You cant win the lottery if you dont buy a ticket.
And in sailing if butterflies fly upwind and pass you, you just know that you want to buy that ticket!
SATURDAY RACE 1
What are we going to do against this kind of competition? They have put IRC2 and ORC2 together, to create a bigger fleet. This results in a 25 boat fleet, all between 33 and 41 feet.
The day begins with no wind, and its way past Noon, before we get our first warning signal.
We decide to start at the boat, there is very little pressure, and the only breeze there is, is on the right. Thanks to a very busy start at the boat, we struggle to get away at speed, and after a few boatlengths, we see a few boats that started in the middle, tack to the right and cross in front of us. With such little breeze we keep going until we see a clear lane to tack in. We are now on the inside of the pack and closer to the new breeze that kicks in. The boats that headed to the right before us, get stuck in a dying breeze and struggle to keep momentum. They cannot tack without killing their speed completely. While we are still going, although very slow, we tack back and try to stay in the breeze. At the upwind mark we see that all our losses from the start are gone, and that we round in the top 3. Today seems to be one big lottery, and staying out of windholes is the only tacktick we will need!
We choose to go downwind with our A1,5, an asymmetrical spi, specially designed for these days, 3 to 5 knots of wind. In comparison to a Symmetrical spi, the leech of the sail is open this allows the sail to let go of the wind more easily and creates more speed than a conventional spinnaker in little breeze (up to 9 knots). Our expectations are high and we expect to sail away from the fleet.
The Dehler 36, with a small symmetrical spinnaker manages to stay ahead of us and the rest of the fleet stay in touch.
We have more speed upwind than the other First 35, but downwind Rebellion comes closer again. We loose faith in our secret weapon. We can keep our position until the downwind mark. Here the wind dies completely and everybody ends up together at the same mark. Its a new start all over again, but in tons of dirty air! We search for spots of wind and clear lanes and escape from the fleet. Again in the top 3, with only the dehler 36 and a Bashford 36 in front. The wind is still in the low 5s and we are going to try the asymmetric again. Its supposed to be a really good weapon in these situations, but it takes some time to get used to it, and to sail the correct angles. But again, we barely manage to keep our position, and dont gain distance on the rest of the fleet. At the downwind mark we get a big déjà-vu and everybody floats past the mark, the wind completely died. The committee shortens the course and we all get our finish signal.
In corrected time, we did very well and finish first in the first race of the day. One bullet for us!
SATURDAY RACE 2
Breeze is steady, 6 to 8 knots. We have a good start and jump in front of the fleet. Only the Bashford 36 stays between us and the upwind mark. This boat goes faster than the F35, he has too almost 3 minutes an hour. Luckily for us we manage to stay in the safe-zone and they dont succeed in stretching away far enough.
Our downwind leg is filled with breeze and we sail more confident now. We again choose the Asymmetric sail, and we are clearly getting the hang of it. We keep our distance with the rest of the fleet and even stretch away from them.
Upwind we sail in clear air, on opposite tacks of the Bashford and finish well ahead of the rest of the fleet. After corrected time, FIRST PLACE . Our second!
End of day 1, Shark has two bullets .
Time for some drinks and a good restaurant ;)
SUNDAY RACE 3
Very little wind 3 to 4 knots, constantly dying and building again => unsteady angle
First start was brilliant. At the Pin end, tacking at the gun and able to pass a head of the whole fleet. But thanks to the dying breeze, the race was immediately cancelled after the gun.
Second start, again at the pin end, but a general recall. Everybody back to the starting area, Black flag at the committee boat Nerve wrecking conditions. If you are over the line before the starting signal, its race over and maximum points.
Third start, A Prima 38 luffs us, we have too much speed and are almost over the line, still 20 seconds to go . STUPID! STUPID! How did we get here in this miserable situation, this can cost us the overall lead in the Regatta. Only one thing I could do, complete the tack, bear away, try to stay clear of other approaching boats, try to stay behind the line, try, try try .
