Summary Færderseilasen 2010

We entered Silverminken for the worlds largest overnight regatta - Færderseilasen. We knew it would be difficult to get a team together, since we have only been focusing on shorthanded so far. Also, there was a long list of things to get done in order for her to be race-ready in time. Miraculously we  got most of the stuff done, but my heavy-weather jib wasn't ready. Unfortunately, we would have had use for it....

Hit the title for the full story.

Here is a brief outline of our race....

We were entered in the quite competitive R33 class with 33 (!) boats, which groups together boats with similarities both in handicap and size. This means that conditions will pretty much be identical for the boats in this class, and you don't get huge cruising boats competing with smaller, faster boats (which usually ends up with the race favoring one or the other entirely).

Our start was 13:40 on friday, our class plus another class started at the same time totalling over 60 boats, and the winds were light. It was a running start, so everybody prepared their spinnakers and the starting line wasn't crowded at all. We managed a start in the second line, which meant we were about 8-10 seconds late over the line and then hoisted our spinnaker. Spent some time attempting to find free wind, and ended up at the windward side before having to jibe to port and cross back to stay within the approved zone for the race. After that we stayed far to leeward, attacking from behind and slowly working ourselves up the fleet. Still, those seconds in the start meant we were unable to build speed and that made a huge difference. Lots and lots of rain. Did I mention rain? Incredible amounts.

First rounding was Slemmestad, and there we rounded as number 16, about 10 minutes behind the leader. This was 16:50. From there on the winds really died, and we worked our way through Drøbaksundet, with increasing currents and less wind. Finally, after many hours of trying to get the boat to keep moving we got hold of the slight southerly building. We kept to the shallows initially, and followed the wind and shifts to the next rounding.

At Filtvet we arrived at 06:04, in 13th place, and the southerly was picking up. Now we headed on further south, and when it started hitting about 16 knots we decided to reef the main. Nice maneuver and we carried on further south.  Kept our place in the race, passed lots of other, larger boats and also gained a position the next couple of hours.

But....at about 10:00 we saw that the wind was steadily increasing so since we didn't have a smaller jib we put in the second reef. Now, the boat behaved fine, but pointed poorly. We had about 2 hours to go to the final rounding, and then a little over three more hours to the finish line, and the crew was absolutely exhausted and wet. Too little rest, little or no experience in the crew, and me not having gotten any rest at all made it clear to me that if we were to finish the race we would have to risk either crew getting hurt or something breaking (or a combination of both).  Not an easy decision to make (and one I really regretted when we turned back and met all the boats we had overtaken earler), but none the less one I did make.

At the time we were in 12th place, and given the conditions we would have possibly made it in the top third if we got the rest of the race right.

Anyways.....lots of experience gained, confidence in the boats abilities built, and a lot of fun!

Here's a clip (from Seilmagasinet) showing just how little wind there was in Drøbaksundet....