Fastnet 6.50 2004

A couple of Cali boys, David Anthes and Adam Courrier just did the mini- Fastnet, and did this in-depth report for us. This is Part with Part 2 tomorrow. Enjoy.

A few days ago Adam Courrier and I completed the Fastnet 6.50 for the French Mini class, primarily a singlehanded 21-foot sloop of varying designs. We raced in his Italian-designed mini, Sabita that he is campaigning around France getting ready for the singlehanded Transat race across the Atlantic. The Mini Fastnet race is around 700 miles, from the northwestern tip of France (Douarnenez), up the coast a ways, then across the English Channel to Wolf Rock just off of England, then across to the southern tip of Ireland where we round the famous Fastnet rock and come straight back to France. Some of you got the hurried updates from France, but when we returned the computer had been removed and there was no other facilities for Internet use. So, here's how the race went.

After a late start to our race day Adam and I headed to the boat. It turns out we missed the skipper's meeting and pre-race briefing, which turned out to matter not at all and it gave us some extra sleep. We rigged the boat and attended to some last minute details, but essentially we were ready.

Heading out to the course the day was sunny with a very light breeze from the northwest, which gradually faded as the 1400 start time approached. The race committee postponed for almost two hours, which we occupied by reaching slowly reaching back and forth, zigzagging with the other 84 boats between the spectator craft out for a look at the fleet. When a steady but light northerly filled in the committee scrambled to set a new line and separation mark and we entered the sequence.

Any start of a 700-mile race is not the most important part of the race, but we would have liked a better one than we got. We struggled through bad air and light patches to the top mark, and set our masthead gennaker to the first mark of the race, about 5 miles away at the entrance to Douarnenez Bay. Most everyone else went for a spinnaker but the angle was tight enough and we thought we'd probably get headed as we went out, which turned out to be true. However, somehow this did not translate into passing a lot of boats, and at the end of the bay we were squarely in the middle of the fleet. As we turned upwind and offshore into a 14-17 knot northerly there were boats on all sides, upwind and down joining us on our long march toward England. We changed our clothes from shorts and T-shirts to boots, pants fleece and jackets which were to stay on for the duration of the race.

The best part of the upwind section of this race is that there were a fair amount of buoys included as part of the course, which breaks up the slowest part of the race. We passed one lighthouse after another, through rocks, shoals and awesome coastline as we worked our way north up the coast of France in the evening light. Just as the sun was going down (around 2215!) we left the final French lighthouse to port and turned to start crossing the English Channel.

Up until this point we had been slowly getting passed by any number of boats, and once we did the turn the water flattened out and the breeze subsided a bit, and we started really dogging it. Boats that should have no business even keeping pace with us were sailing higher and faster upwind, and so we knew a change was in order. In this class stacking of the gear below is permissible, and we had most of our gear quite far forward as our particular boat usually responds well to this configuration. But in the spirit of making a change, any change, we shifted all the water, emergency gear and food back a few feet and centered it and the change was dramatic. We quickly picked up our pace, took back all the nearby boats, and started reeling in the next group several miles ahead of us as the sun disappeared completely. If we'd only changed a bit earlier…!

The wind continued to slowly lighten, bottoming out at around 7-10 knots with a flat sea state. It was an encouraging night, as we separated from most of the boats around us, gaining a better heading towards our next mark across the English Channel, Wolf Rock. Adam and I switched off once during the night, starting our pattern that would hold for the whole race; that of one person driving until he felt the concentration was lagging or a change was needed, and then would wake the other for a swap. Initially we were going to do a three hours on, three off system but the looser structure proved to be the best.

The next morning dawned grey, foggy and the wind continued light. It appeared most of the boats had tacked over early to make the necessary hitch to Wolf Rock, but we kept looking at the course we were sailing and our GPS, which told us we were on the slightly lifted tack with up to a knot of current. Watching the locals tack away one by one was disconcerting and led to a lot of cockpit discussion, but we decided to hang on our present heading in the absence of anything definitive telling us to go the other way.

As the day brightened the few remaining boats around us again began to demonstrate an advantage in height and speed, so we went into change mode again. While checking our headstay tension and our jib, Adam looked down in to the water and saw a green, tangled mess wrapped around our bow and the guy line that supports our bowsprit. As you might expect our performance improved after he spent a few inverted minutes picking the pieces of the fish net out of the water. And despite our commitment to lowering the weight of the boat by whatever means possible, we couldn't throw it back in the water so it was wadded up and lashed to the stern pushpit, mostly out of the way.

Our march upwind continued, now with only a few boats around. When our course finally began to sag away from England, we tacked over and started an eight-hour upwind marathon. The sun finally came out and the breeze picked up a bit, and despite being upwind the sailing was very pleasant. Even more so when we finally saw the southern tip of Britain and a few boats apparently just behind us. Getting closer late in the day there was a group of boats clustered in near shore, devoid of any wind and facing what looked to be a bad current. We tacked away to avoid that mess, and despite falling into one windless hole we made out on the boats inside. By doing so we also met the French all girl team of 478, as we both tried to pick our way through the glassy spots. We ended up side by side in about .05 knots of wind, and despite the evening hour they declined our invitation to dinner. So serious, those girls. Anyway we both got a whisper of breeze, they went one way (inside) and we went another (outside) to try to make it around the rock. We found better breeze outside and despite overstanding the lighthouse perched on top of Wolf Rock, we made considerable gains on everyone inside. To be continued.