Short handed sailor Lia Ditton. sens in this week's Local Knowledge report. Enjoy.

Huib Swets (OSTAR, RBI, RdR veteran) and Jules Bänffer (Shorthanded.nl) have clubbed together this year, to create an impressive short-handed scene in Holland of which the ‘FlevoMarina Double handed’ 50 miler was their first conception. A staggering 90 boat fleet turned up to race…it was quite a weekend! The next one on the cards is 100 miles, then the 1000-mile which has an attractive website.

Would the owner of a 37 foot glass/carbon fully-turbo’d machine really lend his boat to a virtual stranger on the basis of reputation alone? Frankly when I agreed to participate in the 50 mile double-handed, I didn’t really think it would happen. Me of little faith! The next e-mail I received from Jules Bänffer on behalf of Shorthanded.nl outlined that the boat had been secured and would be delivered by its crew to Leylstadt on Thursday! One of ninety boats entered, we were in the running! I was signed up for a weekend on the Ijsselmeer.

The boat was in fabulous condition and top of the range at that. As a stripped-out cruiser racer, the loaned Salona 37, branded to the hilt with the colours of leading Dutch electronics company, ‘Lenco’ was definitely more racer than cruiser. I was guessing 4 feet of freeboard, with a lot of sleek carbon stretching up into the sky, as I walked down the dock of the host marina. Short-handed she was going to be quite a challenge and despite the forecast for Saturday nestling at 10kts and 22 degrees in temperature, it was late Friday afternoon and blowing a good 18 with no signs of laying down. I was undeniably nervous. But with co-skipper Nik Peterson, a tall, athletic semi-professional, I needn’t have been. Within minutes of meeting, we decided to head out into the bay and see how the ‘Lenco’ handled. It was also Nik’s first time on board!

With one of those nifty Tacktick Micronet displays [Tacktick call it the T070 Race Master] counting down the seconds to the start, our line up in the sequence couldn’t have been better. Despite the 22 boats in our class clamoring for the pin end, luffing and gibing in a washing machine chop, the gun went and with a flurry of trimming and tweaking, we were away. A J 109 to windward managed to sneak in front by giving us bad air, but that wasn’t for long as they quickly tacked over into a lighter patch. Holding tight to our initial course, we were soon enjoying a realm unto our selves with a surprisingly clean run down the port side of the course. Leading the fleet of Class 2, only two boats from Class 1 remained up ahead. We had made a good call with a full main and heavy jib for the upwind leg, giving us as much power as we could handle in the absence of legs dangling over the side. It was definitely time for a spot of lunch…!

Masked by the heat hazy which the wind turbines were slowly knifing through, the second mark lay several miles to the North East. Merrily I spun the wheel into a tack while Nik fed on port and hauled in the starboard sheet. Sunshine had broken out and the breeze was easing off from 14 knots to 10 or less in front. The boats behind were beginning to edge threateningly closer. A red Max Fun 35 was now only 3-4 boat lengths behind to leeward on the same tack. At this point it was time to heighten our game and preserve every inch. When they tacked, we tacked to cover and so for an hour or two were we caught up in a fantastic dual. Thankfully by the time we were setting up for a spinnaker hoist around the mark, there was distance between us, but competition remained fierce. We were on their radar and a lot of scampering to trim; ease and tweak seemed to be going on, on both boats. Our lack of a gennaker put as at a severe disadvantage for what in the wind shift had become a reaching leg and without an autopilot, the hoist and manoeuvring of even our smallest spinnaker, was going to be interesting to say the least! So as we crawled into the next leg, the wind now dying off to 6 or 7 knots, ‘Red Roo,’ the enemy, the Max Fun 35 was able to hold a higher line and so began to take our lead.

A swarm of natty bugs seemed to arrive with the onset of frustration as ‘Red Roo’ snuck past us, their enormous red, white and blue gennaker filling nicely, while our asymmetric #3 collapsed and tugged, rattling the spinnaker pole in defiance. For shorthanded sailing, we simply weren’t equipped. Finally the wind returned and we doused the spinnaker. A roller-furl-able code zero would have now been perfect, but our lightest battened jib was more than adequate and so following the trail of Roy Heiner and son from the other class, we continued to keep the rest of the competition behind. Even though the breeze had returned into the mid teens, the run downhill to the finish was uneventful, in spite of the valiant attempts by the gennaker-sporting J 109 careening along behind us. We creamed across the finishing line, which lay scarily between the rocky shore and the marina entrance, dropped the kite with professional flare and claimed second place.

The prize giving was full of laughter and drinking continued past midnight. I was thoroughly welcomed by all. My thanks to Jules Bänffer and the emerging Dutch short-handed sailing scene for organizing what transpired to be a super weekend and of course to America’s Cup potential, Nik Peterson and the team behind the Salona 37 ‘Lenco.’