VI Trofeo Cesar Manrique Recap

Good day all

Again sorry for the delay in writing more. But the last two days have been busy with getting the boat sorted and loaded for the trip back to the Med. It now appears that we are going to ship straight to Italy so I will not be going back to Palma at this point. It also means that I may be home a bit early.

As I sit here in my hotel room and start to think back about this experience here in Lanzarote I am still struck by the amount of work, effort and flat out cash the Calero family puts into this event! The closing nights dinner, show and party were totally unlike anything you will ever see in North America and quite frankly I have never seen it in Europe either. (I will have some pictures from Esa to show at some point).

Saturday was the last day of the event and we had quite a match race going with Better then... We finished both races just behind them which gave us the same points for the event but due to our two thirds on day 2 gave us the 5th place on the count back. It was some great sailing the last day but a couple big crew errors made it much closer then it actually was.

The Blue Nights team is starting to get better but we still lack a little bit of pace most of the time through the lower wind ranges. As soon as the #3 is used we are quite fast and can hold out own. But it is in the lighter breeze when we cannot hold a lane upwind that is causing our biggest issues. We are working on that and I think there are some new sails coming to help out that area.

Tea is working very hard at putting all the pieces together to have a competitive team on the water and to get the budget sorted out so that we have the right tools on the water as well. We still have a couple spaces in our quiver that need to be addressed but that is being handled as well.

This trip has been awesome for some other reasons. I now have some really good friends here in Europe. The Italian "skippers" have been great and I have become quite good mates with Ricardo from Talj the Swan 45. We have been all working together quite well to get the boats loaded, shipped and sorted out.

When I get back to the states, I want to put together a full proper report on this event. I truly believe that we need to get a good US contingent to look at coming here and sailing. The people are awesome, the sailing is awesome and it is half way home by ship anyway!
Cheers for now.
Tac

Race Day 1 and 2

Well we are just about to have boat call for the third day of racing. Today is a 30 mile Coastal race, which is really nothing more then a large reach around this side of the Island. Not really looking forward to it but what can you do?

Anyway I did not write yesterday morning because I actually had nothing good say. We flat out had a shocker and nothing good came out of the day. What we had in the two great practice days was lost somehow and we once again struggled to have speed and crew work. We finished the day with a DNF and a 7th. (the DNF was because the committee used a tiny little blue flag as the pin end and none of the Swans saw it. A couple of them went back after having thought they finished and sailed through the proper line, we on the other hand were one the did not.)

So yesterday was a new day, Race day 2. Started in much the same fashion weather wise, sunny, warm and good breeze. After a long delay for the Swans we finally got a good race off. We had a great battle with the boats all within meters of each other. At one point we were in 2nd, then in 7th then finally across the line in 5th. We found out later that two boats ahead of us were OCS. So we moved up to 3rd.

The second race of the day saw us regain our starting ability and Tea and I had the boat flying up the first beat so we are really in the hunt at this point. We round the top mark in 3rd and start to slowly eat away at the lead of 1 and 2. At the bottom mark we chose to make a left turn while the top 2 did a right turn. But the kite under the bow stopped a great chance to take the lead. As it was we only crossed two boat lengths behind the two of them. We managed to hold of the rest of the fleet up that beat and down the last run. We finished with a hard fought and well earned 3rd place. With our two thirds we moved out of the basement on the score card and ended up 2nd for the day!

Today is another day and the weather from Commanders says the same as yesterday. 15-20 gusts to 25 from the N-NE. Sunny and warm. Not too bad!
Cheers

Tac
(Still no pictures)

Practice Day #1 Lanzarote

Well today we finally went for sail, after two more hours of tuning and retuning the rig. We got out and sailed in 5-12 knots of breeze against both Better Than and Ulika.

They had been sailing for a hour more then we had, but when we joined the races that they were having we went 4, 0 and 1. We are going very well and our crew is getting better. Things on the Blue Nights are starting to move in the right direction.

We had one great start against just Ulika that turned into a full on Match race start with Bill showing that he can still out dual his opponent. Tea did an awesome job putting the boat where Bill told her to and as a result we had the other team pinned over the line early and dead in the water. Big grins on all of our faces and some pretty heated Italian on the other boat :)

We are quickly getting our shit together and starting to make things happen. The boat is getting there as well, we do need to do a few little things yet to make our lives easier but for the most part we are starting to show what we can do.

Today we looked at yet another mainsail that we bought from Vixen and again we were not disappointed. I think we will be sticking with this sail for this event and things are looking up.

I know I promised some pictures, but the dumb ass that I am, I left in on the dock.

We also had a interesting thing happen to day. Bill just decided that going downwind at 9 knots that he would jump over board and do a man over board drill. We did have a vote and by only the smallest margins did we decide to go back and get him.

So all is well. I really do like the Spanish way of Yacht racing. Tomorrow is the practice race and it starts at 4 PM! The next two days of racing start at 2 PM! That is just bloody awesome.

Anyway, off to shower and head to a crew dinner.
Cheers


Tac

Hello from Lanzarote!

Sorry that I have not been keeping up with blogging, but if you could see where I have been staying here in Lanzarote you would cut me a bit of slack! This hotel is a FLASH and I have lounging at the pool until yesterday, when the boat finally arrived here.

The delivery was a dream and according to one of the ships crew if each delivery was that nice more people would sail on ships. It must have been pretty calm as I had left a shifter, (crescent wrench) on the coachroof and it was still there when the boat arrived.

The off loading was much quicker then the loading, something about less unioned stevedores. So we were back at the dock by about 11 AM and the work began there. Guinness started grinding and Art and I empty the boat.

We are starting to sail tomorrow where we have set up a bit of a tuning session against one of the Italian teams, Ulika. Things will be starting to take off.

I will get some pictures posted from here in the next day.
Cheers for now.

Tac

PS, a shout out to Sparkles and Ace! I hope your trip home was easy.

Hello from Palma!

I have been here a couple days now and the weather for the most part has been amazing! It is quite hot, the sun shines and the breeze is up!

I arrived on Thursday afternoon, checked into the hotel then went to check in on the boat. I was having trouble getting to the boat as there as a language issue with the guard at the gate :) So I stopped to check my email. While that happening a giant storm rolled in and I mean HUGE! I could not even get to the boat by foot as it was blowing about 65 and there was hail. I was sitting in the car watching a 90'+ heeled over about 30 degrees! That is how hard it was blowing.

When the storm ended, I drove around to the gate that was once closed to me and drove right through. I think that the club must have know that the various "skipper's" would be coming in quickly and did not need to have the hassle of the gate.

When I got out to the dock that the boat was on, all you could was carnage! The dock, (see picture), was gone and each of the boats on that dock had damage. So we start the week with boat work. Oh, well it could have been much worse.

Anyway, here are a couple pictures. I will try to keep updating but the next couple days are boring and filled with nothing but work on the boat, the cradle and then getting the two of them together on the Ship to Lanzarote.
Cheers

Tac