News Around the World
Worth his weight in dubloons. Spanish tactician and ex-Mini Transat racer Nacho Postigo (3rd from right) and the crew of Provezza celebrate after winning their first regatta together at the 52 Super Series in St Tropez. This is the second Super Series win for Ergin Imre’s team and this party was just as big! Imre supports Turkish sailing and its sailors at all levels from Optimists through the most successful Dragon of recent years to his own TP52 team. And what is nice is that the super-professional TP52 fleet lionises him for it
slammed by winds up to 50kt on the nose for the first 48 hours, forcing two early withdrawals. ‘It was pretty boisterous – boat-break- ing conditions,’ recounts Malcolm Dickson. ‘I had to decide how hard to push – hard enough to keep going and hopefully stay in front, but not so hard you inflicted significant damage and couldn’t continue. A shredded working jib was the biggest casualty but a storm jib set on an inner stay with a partly rolled genoa kept up the pace.’ Bigger hurdles were to come later when a high-pressure zone of
calms stretched across the course, like a mini doldrums. Regrettably Dickson’s Iridium satphone broke down, which meant he lost all outside communication. ‘I could no longer receive any weather information, nor did I know where any of the other boats were. ‘I knew that high pressure system was up ahead, but I thought
it was further north than it was. I got caught in its SE vector and it took me a long time to escape. If I’d had access to Predictwind I would have known where it was and tacked away. As it was, I was making it up as I went along for the second half of the race. I pretty much worked the windshifts on a rhumbline course.’ After two days of very slow progress Sarau was back broad
reaching in a decent southeasterly which saw the code zero and occasionally a big gennaker put to good use. The gap on the chasing pack, which had compressed while Sarau was trapped in the web of calms, began to stretch out again. ‘The boat really performed like she never has before,’ he says,
‘primarily because of the weight I stripped out before the race. I started that crash diet in January and only finished shortly before the race start, reducing Sarau’s weight from 18 to 15 tons. Which absolutely transformed the boat.’ Among the three tons left behind on land were home comforts
that Dickson and his wife, Joan, had accumulated in 19 years of active cruising – washing machine, diesel heater, bimini… ‘all kinds of stuff!’ Including the HF radio, which was a shame because it would have
enabled Dickson to download weather grib files and plot a better avoidance of the dead zone. ‘Just the luck of the draw,’ he shrugs philosophically. Apart from its two most recent solo races across the Tasman,
thousands of miles have passed under Sarau’s keel since she was launched in 2002, including a 10-year eastabout circumnavigation via all the southern capes. In fact, after passing Cape Horn, Malcolm and Joan (with visits from family along the way) took a big diversion to complete a
28 SEAHORSE
four-year circumnavigation of South America, sailing up the Atlantic coast, through the Panama Canal and back down the Pacific coast via the Galapagos and Easter Islands, a long sojourn in the Chilean archipelago and a winter in the Beagle Channel. During this time they revisited Cape Horn in a rare mid-winter calm
period and actually landed on Hornos Island for a day’s exploration. ‘It was quite exciting. Not a common occurrence,’ says Dickson with quiet understatement. With both Malcolm and Alister safely in port, the Dickson family
constituted one third of the six finishers of the 2023 Solo Trans Tasman Race. Sailing is in the Dickson blood. Their father also built boats and their own passion and skills have passed on to succeeding generations. Malcolm and Joan’s son, Hamish, raced him across the Tasman
in 2018, while their daughter, Linda, represented New Zealand in the women’s 470 class at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens. And when Sarau heads back across the Tasman to New Zealand three Dickson generations will be onboard: Malcolm, Hamish and 16- year-old grand-daughter Ruby. It will be Malcolm’s 10th Tasman crossing – five of them solo. Having secured the win and after comparing notes over a few
drinks with his mate Jim O’Keef – ‘he found it as tough as I did’ – the inevitable question arises. Will he be back to defend his title in 2026? ‘I will be 79 when the next one comes up,’ he chuckles. ‘Maybe it is time to stop.’ After a brief pause, however, he adds an out-clause: ‘But I will see how I feel…’ Never say never. Ivor Wilkins
SPAIN Saint Tropez was the setting where the new 52 Super Series began... with great anticipation due to widespread changes in both equipment and especially sailors across the fleet. The Turkish design of Rolf Vrolijk, Provezza, with a new keel and
new trimmers, dominated the series. So who better to speak to than Provezza’s brilliant tactician Nacho Postigo, who by now must surely have raced every big series – and major race – in the sport. Seahorse: First of all, congratulations on the win… Nacho Postigo: As it was the first test of the season we expected many changes, due to the keels and crews. Undoubtedly the newest crew was Quantum Racing, with new people in every area of the boat. We all thought that in the first event their pieces would take time to fit together and that would give us a little breather… but
NICO MARTINEZ
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