We manage to keep clear, but are dead in the water at the gun and everybody is sailing away from us. We listen to the VHF and are very happy that they dont mention Shark.
Last boat over the line, very little wind, it takes us a few minutes to get up to speed.
We see windholes divided over the fleet, and decide to take it one step at a time. We pass 5 boats going to the upwind mark, still 20 boats to go.
The downwind part is filled with pressure and there is no change in positions. The first 10 boats are already half way up the beat and are too far away to get in touch with. We will have to be lucky if we finish in 10th place after corrected time. But anything can happen when butterflies are able to fly against the wind! At the upwind mark we see a stretch of boats, IRC 1 and IRC 2 already mixed together, spinnakers not flying everybody dead in the water. Like ducks in a row, everybody on the same tack, trying to keep momentum & unable to gybe away.
We approach the mark with a little more breeze and decide to do a gybe set, away from the pack and try to stay in that little patch of pressure. Together with a dehler 34 we sail away from the pack and begin our way to the downwind mark with a big detour. A case of lets see where this little puff brings us Guess what . At the downwind mark! Together with the Swan 45s who started 30 minutes before we did. We passed our complete class and the biggest part of IRC1. In the last upwind part the breeze kicked in at a steady 7 to 8 knots and we even made the hole bigger. We go faster than the dehler and finished 2 minutes in front of him. After corrected time, SHARK 1st place.
Thats 1,1,1 .. nice scoring for the FIRST 35
A typical case from zero to hero
SUNDAY RACE 4
A big lift 15 seconds before the gun completely killed our perfect pin end start. We were covered by the pack and had 2 options.
1)Tack, duck all the boats, and start again on the inside of the shift
2)Hang in there, keep our nose in front, bang the corner and wait for the next shift.
Option 2 it was! And it appeared to be the right choice. Again from zero to hero. We arrived at the topmark in second position. Soon to be followed by a huge wall of spinnakers. This forced us to sail high and into clean air. We were now on the right side of the pack, but in front. We kept focusing on boatspeed and wanted to be ahead of the rest at the downwind mark. There was a good steady breeze of around 15/17 knots and it seemed to us that the downwind mark was already on our final approach Some other boats gybed away to the left, we kept on going.
What a mistake we made! Our downwind mark was to the left, we couldnt even have made it if wed gybed. Jib up, spi down and we gybed to the mark.
At least 10 boats passed us and we were in dirty air at the mark. We couldnt get away and our direct competitors sailed a faultless race. Too bad for us, good for them! We managed to squeeze out a 4th place after corrected time.
No worries here The Van Uden Reco Cup is ours! A 1,1,1,4 was more than enough to be the overall winner. Next was A Boen, with 14 points!
Sailing the last winterseries was great. We had a very gusty day. Average breeze around 15 knots, sometimes less. But the gusts were up to 25 knots. And sunshine!!!
As I told you before, these winterseries are no regular up & downwind courses. Its around the cans and sometimes you dont even have a real upwind part. So no big need for tactics here, just raw boatspeed and some good handling.
IRC 2 and ORC2 start together. The boats are all around 36 foot, and match in boatspeed. This is good for us to see if we have the mast-setup right. Too bad, that also this time, there was no real upwind part.
We managed to get a clean downwind start and stretch away from the fleet together with a Bashford 36. It was a broad reach, but dangerous sailing in gusty conditions, from 15 to 25knots in 1 second
We had our tactician counting down to the gusts, and with a good twitch at the helm I pushed the nose down everytime the gust hit us. After every gust, we could come up again and point higher than the mark. This S sailing gave us a lot of boatspeed, we even managed to let the boat start to surf, everytime the gust hit. We experience that on flat water, above 8.8 knots of boatspeed, the boat starts to surf and the numbers go fast into the 2 digits. We had a strong fleet, as you can see in the list below, but managed to arrive at the downwind mark in first position.
