Secrets of success This month's Skipper magazine gives several secrets of success for Surprise racing including a clean hull, avoid healing more than 10 degrees, have a crew that gets on with one another (as then you can train a lot), follow a good boat, practice starting.
A clean hull When I arrived at CNV for the registration on Thursday morning, three boats were lined up waiting to be lifted into the water. One crew member was polishing his already shining hull. Having finished last in a race on Thursday, Charlie and I took the magazine's (and Rob's) advice and jumped in the lake and cleaned the hull with a new sponge. Not much in the way of algae came off but we enjoyed the swim. The next day we managed a finish 6 places higher, but I think this was due more to working the spi well and getting a good start. Anyway, the satisfaction of having 5 boats behind us was immense. ---
A crew that gets on This advice makes sense – there was plenty of banter and laughing and when the time came for racing we focused on that. Many boats were made up of young crews who must have spent a lot of time training together. The winning boat Mirabaud 3 was made up of a 50 year guy (who works with Alinghi) skippering and what looked like his 16 year old kids. In fact, the awards ceremony consisted largely of sunburnt teenagers collecting prizes.
Follow a good boat This advice seems as useful and telling a sprinter to follow Usain Bolt. I lined up Teo Jacob and Mirabaud 3 a few times at the start but they shot out faster than us, presumably having time timed their speed better, avoided having boats closer to their lee (and other mystery factors which I am still trying to work out).
Practice starting (and shout a lot) This was not Semaine du Soir. The main feature of the starts was crews shouting at their starboard boats to luff up (“get out of the way” to land lubbers). This started around 1.5 mins before the start and crescendo to near screaming at the gun. Similarly at the upwind buoy, we could hear (from distance) crewing shouting at oneanother. We met a previous European champion on the committee whose advice was never to give way at the buoy. I guess he had a friendly insurance agent. Same story at the downwind buoy – shout “de l’eau!” Our starts improved a bit over the four days. There is a trade-off between starting at the favoured end and getting clear wind i.e. not having boats within a length lee of you. I aimed for the middle of the line but it was still congested and can’t say I have found a formula yet. My 10 year old son Tom recently won an Optimiste regatta in Versoix, but has not offered advice on starting. Sailing in a gale on Lake Léman Sunday, the last day of the Championship, we arrived at Port Choiseul and a gale was blowing. The meter in CNV restaurant read Bft7. Halyards were screaming and flags flapping hard. The lake was choppy, dark brown with white sea- horses everywhere. We agreed to go out and toyed with the idea with taking the motor. Our neighbouring boat Indigo from Cannes said “mais pourquoi? Il y a du vent”. I guess this was a basic Mistral for him. We got away from the moorings, bore away (let the kicker out!), headed downwind for a few seconds towards where the ynglings are moored, tacked and beat upwind to the entrance, turned about and flew out of the port on a beam reach. The start was an accelerated version of the last three days – no meandering around, jostling for position, but flying down the start line. The upwind beat meant sailing into waves, bearing away in the trough. Downwind, we took advice not to fly the spi (no point getting an extra two knots at the risk of broaching which a leading boat did). With the main not reefed and flying a jib in place of the genoa, the boat still planed on top of waves at around 10 knots which was exhilarating. Less so, was nearly broaching as we turned the mark. At the end of four days, my concentration had faltered. We got back to port. At the bar, the ex- champion slapped me on the back and said “Bravo, ton baupteme!” Finally thanks to Michal for assigning me a boat as skipper and Rob for coming down to adjust the rake of the mast and providing lots of advice.
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