Take a bow: Laurie Davidson’s design legacy from ferro cement to Cup winners

A champion eSailor who enjoys getting wet on real boats

Story by Debra Douglas Squadron eSailing champion for the 2021 season, Chris Salmon, is downsizing what he laughingly calls his “addiction” to the sport.

“‘For the first couple of my three years playing the game I was out of control. I was playing up to 14 hours a week, but for the last year I have realised I have to concentrate on ‘real-world’ life and I am down to five hours,” said Chris.

What led to this fixation with eSailing? Chris, a business and development manager for a telecommunication company, wanted to get into on-the-water sailing. He started by Googling the rules of the sport and came across Virtual Regatta eSailing website. He downloaded the app and before he knew it, he was involved in fleet racing.

“It really grabbed me. The races are short, you can play on your desktop, phone or tablet and there are races for different classes of boats. It’s a great leveller; age, gender, fitness, all go out the window in eSailing. Another attraction being you can take more risks, there’s no expensive on-shore repairs, but if you do crash you receive a time penalty.”

Entering the game, competitors are given a boat number, or the option to name their boat. Chris named his boat Cool Runner after the movie Cool Runnings, which was based on the true story of the Jamaican national bobsleigh team’s debut at the 1988 Winter Olympics.

“They had no idea how to compete on a bobsleigh. I was the same. I had no idea what I was doing either.”

Chris soon became very skilful and at one stage was ranked 11th in the world, but with fewer hours at the screen this slipped last year to 210th out of about 50,000 competitors.

European skippers dominate the rankings, with many professional and Olympic sailors keeping their skills up during their winter seasons, finding it beneficial to their on-thewater sailing from a tactics point of view.

Unfortunately, there is no official NZ ranking for eSailing, but Chris says he would probably be 3rd in the country, with 10 others “chipping at my heels”. 2021 and lockdown saw Chris concentrate on international community regattas and the Squadron eSailing events using the simulator Virtual Regatta Inshore. On his tablet he took part in the Doyle Sails Wednesday Series and Havana Club Friday Rum Races. After eight weeks of serious competition, the top boats were selected to compete in the Club Championship, which Chris won.

Chris: “I was very impressed with the quality of the club’s finalists and how the new ones improved over the series.” A spin-off of the Squadron 2020-21 competitions was that Chris met members online who invited him out on the water.

He joined the Squadron last year, took part in the club’s Learn-to-Sail Programme and now Friday Rum Races will see him sailing on Charmonet, owned by Ross Chapman.

“I get an adrenaline fix from both forms of sailing. But I am still learning out on the water. All I am good for at the moment is ballast. eSailing helps you understand the sport from navigation and tactics points of view, but what it doesn’t help with is how to physically sail, i.e. raise a sail, trim a sail etc.

“From a gaming perspective, I hit my peak a couple of years ago. I’m getting older and my reactions are slowing. Where the game was once dominated by 30-40-year-olds, it is now the younger ones coming through.”

“I see my role as educating and encouraging others to give it a go. I would like more yacht clubs to bring eSailing on board as an official class within their clubs and I would certainly like to be involved with the Squadron’s plan to introduce the sport into its 2022 programme.”

In the meantime, Chris thinks he will be struggling to reach the final of any eSailing event, but to compensate he is now ‘hooked’ on real sailing.