stop asking everyone, that's not me.

From now on I'm going to take the reins and make the decisions myself.

I am no longer the rookie,” he proclaims.

Do not surrender.

In the Bay of Cadiz, the last week of September, the Victoria makes the best races of the season, and, cheered on by thousands of fans from the walls, it even breaks through to the final on the second day.

"This is a great challenge," Xammar finally breathes.

“Four years ago we were not even on the map.

And in Cadiz we have begun to see the lights of a first final of a Spanish team in SailGP.

I have blind faith."

And Dubai arrived, and hope, always.

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Source: elparis

All sports articles on 2022-11-12

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