In the upwind part, the Bashford 36 passed us, but we stayed in contact and within 5 boatlengths of him. It was after 1,5 hour that the wind picked up a little and became a steady 20+ knots, that was clearly the breaking point on the Bashford, he shifted gear and managed to finish almost 3 minutes ahead of us. This gap was only created in the last part of the race. So I think in heavy weather, at sea, that a well sailed Bashford can outsail his handicap against a F35. The Salona 42 must have made some mistakes in the beginning of the race, because he passed us at the last mark, and also finished 3 minutes ahead.
The rest of the fleet, the boats where we compare ourselves with, like a J109, Dehler 36, an X362 sport, etc finished at least 2 minutes behind us in real time.
After corrected time, SHARK finished 1st,34 seconds before the STERN 33
We are really satisfied with the boatspeed of Shark, and the way she handles on the water. I could have never imagined that a 35 footer which weighs 5500 kgs, could sail and behave so alive like the F35.
We are still searching for little extras in boatspeed, and trying to get more people in the rail on a reach (as you can see on the pictures) This will all improve the results!
We are already sailing with a lot of mast rake, but I feel that I can handle more pressure on the rudder going upwind, so I eased the forestay 4 complete turns. We are now almost at our maximum forestay length. Next weekend is VAN UDEN RECO CUP, the Opening Regatta of the season! So we will see if this is a good decision
Tomorrow we sail our second and last wintercup of the season. We hope to do some more fine tuning on the mast and sail set up, shake off the winterbleus from the crew and maybe practise some manouevres after we finish the race. At the end of April we have a big Regatta, the VAN UDEN RECO CUP, and we really want to bring our A-game to this event.
The winterseries are held under IRC and ORC regulations. Many boats in Holland are only ORC measured. In the IRC2/ORC2 group are 25 boats. Not bad for a winter race.
The start was a disaster. Tidal waters, current against us and basicly 0 knots of wind. This resulted in a big mess floating backwards. One hour after the gun, we managed to get away from the startline and were waiting for the breeze to fill in. A very well sailed dehler 36 and IMX 38 were a a head of us and got the first 10kn breeze. Then a Stern 33 got away, then Shark!
Its never an up&down course, so we were in for a pursuit race around the cans. We closed the gap between us and the Dehler 36 from 3 minutes behind at the first mark to 1 minute behind at the finish. These guys are sailing on home territory and are extremely fast.
The Stern 33 A Boen is a good benchmark in Holland. These guys seem to never have a bad day and are winning races for years now on a steady basis. With an IRC rating of 1,006 and the boatspeed of a fast 36 footer, this boat is your money in the bank!
We had trouble to stretch away from them and only in the few upwind parts of the race we gained some boatlengths.
We had no piano man on board and that resulted in a complete mess in boathandling. We really messed up every hoist and take down. Went downwind with the masthead spinnaker on the fractional halyard. Took no risks to hoist our A-sail which we would have needed in the conditions, we could barely manage the handling of a normal symmetric spi. TWO HANDS SHORT AND THE TOWER COLLAPSES. Luckily for us it was a race around the cans, and we got plenty of time to clean our mess. Nevertheless, concentration on steering the boat was far gone!
But as a team, we regained our focus and sailed pretty well boatspeed-wise.
We finished behind the Dehler 36 and the IMX 38. But they have an ORC certificate.
In IRC, after corrected time we share first place with the Stern 33. Not bad for a first race
Shark had a Winter-stop from November until February. We had a lot to do on the new boat to make her more crew-friendly and cruise-ready.
All the preparations on Shark are finished and the boat is already in the water.
We have the opportunity to sail the last 2 winter-races before our Race-season 2011 begins at the end of April. There is a pretty high level in this winter-competition, so we will get the chance to do some proper fine-tuning on the rig.
