By Daniel Henderson
Feature photo: Tania Samus
When most people look at the MUSTO Skiff, they think you need 4 arms and super hero abilities to sail it. The MUSTO Skiff is the fastest single handed trapeze asymmetric dinghy in the world. It may sound pretty hard to gybe the kite, steer smoothly through manoeuvres, and get the main sail across without going for a swim, but I am here to tell you that coming from a class such as the 29er, it will give you a great platform to join the fastest single handed trapeze dinghy in the world, that is fully World Sailing world recognised.
My history of 29er sailing started in 2005 as a crew for David Hopper. We travelled the world doing events in glorious locations such as San Francisco and Denmark. Being a crew taught me to improve the key attributes such as balance and trimming that I would need when I moved in to the MUSTO Skiff. After a year or so crewing the 29er, I decided that I wanted to spend some time sitting at the back of the boat helming, which is where I felt my strongest. I helmed the 29er for a year which was my first experience of helming a fast skiff style dinghy.
My home club of Thorpe Bay in Essex had a growing fleet of MUSTO’s at the time that I was looking to change classes. However when looking at the MUSTO Skiff fleet around 2007, the average age in the fleet was around 42. Now, when you look at this as a 16 year old, it can be quite daunting to think that you will loose all of your friends that are around your age, and go in to a class with a reasonably high average age. However, I looked at it as a way of learning from a group of sailors that had obviously had a lot of experience over their years, from sailors such as Richard Stenhouse, who was ranked at the top of the Finn class for a number of years, and also went to the Olympics. In 2009, the largest age category was 30-34. This shows that the average age is falling quite dramatically.
In September 2007, I turned up to the Tide Ride at Hayling Island, which was combined with the 29ers, B14’s, 700’s, and I14’s. Before that day, I had only sailed the boat once and didn’t have a clue what tensions and mast rake I would need; only being 65Kg at the time. As I started to unpack my boat, a number of MUSTO sailors helped me sort out the things that I was having problems with. On my first race at the Tide Ride, I finished 2nd, just beating Richard Stenhouse, the MUSTO Skiff guru.
Looking over the two boats, the 29er is slightly more unstable than the MUSTO, and where as when the 29er sails in to a lull, the crew has got to be quite fast to respond, the MUSTO carries all of its power in the last 1-2 inches of the main sheet, so when you sail into a lull, you can afford to keep your body weight out by grinding on the main.
As for the body weight needed, you can sail the MUSTO from around 65kg up to about 100kg, so there is a very large weight range in the class.
After I joined the MUSTO class, a few 29er sailors followed pursuit to also conquer the MUSTO. Tom Wright, a former 29er crew had never helmed a boat prior to getting in the MUSTO. He has shown that probably going from crewing the 29er, to the MUSTO is the more logical transition. This was also shown by Nick Hollis, who was formerly ranked 2nd in the world in the 29er as a crew. There is a growing youth class in the MUSTO, and every event has separate prizes for the youth class as it is growing so rapidly.
When most people grow or become too old to sail the 29er, the usual route is up in to the 49er, the Olympic two man skiff. People forever ask me why I decided to go in to the MUSTO Skiff, rather than the 49er. There are a few clear cut reasons why I chose the MUSTO over the 49er. After a few years in a two man skiff, it became apparent that two person sailing wasn’t for me. You have to share equal commitments and both gel to give the best performance. Its hard to find someone that you get along with both on and off the water.
The final major reason for going into the MUSTO, was my choice of further education. In 2009 I chose to go to Portsmouth University to study Water Sports Science and Development. Because I knew I was going to go to university, I felt that having the MUSTO Skiff was a better option because it means I can go sailing when I want to, and not have to worry about travelling to where my crew would be to go training.
From the first race at Hayling up till the present day, I have always believed that you don’t have to be Super Man to sail the MUSTO, it just takes practice, some time on the water, and a little more practice to get to the front of the fleet.
Sailing CV
At the time of first publishing this article, Dan had twice finished 2nd overall at the nationals and had been UK Youth National Champion (under 21) 4 times!!!
Forum discussion on Dan’s performance in the Musto Skiff >>>>
