Miles Quinton Tells Justin Chisholm Why He Keeps On Coming Back To The Melges 24

British sailor Miles Quinton bought his first Melges 24 in 1997 as part of a syndicate with fellow Brits Simon Coleridge, Martin Miller, and Tim Collins. They managed to attract sponsorship from the then Woolwich Building Society and named the boat after the company’s TV marketing slogan ‘We’re with the Woolwich’. Miles says that the feature of the Melges 24 that attracted me to the boat was the sheer ‘hair on fire’ experience in a blow and the fact that it sailed more like a dinghy on steroids than a keelboat. After a few years away from the class, in 2006 Miles returned with his own Melges 24 campaign, branded under his sponsor Gul Code Zero.

Justin Chisholm sat down with Miles at the beginning of the 2010 season to find out about his background in sailing, his plans for the year and his thoughts about the future of the Melges 24 class internationally.

IM24CA: Tell us about your sailing background before the Melges 24? What other sailing do you do away from the Melges 24?

MQ: I spent a my youth sailing Lasers and windsurfing on the UK’s South Coast at Hayling Island and summers sailing all types of boats in Fowey as well as team racing at London University. I first crossed the Atlantic when I was 24, on a 60’ charter boat. We survived a tropical storm in the Caribbean and arrived in St Thomas to find the harbour and shoreline strewn with yachts damaged after a barge broke loose. I phoned my boss at the time and said he could keep the job as I was going to stay in the Caribbean for the foreseeable future. I spent two years working as a marine photographer, skippering deliveries, and charter yachts before returning to the UK.

I then focussed on both offshore and round the cans racing with a number of well-known owners, such as Rick Yates. I had a number of successes, including winning Class 1 at Cork Week, a number of Fastnet Races, the Lisbon Race, Cowes Week, RORC and JOG races. Nowadays most of my own yacht racing is based around the Melges 24 and as I coach Optimists in the UK and have two Oppie sailors of my own!

IM24CA: What drove you to return to the Melges 24 class with your own boat? Describe the journey from then to now? What challenges have you encountered?

MQ: When we dissolved the Woolwich syndicate, I looked around for what was the next big thing in sports boat sailing. My conclusion was firmly that it was still the Melges 24 by a long way. Nothing came close in terms of the performance experience.

My goals for the new campaign were to get into the top ten in the World Rankings and to be able to aspire to win some major events. I knew that as a part time team rather than as a professional crew this would be at least a four-year journey. To date we have got into the top five at Key West, the top 20 in the Europeans and the top 30 in the Worlds, so we still have a way to go. However the progress has been steady and we feel like we are on track. The sponsorship support from Mike Pickering at GUL has been great for the latest iteration GUL Code Zero. The biggest challenge we have experienced has been to keep consistency in the makeup of the crew and get enough hours on the water to stay competitive as more and more top quality sailors join the fleet each year. 

IM24CA: Introduce us to the current iteration of your crew? What is your role on the boat?

MQ: In my day job, my unique skill is to identify a business opportunity, shape it and find the best team to win it.  This is expertise I am trying to bring to the GUL Code Zero Melges 24 campaign. On the boat I trim the kite and hike the boat flat upwind. The latest crew lineup is helmsman Geoff Carveth; the man they call in the UK, ‘half man half boat’. Geoff is a multiple dinghy national and world champion and a past Laser SB3 and Soling World Championship winner. Mark Asquith, a past Team GBR 49er campaigner is our tactician along with Ian Mills a Laser 200 sailor and asymmetric coach. We have been privileged to have match racing helms Lucy McGregor, (Team GBR) and Katy Lovell (US Olympic Team) as tacticians at various times as well.

IM24CA: Looking forward to the 2010 season what are your plans for the year in the Melges 24 class? What goals have you set?

MQ: The campaign for GUL Code Zero for 2010 started with Key West Race Week, where we got off to a flying start with a fifth place. We plan to do the Italian Volvo Cup Series in Europe, the Worlds in Tallin and then the North Americans in Rochester. Our overall goal this year is the crack the top ten in the Worlds.

IM24CA: As a long-standing Melges 24 sailor what changes have you seen in the class over the years? How do you see the future of the class going forwards? What concerns do you have and what are the biggest challenges you see the class facing?

MQ: The biggest change in the class over the last twelve years has been the international make-up of the competitors. The class has been successful in pushing the boundaries in Europe South, East and North, so that as some countries fade others reach their peak to take their place. With eighty boats on the start-line at the last Europeans this is clearly still a very vibrant class. The key concern at present is the lower turnout in some events, but this seems to be driven by the global recession, which we can hope, is a temporary setback.

In terms of the future, there has still not been a more exciting international asymmetric keelboat launched which matches the Melges 24.  However there could be one, so the challenge for the class is to keep growing internationally, spreading out wider in Europe, Australasia and the Middle East.

IM24CA: Looking back over your campaign, what have you learned and what three key pieces of advice would you give to potential Melges 24 owners looking to emulate your campaign?

MQ: I would say that on the boats, and equipment side we did not make many mistakes. I was given a lot of assistance by Nigel Young of North Sails Ireland and also Jim Schwerdt to get started. I would recommend any newcomers taking as much advice as they can get from those that have been in the class for a while.

Looking back I think we made the mistake of staying too long following the accepted ways of setting up and sailing a Melges 24. Although it took us so far, this approach did not give us the performance breakthrough that we needed. We are spending a lot more time being thoughtful and testing new ideas about rig set up and technique.

My recommendations to people joining the class would be:

1. People will tell you it’s a hard boat to sail competitively, but if you take help from those that have been in the class (and they will help) it is possible to do well.

2. As with any boat, sail with the accepted set up and spend time on the water to get the basics right

3.Once you have done this for a while, don’t be afraid to question the status quo - ‘the king is dead long live the king!’