Gold Cup review

Well, I am now back in Holland and starting to get over the jet lag, the cold and 30 hours of hell that I went through to get home. Oh well, this is the life of a pebble star right?

While the results are not at all what any of us had hoped for the time spent with the crew of Blue Nights was quite enjoyable. The Fin's are a bunch of fun and we are all better sailors then the results showed. Bill Abbott did an amazing job coaching Tea and getting us set up in good spots, but when the dog don't hunt, the dog don't hunt.

I had a bunch of things occur for the first time when I was over there. 1) 7 straight days of rain. 2) had a "I wish I could reef the main" thought. 3) Had a man over board, first time on a big boat! 4) ate proper English Fish and Chips. 5) Saw an actual pub brawl, blood and all. 6) Finished last in a regatta.

Of all of things listed above the one that I would like to focus on is the Man over board. It is scary to see happen and we were lucky in the fact that it was broad daylight and relatively flat seas! We had just completed a gybe, well almost, when the boat wiped out and when the pole skied the guy got real tight real fast and flicked our bow dude Ville over board. He briefly held onto the spinnaker pole, which was now on the wrong side of the boat and in the water, until it dunked him under.

Ville was quite smart here I think. He just pushed off away from the boat and all the lines that were dragging, he was worried about getting tangled and having something bad happen. Good call I say. His inflatable life jacket worked and a bobbing he went. As he bobbed past the stern, he gave a thumbs up and that allowed us to settle down, focus on getting the kite down, lines in and motor on so that we could go back and pick him up.

One other thing that allowed Bill and I to focus on the job at hand on the boat, was that there was two chase boats that went immediatley to Ville's aid. He would not let them pull him out, but it was comforting to all three of us that if we could not get there fast enough he had a plan B.

I would say that when it was all said and done, Ville was in the water for 5-7 minutes. We were able to fish him out of water on our first swing back by. Once we got him back and found out that all was well, we rehoisted the spinnaker and started to race again. (Yes we called the RC and notified them that we had used the motor in order to pick up a man overboard. We also went down and read the racing rules to ensure that we did not break any rules.)

When we hit the dock, Bill went and filed a notice to the Jury that we had used the motor to fish Ville out of the water, made no gain by doing so and then returned to racing. After a short deliberation it was deemed that we did exactly the right thing and our score was held.

I want to thank the crew for A) not losing focus or control of the situation. B) for getting the job done in a timely fashion and getting the boat back to pick Ville up. C) for the productive debrief after the fact where we talked about how we can make this manouver even better in the long run.

Things that I think we did wrong in this.

1) As soon as we saw Ville over board, one person should have focused just on smoking the Spinnaker Halyard. 2) Because of the fact that it was day light, there were two boats around, we did not keep a full time eye on him. We focused too much on getting the sails down and getting back. 3) I am a bit concerned, though I do understand, that Ville was willing to push off on his own. This could have been disaster, especially if it had been at night. 4) because his life jacket went off and he gave the thumbs up we never threw him the life ring. Again, only because of the circumstances.

We were lucky that he went in unharmed and that we did an acceptable job getting him back. It was an eye opening experience for sure.

So people practice your man over board drills more often and really talk about it when days look like shit maybe able to hit the fan!!!

PS, as more people will now know, thanks to Scuttlebutt, I have a post below about a Letterman style Top 10. While we are still sorting it out, I would like to say that those comments came from 7 straight days of rain, a really bad cold that I had as a result of 7 days of rain and a lot of frustration. At the end of the day, Cowes is an interesting place to sail and the amount of boats on the water every day is amazing. Everyone should go there at least once in their lives to sail. Just make sure that you ask me if I am going first. If I am, change the dates that you go! You will get sun and good breeze.

PSS, the picture is of Ville "Flipper" Pietarinen

Cheers

Tac

Hey All

Not much good I can say about today, the weather still sucks, a bunch of us are starting a compilation for a Letterman style Top 10 "reasons why I will never come back to this hell hole". :)

Yesterday I was beat and came back to the yacht club for a nap, (I am now staying at the other RCYC). then I had to go to the sail loft to fix a shattered Code 3 Jib that we used most of the day. So I did not get a chance to post. We had a good day, with an 1oth and a 15th. Much like the J-22 Program, we are real fast downwind. If not for that we would be in serious trouble!

We are having some serious speed issues upwind that are trying to be sorted out, however there is not much you can do on 7 cylinders when every one else is using 8.

This is a shot of us yesterday with our "flower power" mainsail! (Ned if you are reading what do you think?)

Anyway, tomorrow is a early start, about the time you all are going to bed I have to wake up for a 6:00AM boat call for a round the island race. We are going to go the opposite way that America did all those years ago. It should be an absolute brilliant day for it........you know raining like shit and real windy. What fun. That is reason 483 for me never to come back! :) :)
Cheers From lovely old England.

Tac

From our Coach!

The following is on the Boat log on the www.bluenights.fi site. It is from our Coach Eero. (Eero is one of the crazies that went around the World the wrong way in the BT Challenge!)
Cheers

Tac

PS we do have the best looking owner/skipper :)

Tuesday 3 July 2007, Cowes – Isle of Wight (UK)

Swan 45 Gold Cup / World Championships 2007

Royal Yacht Squadron, Cowes – Isle of Wight (UK)

The British weather has not been favouring the international fleet of Swan yachts entering the Swan 45 World Championships and the Swan European Regatta for other types of Nautor Swans. The teams have arrived well in advance to have some training on the tricky waters of the Solent, participating in a tune-up regatta during last weekend. Also Blue Nights has been sailing since last Saturday, scoring promising 5th and 6th place in Saturday’s two races among the fleet of 12 Swan 45’s. On Sunday Blue Nights’ training main sail broke on the first beat of the first race and the boat retired from the day’s racing. Monday was measurements and registration day for the Gold Cup and Team Blue Nights was the second boat to have “all clear” from the race office. Crew weighing went smoothly as well with 10 kilograms to spare!

