BU's Wadlow ready for a current event
If you were a lifelong sailboat racer, it's a little hard to explain why you'd trade life in San Diego (a year-round sailing paradise) for life in Boston.
The answer is simple, said Tim Wadlow, the 34-year-old Boston University alumnus who will represent the United States at the Olympics next month as skipper in the 49er Class.
"Skiing," Wadlow said. "When I got here a lot of my friends were into it, and I found out there's a whole new season with other sports. I came here when I was around 18 and never left."
But San Diego, home waters of the 1992 and 1995 America's Cups, was good practice for Wadlow as he prepares for the Chinese venue of Qingdao, on the coast of the Yellow Sea, where conditions are similar.
Just back from his second practice session in Qingdao with crew Pete Spaulding, Wadlow spoke of quiet but very challenging waters to sail.
"China's a real unique and different place to sail," he said. "The average winds are very light. But that is a minor challenge compared to the current, which is huge - 1.2 knots or something. And it's also pretty wavy, with a combination of off-axis swells from aside or behind you, and then there can be a lot of surface chop from a different direction. So you end up with a pretty confused racecourse with lots of waves and current."
To make matters more challenging as he and Spaulding tried to keep a perfect balance in the lightweight dinghy, the humidity can wreak havoc.
"It might not seem like a big deal but it's so hazy all the time that you can't really see the difference between the horizon and the water. It just makes the place very disorienting, especially when the sky and water are the same color, and you can't really see wind shifts that well, or see anything to reference on.
"It's not pollution," said Wadlow, who saw none of the green algae that has been making headlines recently. "If you look at the weather buoys, the humidity is pegged at 100 percent every day. Some days it's hazy, some it's foggy. Only about one day in a week does it burn off enough so you see the sun."
After graduating from Torrey Pines High School in 1992, Wadlow came east. He was named an Intercollegiate Sailing Association All-American three times, winning the prestigious Sailor of the Year award his senior year at BU.
He also renewed his friendship with childhood buddy Spaulding, who was sailing for rival Boston College. After graduation, they teamed up in the 49er Class, where they campaigned as members of the US Sailing Team. In the 2003 World Championships in Spain, they qualified for the 2004 Olympics in Greece, where they finished fifth. In Beijing, Wadlow will team with Chris Rast, who sailed 49ers for the Swiss National Team in the 2004 Games. At those Games, Wadlow met Rast, a coach, who said experience counts in Olympic competition.
"At your first Olympics there's so much going on - so many attractions and distractions," Rast said at a pre-Olympic press conference. "The next time you go, you're focused on what you need to do."
The 49er Class, a 16-foot, double-trapeze skiff that skids along the surface nearly at multihull speed, is very much the modern, high-tech platform.
This Australian design has retractable wings in slider tracks that allow varied extension lengths to a maximum of 9 feet. This feature is the great equalizer as far as crew weight. In heavy air, a heavy crew's advantage can be offset by a lightweight crew sliding out farther to windward to keep the boat upright. The reverse effect is found in light air with a lightweight crew.
Between the double-adjustable trap and the huge power-to-weight ratio (hull weight 275 pounds with a 639-square-foot sail), the 49er can be exhausting to sail as it rounds the course faster than wind speed.
Traditionally, light air in light dinghies demands stillness and perfect weight distribution, but Qingdao's chop demands a different technique.
"It's not like the light-air sailing I've done in the past, where it's all about being very still," said Wadlow last week before he left for Beijing Wednesday. "Because of the swell, the power level in the boat is changing all the time.
"Our boat's so light, you're constantly moving just to adjust for the swells. That can be remarkably physically demanding," said Wadlow, who received an engineering degree at BU and works as an engineering consultant. "Traditional dinghies are real hard work when it's really windy. But in a 49er, the skipper's on the trapeze the whole time. I'm moving my weight in and out for every wave cycle, and by the end of the day it's pretty exhausting."
With the sailing venue some 400 miles from the Olympic Village, Wadlow and Spaulding were surprised to find how much recognition sailing receives in China.
"There are pros and cons to being that far from Beijing. The city of Qingdao has 8 million people, and it has just one Olympic event - sailing," said Wadlow. "So the whole city is just completely behind sailing. I mean, you drive down the city streets and there are billboards everywhere that show sailing ads and pictures of sailing.
"They've even renamed the city as 'Qingdao, the sailing city.' They are really behind the sport, and the people come to recognize an athlete. That feels really cool. But it's a bit of a bummer to miss Opening Ceremonies and other events, so there's some good and some bad to being so far removed from Beijing."