Shark will be sailing in the following IRC races :
Where the crew is hiking, we @ Shark, removed the wooden rail.
First you drill out the wooden taps, which protect the screws. Then you remove the screws. At this point, the wooden rail is only fixed with silicone. Carefully slide a knife underneath at take over with a big screwdriver. You can remove the wooden rail in one piece, if you do this carefull.
At the place where the jib trimmer needs some extra support for his feet, we created a new wooden rail (thick 25mm), which is still comfortable to sit on for him (his place in the rail).
The deck-hull construction seems to be solid enough. We used some extra silicone to close the tiny openings between the hull and deck.
The early morning and I will never become real friends. I love sailing, but every single time the alarmclock goes off.... I wonder why agian...
It's early, around 5h30 and it is still dark outside... We all gather in Antwerp and drive to Terneuzen.
All the classes for the Antwerp Race are divided amongst Breskens (Big Boats) and Terneuzen (Smaller boats).
At the entrance of the harbour, all the boats are blocked by the police. It is too foggy outside, and the race is delayed untill further notice. Because of the strong current, the latest the race can start will be around 1 p.m.... GREAT (still thinking of my warm bed - and why again)
After a few hours it is still as foggy as in the early morning. I have people on board who did some great efforts to be a part of the Shark team for the Antwerp Race. Thomas took a detour, he was supposed to fly straight from Dubai to the US. Go figure! Roel came from Palma de Mallorca, just to race with us! And here we were, waiting, waiting,.....
Amazingly, around noon, the skies cleared and we all headed out to the starting area. Big smiles on board! This is the last race of the season... For us, the end of a short practise period before our racing calender next season. We are already pretty satisfied with the tuning and the speed of the boat, but still have a long way to go.
Today it looks like an all upwind regatta, with 6 to 15 knots of breeze, and flat water. These conditions are new to us.... And again I wonder...., this time it has nothing to do with my bed. Although still motoring to the starting area, in my head I'm already sailing and LOVING IT!
The boat is supposed to be very fast in these conditions. Looking at the competition and the ratings, we should be in the middle of the pack at the finish.
At the start, we have a luffing discussion with a Dehler 39. I want to push him over the line, but he keeps sailing bow down and thus taking us down with him. Nice..... thanks guys. Shark is at the lee side of the pack (30 boats) in dirty air. We tack and have to let the complete fleet pass us. This is not a first timer for us, and we bravely fight our way back. After an hour we find ourselfs in the top 5. The Untouchables are within sight but slightly stretching away from us. The X35 is faster than us, especialy in these conditions.... live with it! The Archambaults 35 are giving us a hard time, and we struggle to pass them. It seems that these boats go very fast, and without much effort. In the meantime we are tuning the sails and hiking hard... and it pays! We brake away from the pack and are in second position, real time! The X35 is long gone and we are fighting with 2 First 40's. We manage to stay ahead, during the biggest part of the race... Man, the faces on these guys! Not funny for them....
Guys! After the race, please remember me to write down the settings from today.... this is pure gold!
We finish second in our Class and also after corrected time we become 2nd @ the Antwerp Race 2010. An X-332 named Vanilla took first. Too bad... only saw him once at the start, but manages to steal away the trophee. Congrats guys!
We arrived at the prize giving, only seconds too late, and our biggest fan and Father already collected our prize. Everybody happy and ready for a party.
Every great race, deserves a great party! And a party it was....
Saturday was "again" on the heavy side. We had a pretty steady breeze of around 22 knots, but the weather was dominated by huge showers passing by. In these big dark clouds we found ourself surviving +35 knots. The wind started building very fast and pretty much without a descent warning. So all the boats got trapped with a full main up and Jib # 3. Luckily the squal hit us in the upwind section of the race. So the damage on most of the boats was a jib or a mainsail.
16 boats competed in the Racing class, 6 of them finished.
