Bekking tyvstarter med spiler - blog fra paradis

Bouwe Bekking, taktikker på Grand Soleil 46, Antilope, blogger igen til minbaad.dk, fra BVI Spring Regatta i Tortola, British Virgin Islands:

We were hoping for three up and down races today, but instead we started with a long island race and a downwind start under spinnaker. We were apparently a bit too eager and were over early. 

Very strange our so-called start box had us clear by 3 meters, and as well my back bearing had us ok, but anyway the x-ray went up, and we were called back, so we had to drop the kite and return to the proper side of the line, while the others were flying away. 

Lette både stak af de første 7 sømil

The light boats put a big distance on us for the first 7 miles miles and disappeared even more on the two reaches towards and back from Sandy Cay. 

It wasn’t looking very good for us, but we knew we had a 7 miles beat back to the finish, with a lot of current against us. 

Kunne næsten hoppe i land

We were short tacking up the coast line of St Johns island and I don’t know how many tacks we did in total, but were  pushing harder than the other boats in front of us, and sometimes we could nearly jump ashore, so close we were in. 

Bekking og Dolmer sejler til højre i en Grand Soleil 46 på Virgin Islands.

Stærke Dolmer

If you have to tack nearly every 1.5 minute, crews get worn out, but having a powerhouse like Jens Dolmer onboard we had another advantage against the others. 

It paid off, we made huge gains against all of them and actually scored a 2nd on corrected time , losing out by only 6 seconds.

An unexpected result. Then finally we did two windward leeward races. They were very short , only 40 minute races, so all comes down to starting and good hoist and drops. 

One advantage having a heavy boat( nearly 12000 kg displacement) is that in not too much breeze you can run very deep , while the Farr400( only 4000kg displacement) still has to keep sailing higher angles to keep their apparent wind going. 

Aldrig højere end 9,5 knob

For our boat the boatspeed will never be going higher than 8.5 - 9.5 knots, even when the breeze is up in the 20 knots. 

But if the breeze is up the Farr400 is sailing nearly windspeed numbers! Ok, they cover a bigger distance, but since they do nearly double our speeds, we have no chance to win in big breezes. 

Besides the "favorable" conditions we sailed well and scored two first places. Right now leading the regatta with 3 points ahead of number two, but tomorrow still two races to go and most likely again two islands races,  it will be tough to stay in front. 

Bouwe Bekking