Today Blue Nights went out to check out the new headsails and to practice gybes and mark roundings. Weather was favourable for a couple of hours with an increasing south-westerly blowing up to 24 knots. Arthur Hallberg and John Wilkinson were missing from the crew as Arthur had a day-off trying to recover from a sore throat and symptoms of a cold as John was taking care of some business matters before the regatta takes his full attention for the rest of the week. Hannu Bask and myself jumped on board to get some photos of the crew in action as well as giving helping hand here and there. From tomorrow onwards we are looking at things from outside, Hannu through his tele-objective and me with my video camera and wet notes to give the team the daily feedback and de-briefs

The Swan 45 fleet consists of 22 yachts and the crew lists carry some big names from the international sailing circuits. The participating teams come from eight different countries with the host nation topping the list with six entries. To maximise their teams performance the owners have contracted some full-time pros for their crews: Mike Broughton, Tim Powell, Wally Cross, Larry Leonard, Jules Salter, Simon Fisher, Andy Beadsworth, Steve Hayles, Eddie Warden-Owen, Chris Law and Chris Larson will all be giving their best shot trying to win the worlds title of Swan 45 class.

The racing program for Swan 45’s has twelve windward / leeward races in it plus a long distance race on Friday. The “sausage courses” will be located in the north-easterly side of the Solent where the fleet will be crossing the North Channel and will have to be aware of the ships crossing the racing area. The shallow water on the plateau will minimise the tidal effects as far as it is possible, but the navigators and tacticians have to be on top of their strategies to fight for top positions. Crucial times are around 2-2½ hours before the high water when the tide starts already turning in some areas while an opposite flow still takes place in other areas. Laying the marks will be tricky at times and the latest technology and the experienced strategists on board will be playing an important role. If winds remain as strong as they have been since last Friday, the foredeck crews will be working hard to get the manoeuvres happen smoothly.

Blue Nights has welcomed a couple of new members into the team since Capri Sailing week and the experienced Canadian duo, Bill Abbott and Tac Boston will be taking the positions of a tactician (Bill) and a sail trimmer (Tac) in the season’s main event. Bill is a former Soling world champion and has represented Canada in the Olympic Games as well. Clive Cosby of Lymington (UK), the former Global Challenge skipper on board Team Stelmar, has joined the team as a boat captain and trimmer. Clive has been working hard to get the boat race ready since her arrival in UK a couple of weeks ago. Clive and navigator John Wilkinson will give the necessary local knowledge to the Blue Nights crew.

The warning signal for the first race will be given at 10h20 local time tomorrow and the aim is to complete three upwind–downwind races during the day.

Event website with racing results: http://www.rys.org.uk/da/42631

Eero Lehtinen, Cowes (UK)

Measurement Day

Well today in Cowes, it was measurement day! Oh and guess what......it rained again! Not all day and not real hard but just enough to be bloody annoying :)

We on the Blue Nights were teed up to measure the sails and have the safety inspection handled today. I was very happy to see a couple of the measurers that I have over the years in the MUMM fleet handling the sails and such. Mario, (sorry I do not know your last name), from Italy and Carol Abbott from the UK. I can give some words of wisdom here, they do not mess around, if you are out of line they will tell you!

We ended up passing with flying colors on all accounts and we are now officially in as a team. We weighed in, measured in and are off to sail tomorrow with the good sails for the first time. (I just hope it is not blowing 30 again like today).

There are a couple of us, myself included that have a serious cold due to the weather and I know of a couple other teams that have a bit of a Flu bug going around. Why, o'why are we sailing here?

I am going to try to get some pictures from Esa's camera tomorrow. There are a pile of Swan's here in the harbor and I thought it would be cool to show you all what it is like, (of course then it will be sunny, so maybe pictures every day?)

Anyway, tomorrow I will check out the crew lists and let you all know who of the who's who is here.

Cheers for the night

Tac

PS here are some links for you to follow.

http://www.cowesharbourweather.com/
www.cowesyachthaven.com
www.bluenights.fi
http://www.swan45class.org

finally live from Cowes!

It has been a total shit fight for me to get on line here in Cowes. We did not have any wireless hot spots here the crew house and the one at the yacht haven kept punting me from the service. So today is the first day since Friday that I have been on line! Yikes, talk about total withdrawl!

Well what can I say about Cowes? It is bloody cold, bloody windy and oh yeah it has rained every day! And I do not mean drizzle rain, I mean full on pouring buckets at times.

We have sailed a total of 3 and a fifth races. The first day we did not have a practice mainsail and with it blowing 25-30 we did not want to risk our good mainsail. So we did not leave dock. We just got the boat sorted out. Johnny and I spend 3 hours sorting the rig out and getting it ready.

Yesterday we sailed in 15-18 knots with heavy rain. Not a lot of fun in that regard but good to get sailing. We had some decent races, some bad luck and one blown out kite. We had torn it and I tried to fix it, but it was so wet that the the spinnaker tape just did not stick enough to survive a 22 knot puff! So it is currently at the UK loft headless! Good thing it is the spare.

Today we sailed for 1/2 of the first beat, in 22-29 knots. We shattered the leech of the 3dl Mainsail. Had to withdrawl. but again it was rainy, cold and shit out. How do people live is a question that has been asked as many times as who killed JR?

Anyway, now that I have moved to the Yacht Club with the owner and Bill Abbott I will be online more and try to keep up to date. I am dead tired and I am going to sleep!
Cheers

Tac