'We have our own language other people might not understand' - GB sailor Eilidh McIntyre reveals secret to success with Hannah Mills
It is an innovation that may unlock the door to an Olympic medal and would surely also fascinate any student of human behaviour and communication.
Eilidh McIntyre and Hannah Mills were crowned world champions in the 470 sailing class last year and enter 2020 among the favourites for a gold medal in Japan that would make Mills the most successful women’s Olympic sailor. And behind this success has been an on-water communication kit that records everything they do during those long hours out training. The particularly inventive (and painstaking) part is that they then spend even longer hours off the water analysing everything that has been said and done in an attempt to understand how they communicate in what is often the chaos of the wind, waves and noise of a race.
And here is the eye-opening bit. The human mind plays tricks. What you think you have said, done, seen and heard is sometimes the diametric opposite of a truth that becomes incontrovertible when it is later played back in a quiet debrief room. It is a fact worth remembering when you next argue with someone over a past misunderstanding.
“It’s amazing, super-interesting and hilarious sometimes,” says McIntyre. “All of a sudden, you can disprove stuff. You can be in the boat thinking, ‘I know I told you that’ and then, you watch it back, and you didn’t. It’s because you are thinking it in your mind.
“Sometimes you are also watching it back and thinking, ‘Say it, say it’ and you don’t. Or you will do something and think ‘I don’t remember doing that’. Or maybe I will say something and Hannah hasn’t heard. So why didn’t Hannah hear? Did she not understand? Do we need to rethink the way we word stuff to give it more clarity and punch.
“It’s also not just what we are saying but how we are speaking. We now have our own language that other people might not understand.”
A brief window into how McIntyre and Mills interacted during a training camp last year in Enoshima Bay also felt instructive. There was virtually no wind but still McIntyre was adamant that they should get out on the water while they could and not waste too much time on photographs.
Mills had previously partnered Saskia Clark in winning silver in London 2012 and then gold in Rio four years later but, with Clark retiring in 2016, an opportunity arose. McIntyre had been sailing with Sophie Weguelin and, although they had formed a good partnership and won medals at various World Cup and international events, had missed out on Olympic qualification.
She felt that they would not win Olympic gold and, although Mills was still uncertain at this stage about her future, decided to start afresh. A phone call would follow which felt uncomfortably like asking someone out on a date. “I did take a big risk but, in my heart, we [McIntyre and Weguelin] couldn’t create the team we needed to be to win gold,” she says. “Hannah was reigning Olympic champion but sailing another class.
“It was a bit weird – I had been Hannah’s rival. I was quite young and so it was not like we had gone through youth together. I was the less experienced person calling the Olympic gold medallist and saying, ‘I think I’m good enough to sail with you’. I picked up the phone and said, ‘I’m really nervous’. She knew and was like, ‘I’ve been waiting for your call’. Instantly we got on well and clicked on the water.” It had been a situation which demanded a certain ruthless clarity but, as McIntyre then outlines her burning lifelong ambition to win Olympic gold, you begin to understand why she took that gamble.
“It was really tough – you have to have belief in yourself and follow your heart occasionally,” she says. “I was so broken after not being selected for Rio. It was like, ‘It has to be me this time’. It wasn’t an option for it to be anyone else. And, if I go to the games, I need to make sure I am a contender.” Her dad, Mike, had won an Olympic gold medal in the Star class in Seoul 32 years ago and this had sparked a lifelong dream in his daughter.
“We always sailed as kids and I remember watching videos of sailing when I couldn’t sleep,” she says. “I just loved it – got addicted to the idea of the [Olympic] Games and winning gold. Growing up with an Olympic gold medal gives you this sense anything is possible. I’ve seen it – it’s achievable.
“There’s a gold medal outside my bedroom, so why can’t I do that too?”
Interestingly, and despite his own pedigree in sailing, Mike McIntyre decided to maintain a sensible distance from his daughter’s competitive career. “He’s there if I need him for a chat and mentoring but he only chats about it if I do,” she says. “My parents can’t watch it – they have to know the result but can’t watch it. They are probably the only people to have questioned me and said, ‘Are you sure this is what you want to do?’ They know how hard and emotionally draining and brutal it is.” And what has been her response? “Whenever they have questioned me, I have gone, ‘Shut up, it’s not an option’,” she says, laughing.
