Races
The story to the journey to the Rock and back: Fastnet 2011
After 05, 07 and our great result in 2009 (7th in IRC Z, 14th overall) the 2011 race was the first Fastnet where losing was much more easy than winning. And that´s exactly what had happened. The weather favoured the super fast 70-90ft boats or the slow CR buckets a la Grand Soleil. Sjambok does not like the high stability reach courses and too windy races where the new breed of boats outsail their ratings much easier than we do.
The weather forecast was very uncertain until the race started. Instead of the forecasted 20 kts we tacked in gusty winds upto 30kts out of the Solent and it was one of the best sailing experiences I made. It was windy and close at close it could be - fantastic yacht racing in the strongest group possible.
Instead of writing a full report about the race I want to focus on how we lost 3 places on the last 50 miles and what went wrong in the preperation of the 2011 Fastnet Race.
material failure: costs us around 60 minutes but this is boat racing at 20-30 knots and you can´t check it all -see Rambler, Pace, Beau Geste, Allegre.... They all dropped out of the race although they are professionally campaigned.
boat speed: nothing we can change too much. This was not our weather. But belive me we tried everything before the race to convince the gods of the wind...
tactics: could have been better, but most of the race we were fine. It´s all about not to fail when you really should not fail. This is what happened. We missed the shift to the right at the rock and that cost us an hour or more. To be honest we were pissed off but it did not really matter. We came over it and caught our rivals at Wolf Rock when they were waiting for us in a lull. Much more matters when u miss the most important tack or gybe in a race. That was half the way between Wolfs Rock approx. 40 nm before the Finish. We knew that there will be a shift to the left at early evening. At 1500 we mixed up our grib files where this shift did not appear anymore. Most of our competition went left already and we were not really aware of it. We assumed them right of us and our under control. We continued to the right as we believed to be of one of the most left boats when we get lifted and lifted and lifted. That was it - You have to be smart when it is really important! And one mistake can cost it all. Like in life. The End.
preparation and logistics: next time the boat must be a 100% race ready 2 weeks before a major event and a test race need to be sailed just before this event. All internet and iridium connections need to be carefully proofed and grib data need to come in Rolex time and in the right format. Also our AIS could not receive data which was crab and we lost control over the fleet. This is no excuse, just room to improve.
1000 thanks to Janet and Mia from the King & Queen! Just arriving on the dock at 2 am in the morning the girls came over by a tender full of beer and sandwiches and the party went on until 9 next morning.
We missed the 4th or 5th and finished 8th in a very very strong class - forget the overall this time.
Crew:
Stefan
Bart
Peter
Albrecht (navigator)
Ian
Porn
Doc Goetz
Marc
Henri
Bob Goetz
Jens
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