Update
machine I feel like I need a personal age allowance. Somehow I don’t think that will happen. Anyway, I digress. Two-boat testing. Cannonball has had big
improvements: new Southern Spars inshore rig working with Murray Jones and Carbo-Link rigging, bigger area fin, and a switch of sail supplier… A trend that Bella Mente started in 2015. Without question Cannonball was slippery. The most noticeable
improvement was the height mode. A bigger fin is definitely working in her favour and remember in 2017 she already seemed to go along pretty well… The addition of Warwick Fleury, Ed Baird and Michele Ivaldi brings new energy and, having crossed tacks with all of those guys, you can see the improvement with the new and old blood. As the session progressed the Judel-Vrolijk Proteus design from
2013 joined in. Proteus also had a makeover with a new trimming team in Dirk de Ridder, Ross Halcrow and Andy Hemmings, with tactician Mark Mendelblatt being the consistent member of the afterguard. After these changes Proteus was as slippery as Cannonball, with probably a slightly better high mode than both Bella Mente and Cannonball… but pretty early days. On Bella it was encouraging. Accepting (not easy) that the boats take a bit of time and this was our first opportunity to sail against two very sorted boats I am optimistic. We will have to get better through Copa del Rey to have a chance of winning in Porto Cervo in September. The mule… not a lot I can say except we have now been into the 40s in speed and are into the 70s in number of sails tried!
I would suspect as the IC37 class grows the competition will only
get better and with it the need for consistent class management. If there was anything that the Farr 40 class taught us all it was Geoff Stagg’s ability to protect the owners. Good to see NYYC leading. Standing by, Newport, Rhode Island, on a hot July night!
LONG (GOOD) YEAR – Will Harris La Solitaire Urgo Le Figaro must have been one of the most exhaust- ing, exhilarating and intense months of my life. Sitting at home after a few weeks’ recovery I’ve found some time to reflect on the race and the important learnings from my second season of solo racing in the Figaro class. My overall result of 22nd was not as good as I hoped for. However,
I was very happy with how I sailed, proving I had my moments of speed. In a 50-strong fleet about 30 of them were at a level that they could have won this race. There were countless offshore sailing legends competing including the likes of Michel Desjoyeaux, Armel Le Cléac’h and Loïck Peyron. At 25 I was one of the youngest sailors so my experience level was a tenth of these sailors. To be competing against such names was an experience in itself. The beginning seems like a logical place to start, kicking off with
pre-race preparation. This is one thing you can never do enough of. Aside from the obvious priorities such as training on the water, there’s also a huge list of finer details that can easily be overlooked. My pre-race prep began in January with the course announcement.
Since the logistics can be organised months in advance, I got straight on the phone to Joan Mulloy and Tom Dolan, two Irish sailors who were also to compete. We decided to team up and share pretty much everything, travel, accommodation, food, bills and most impor- tantly: préparateurs. In the weeks that followed we spent time organ- ising our Solitaire, booking Airbnbs and making sure everything was as simple and cost-effective as possible. At the end of the day I only had to do a third of all planning and reduced my costs significantly. There were a few other things I could prepare beforehand, which
would aid significantly in reducing basic tasks during the few days between each leg start when you are trying to recover from severe sleep deprivation. As every sailor knows food is a big one, so I made sure to buy all non-perishable food before the race, packing it into day bags for each leg. All my meals were freeze-dried and snacks long-life so all I needed to get was fresh fruit for each leg. For the future I’d probably add pre-packed clothing to this list.
Will Harris training with the Pôle Finistère Figaro 3 squad last winter at Port-la-Forêt. The talented and hardworking young English skipper finished 22nd overall which was disappointing – but it’s also relevant to record that in the most competitive Figaro fleet ever that 22nd put him two places in front of Loïck Peyron and two places behind Charal skipper Jérémie Beyou
While the team were out sailing over the last weekend we also had a challengers’ meeting and a nice Prada function at the New York Yacht Club – the highlight was seeing the mule executing a foiling tack in front of Courageous as the fleet of 12 Metres towed back to the dock. Very cool to see the new technology against ‘old’. There was something about that 12 Metre period of the America’s Cup… The Mark Mills-designed Melges IC37 is the brainchild of the
New York Yacht Club. With strict one-design class rules, one-design sail inventories provided by North Sails, and heavy tilt towards Corinthian teams the IC37 is a great evolution of the Farr 40. Each team is allowed one Category 3 sailor as a boat captain
but not an integral part of the performance team. When you get onboard what you quickly see is a boat designed for good perfor- mance which has a modern deck layout, good systems for take- downs – spot on for its target market. From what you hear all the boats are very even and performance
comes down to the set-up and boat handling. The class encourages wide participation and one smart feature is the addition of junior sailors not counting for the weight limit. Hence the addition of my youngest son Aden (15) to Andy Fisher and Ray Wullf’s Double Jointed team. It was really fun to get out and help a team that you could see was well-practised and actually did not need a lot of help.
14 SEAHORSE
Coming in from each leg and having to wash all my kit may sound like a simple task for the average well-rested human. However, with short stopovers and a ‘range’ of local laundry facilities this turned out to be quite a challenge to get sorted in time. Fast forward to the Solitaire and I was feeling ready, spending
a week in Nantes relatively relaxed. But during the first leg I struggled a bit with my sleeping patterns, and as soon as darkness fell I could feel my body urging me to go to sleep. It had been a few weeks since my last overnight racing, so I was in a steady routine of sleeping a full eight hours. What I should have done is broken up my sleep more in the weeks before the start, taking daytime naps and teaching my body to not assume that darkness means time to sleep. The race was a very different experience from when I competed
in 2016. One of the main reasons is obviously the new boat. Each stage was approximately 500nm of big open legs. The new boat is fast on reaching angles, which opened up a lot more tactical options. A good example was straight off the startline of Leg 1 from Nantes to Kinsale where we saw massive splits in the fleet. Across the Irish Sea the fleet separated over 100nm east-west, which ended up defining most of the overall rankings for the rest of the race since there was such a big difference in finishing times. I stuck with the western group, which contained about half the fleet and a lot of big names. Sadly, it turned out to be the wrong choice and, although well in the top half, I came into the finish eight and a half hours behind the leader. A relatively tough blow so early in the race. Previously in the Figaro 2 a split this size was unheard of, with time
separations in minutes rather than hours. This theme seemed be recurring in the legs that followed, where the time gap continued to
THOMAS DEREGNIEAUX
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