Shark managed to finish and had a very good race. We are getting used to these conditions! In real time and on handicap we had to let a KING 40 and a SYDNEY 39 get away with first and second. Not too bad....
The downside was that our big black kite exploded and that we had to sail with our fractional for the rest of the day and also on sunday.
I was getting really annoyed by the fact that we were only sailing in Survival conditions.... please give us a steady 12 knots ?????!!!!!!!!
Sunday 13/15 knots NE breeze..... thank you! Conditions.... flat water.... no rain.... no squals.... Time to focus on other boats!
We got of the starting line in first position. A Grand Soleil 43 "Antilope", the Sydney 39 "Allard", and later also a King 40 "Weerga" passed us in the first part of the race. No worries here... these boats are faster. We stayed in front of the rest of the fleet only mildly teased by an X35 "Untouchables".....
Also in the Downwind part of the race we managed to stay ahead of the X35. But at the downwind mark, disaster struck us once again. The Medium Heavy got stuck in the "balls" of the Tuff Luff... half way up..... Spi down and upwind with only the main up, the X35 became Untouchable and passed us. After 4 or 5 minutes we cleared our mess, got the heavy jib up...And started to hunt the X35, but way underpowered with the heavy # 3. It was blowing 13 knots at that time, but considering the damage we already had this weekend I didn't gave the call to hoist the Light Medium. In the End... it's only a practice race....
We closed in on them, only to finish 3 minutes behind. Not enough on rating... but we scared them. Sometimes that's enough....
Today we sailed three races, each of them containing two upwind and two downwind legs.
In each race we had a medium start, on the line at the gun, top speed, but not the perfect spot.
So after every first tack we were midfleet and had to struggle to fight our way back to top 5.
By then, the A35s and the J109s were already gone. We managed to get closer towards the finish, but the damage was done. There is just no room for fighting back in IRC2. All these boats we are sailing against are fast and the teams know their boats very well.
It looked like the only thing we could do was hang in there, dont let them slip away . But passing them was out of the question. But somehow we got a good feeling about this we still have a lot of improvement ahead of us. Next year we will be faster than today, excuse me,next week we will be faster than today. And I assume that the other teams are already sailing close to their top speed . So we will get closer!
At the end, we also struggled with the waves, not only with our competitors. We found the boat to be very fast when the waves gave us a break, only a minute without slamming and we gained on the boats ahead of us.
Now we are very curious what flat water will bring us. Even light conditions look promising now!
By Saturday evening we were 6th out of 22 boats.
Sunday gave us a big breeze, and we decided not to sail because we already found what we were looking for.
Big waves and about 25 knots of wind dictated the day.
The tension on board was high Our first line up with other 35 footers. What will it bring us?
First mark was 1 mile upwind, than a 24 mile course around the cans.
After the start, we struggled to find the pace in the big waves. Immediately you could see that the other boats were used to this. After a few minutes banging in the waves we found ourselves in the middle of the pack.
After the upwind mark, which we rounded after the 2 J109s, the JPK1010, and all the Archambault 35s it became a drag race. Like ducks in a row we started on our 24 mile long beating.
But we were happy because the one thing we had in mind for this weekend was already established. We came here to find the same boatspeed as Stiletto. Stiletto is a First 35 from the UK with already a good palmares (3rd @ Cowes Week).
We rounded the mark a few boatlenghts in front of Stiletto. But could we hold our position?
Every mark we stretched away with another 30 to 40 seconds, and after a good 4 hours racing we finished almost 5 minutes ahead of them.
What will the upwind, downwinds bring us tomorrow?
After corrected time, we came in 7th today, 16 boats finished the offshore regatta.
Not good, not bad . After all, its our first race.
Too bad that we had pretty rough conditions, it was very hard to compare boatspeed with other boats and tune up against them. Maybe tomorrow?
THE COMPETITION IN IRC 2 - ANTWERP RACE 2010
=> 1.025 
