Lotte Meldgaard Pedersen, skipper on one of the two Danish match race teams attending this year’s women’s world championship in Auckland, 
NZ, 1-6 April, is clear in her perception of the key to success. It’s the teamwork that counts. Each member’s capability to maintain focus under extreme pressure is crucial. Also the ability to adjust role functions due to changes in conditions is important. Stay calm - don’t panic. The moment you start hearing very heated commands and shouting from the opponent’s boat you know that you’re about to win the race/heat, Lotte explains, and continues: at this level of competition everyone in the team have demonstrated a will to win.
Driven by the passion for the sport they gather twice a week, almost no matter the weather, to improve their manoeuvring skills and fine tune roles and communication in different situations. Of course the friendship that evolves when spending many hours together is a driver too.
Sitting face to face with Lotte, less than twenty hours before she and her team are due to leave for Sydney, you find a very calm and relaxed person despite the many things still to be done; project deliveries in connection with her full-time job as a coastal and marine foundation engineer with the Danish consulting firm COWI; trying to squeeze five weeks luggage into only 20 kilos and preparing for the races in Sydney later this week and in Auckland in April. In fact the race in Auckland is the reason for this interview; whether DHI can assist with water forecasts for Auckland harbour up to and during the match race. On previous occasions DHI has, together with local offices, assisted sailors with forecasts of current conditions, for example, the Olympic Games in Sydney. The scene is dramatic and intense.
The scene is dramatic and intense
What is a match race? A match race is a match between two competitors racing twice rounds on a course with two marks. To make it as spectacular as possible the course is short, such that the distance between the boats doesn’t get too large. Furthermore, the course is placed close to land. For example, a race in Sweden took place in a narrow fiord with cliffs on both sides and one of the marks placed leaving only 50 meters to turn! Each heat lasts about 25 minutes; typically six minutes beating up against the wind and 4 minutes running before the wind and then the same lap once more. The start is thrilling and is a game of its own. Can you provoke the opponent to make a mistake? Drawing fouls is an important part of match racing. The rules for when, and not, to raise the flag must be known – the umpire boat makes the judgement and reacts to flags raised/signals by the battling boats. Penalties are given immediately: one rotation of the boat thus loosing valuable seconds.
You’re carrying the nick name ‘bag-sailors’ - why? It’s because we do not bring our own boats along only our ‘bags’. The club arranging the race provide identical boats – they ‘match’ so to speak. Usually six boats are to be shared by the teams participating in the race. Before a race you’ll have 2 hours to become familiar with the boat. However, the boats may differ from event to event, and with crew from four to six persons. Part of the preparation for the world championship is to find and rent a boat of similar type as to be used in the race and a coach familiar with this type. The coach’s experience reduces the time required to become familiar with the boat. This allows us more time to adjust and test team roles. So, despite that you need to adapt to different boats, you save all the troubles and costs involved in bringing your own boat.
You’re using other coaches? We have obtained good results from consultations with a mental trainer, which improved our capability to focus and to relax. In a match day you’ll race 6-10 matches, with breaks on land in between. It’s important to be able to relax in these breaks both physically and mentally, as you need all your strength during the race. This training has proven very useful for all of us also in the process of rehearsing ways of communication and in getting to know each other better.
Your list of achievements as sailor began when winning the Danish Championship for optimist dinghies! Yes, I was 15 years old back then and it was my last event in that boat type. I started in optimist dinghy when I was eight. Then to try something different from single boats I began to sail with two guys in ‘Yngling’ boat for three years. During a stay at a sport college in 1992 I tried the DS37, a boat for match race that was about to be released by the Danish Yachting Union, and have stayed with this type ever since. Your first international match race? This took place in Sweden in 1998, invited by the organizers, which we won. Then one by one followed in other European countries and in the US.
The reason for becoming a hydraulic engineer was that motivated by your experience as sailor? Actually not - when I started at the Technical University I had no idea that this field existed. It was the geotechnical area that caught my interest, which I learned about from a friend at the sport college. Then the ‘classic’ course at that time you know with many years of theoretical studies and only limited practical applications followed. It was quite late in the study I began taking lectures in hydraulics and coastal engineering and first after graduation that I realised the advantage of my career as match race sailor.
What kinds of spin-offs? For example, the significance in getting everyone to take part; motivation; team building; where are we heading and why is it that we work so hard. Then all the site visits to different ports and marinas where the races are taken place provide an opportunity to see how these ports are designed and arranged.
Spin-offs the other way around? Sometimes my boat mates think I’m a nerd, when I start to explain or make reflections about the different processes we observe in nature. On the other hand they can see the usefulness in drawing these. We all have different professions and each is bringing in knowledge and experience that is useful. Working with the MIKE 21 model over the years has also contributed to a better understanding of local wave and current conditions.
You’re happy with MIKE 21? Yes, and it’s getting more and more targeted for engineering applications and it’s easy to use. The visuals that can be produced also prove very useful in communicating the results to our clients. I’m mostly using it for assessment of design conditions for marine and coastal structures - and have used MIKE 21 in many projects worldwide. However, I’ve not yet tried to run it in real time or interactively with meteorological and tidal forcing.
Apples and models
Why do you think that a DHI water forecast will give you an advantage? Well, one can tell a lot about the conditions from observations made on site. For example, from looking at buoys, flow around bridge pillars, and watch the track that floaters make. We’re actually using a lot of apples which we throw in the water at the marks. However, these observations don’t give you the flow pattern in the entire area nor how this may change in time.
We’ll see what we can do – Lotte, thank you for coming and we wish you and your team all success in Sydney and in Auckland.
Interview made by Bo Mogensen – DHI DK
Water forecasts to be made by
Pierre Hoevelt and
Benjamin Tuckey from DHI New Zealand, Auckland office, assisted by
Peter Rasch from DHI Australia, Gold Coast office.