SOME PRICE GIVING PICS

I forgot to ad some pics about the price giving ceremony in Hobart.


The one pic shows Duncan receiving the trophy for 2nd in class.

And here we all celebrating the trophy. Emily and Brandon left already flying back to Melbourne.

I'll still keep writing on the blog with some "after thought's ". Right now I"m in the middle of nowhere (in Bega, an Australian mini town) and there is a bus bringing me and Gerry

                           tonight at 3:30 AM !!!!!!! back to Sydney.


Te battery in my camera is almost done and I want to safe it. So, no pics from Bega...you don't miss much.

SAILING BACK TO SYDNEY

Arctos stays in Hobart for another 2 weeks and I’m jumping on another boat on the way back.

“Breakthrough”, is a First 40.7 and well equipped for racing . She finished the race with a ranking somewhere in the first quarter of the fleet. I know the First 40.7 from my Fastnet race in 2009. A boat with good pointing potential but it is not a solid boat as Arctos is. You can feel on the helm that it is a much lighter boat.

Breakthrough is based in Sydney and there is a group of sailors enjoying her in offshore races on the Australian east coast. Most of the racing crew could not sail her back and there was need for one sailor to bring her home to Sydney.

                          Well, I was available for doing exactly that.

Usually there are always some skippers looking for crew to sail the boat back as often crews from the race have not enough time and then they rather fly back.

The team around Breakthrough hired a professional skipper for the Sydney Hobart race.

Berry Hirley from Ireland has an amazing sailing experience. He did a lot of solo sailing and he also did the Ostar Transatlantic race via the Northern route. There are not many sailors in the world crazy enough for this extreme race from Plymouth/England to Newport in Rode Island, USA sailing through waters full with icebergs. This year he also did the Rolex Middle sea route in October and he won the Round Rockall race in May…single handed!!!!!!!

Berry was flown in from Malta to train and skipper the Breakthrough-crew in the Sydney-Hobart race.

Berry should meet with Jason, our solo sailing expert on Arctos. These two Irish lads would have a lot to talk about.

 Wlodek from Poland lives since many years in Sydney. He was doing already his 2^nd Sydney-Hobart race and has a lot of offshore experience with Breakthrough and is very experienced in sailing the bass strait.

 Gerry, also from Ireland, is another member of the sailing group on Breakthrough and unfortunately could not join for the race itself but is sailing her back now. Beside a lot of inshore races he has also some offshore experience and is looking forward to do his first Sydney-Hobart next year. This passage will help him to gain valuable experience.

  

Katy, our nr. 3 from Ireland (Irish dominance on the boat), is the only girl for the delivery. She is a friend from Berry and is using the opportunity to collect her first offshore sailing experience. She lives in Dublin and sails there with a group of people in a J111. She proved to be very talented on the helm.

Katy and I did one watch and Wlodek and Jerry the other shift while Berry kept  himself out of the shift system. We did 2 to 3 hour watches depending on the  weather conditions.

We started in good weather but soon have been hit by winds up to 40 kt. Luckily we have been on a broad reach course which made the wind much more pleasant as on a beating course. The problem which came up was breaking waves of 3 to 4 meters coming from about 150 degree astern. To avoid being knocked down from one of these bastards we had to steer her so that the wave was coming directly from behind. But we couldn’t turn the boat too much out of the wave or we would have had an accidental jibe, which in these wind conditions would surely mean some broken rig. We have been twice close to a knockdown. How exciting.

An hour later the wind and the waves settled to a more enjoyable ride and we sailed into a night with 20 to 25 kt of wind with moderate waves.

We made good progress and the next afternoon we entered already the bass strait with almost no wind at all. We motor sailed to make sure we make it in time to Eden Harbor for shelter before a Northerly storm is coming down the Australian coast. The plan is to wait 1 day till the worst of the storm is through and then we continue back to Sydney.

In the afternoon the wind picked up enough to do sailing again. It started with a 7 kt breeze building up later to 12 to 15 kt. Unfortunately the wind came the first 10 hours from northerly direction, our course to Eden. We sailed the boat close-hauled and then the wind started to change to a northwesterly wind which brought us on a course direct towards Eden. The conditions stayed like this all night and far into the next day. The Northeastern storm is expected to build up next night.

We have been 80 NM off the coast and did a tack to work our way closer to the coast as our rudder quadrant broke!!!! The boat did 2 full turns till it settled down in a heave to position as it is supposed to do. Wind around 20 to 25 kt.

We managed to disconnect the remaining pieces of the quadrant and kept sailing with the emergency tiller to Eden 80 NM away. It was not easy to get used to the new steering feeling but finally we managed to steer the boat quite well into Eden which we arrived in the evening. Eden is a small town with a fishing harbor. Not many sailing boats there. We tied up to another sailing boat which also had rudder problems, but unluckily during the race down to Hobart and they had to retire.

Evening in Eden

THE RACE

Mark, our reporter from ABC television, showed up in the morning at the marina telling us that he didn’t feel well and could not join us on our race which means no ABC coverage. What a pity. But on the other hand it also means we have more food to share. Always positive.

That also means no Wi-Fi connection and I could not report life.

We where recommended to take seasickness pills. I never got seasick and want to find out my limitations.








THE START

The conditions on the start sounded exciting. 15 to 20 kt breeze.

As usual in this kind of races everyone had to show his storm sails to the start boat. For us meanwhile an easy exercise.

The start was done on a beam reach course with our nr. 3 headsail up giving us more maneuver margin. Chris was on the helm. Asymmetric spinnaker was ready to go but we decided not to hoist it. We did not bad on the start but we missed like 20 sec. on the line. Still about in the middle of the fleet.

 About half of the other boats flew their spi’s and most of them struggled to keep the spi filled.  And the start course out of the Sydney bay was only about 2 NM before we passed the buoy on port side to open waters when the Spinnaker had to be dropped anyway.






A few boats with us on the mark but no real battle unfolded. One boat was starboard astern and it was questionable if he was overlapped or not. We did not squeeze him out.

We put 1 reef in the main. Big swell of up to 5 m and a fresh wind around 20 kt made a pleasant sail. But for us it was a close hauled course and Arctos is not  good at pointing high on the wind nor is she fast on that course. We steered about 110 degree. 160 was the course to clear the heads of the shoreline on the go to Hobart. We could see many of the other boats passing by or pointing higher. We finally tacked and with our Nr 3 headsail could somehow manage to keep up to the fleet on a direct course along Australia’s coastline.

And we are hoping for a wind shift to use the potential from Arctos. Later the wind is weakening, reef taken out and Nr 2 headsail hoisted. Nice and smooth ride. A little change in wind direction in our favour and we are picking up on the fleet. The wind slows down even more and nr. 1 is hoisted.  

We are probably not doing so good with our position in the race . The wind comes down to 3 to 6 kt. We tried Asymmetric  Spinnaker and Nr. 1 head sail. The sails have a hard time to fill.  Frustrating. Luckily we have a little current pushing us the right direction.

We are fighting light winds all night. But moral is good.

Next morning, blue sky, still very light wind and a boat speed of about 1 to 2 kt!!!!

We know that the wind will pick up. Peter is doing the Tactics and the Navigation. He gets the newest weather updates.We have to sit it out and we are not alone. The maxis could escape the light wind and are already in the middle of bass strait with good winds. Amazing.

Finally the wind picks up as we expected. Initially with 7 to 10 kt building up to 15 to 17kt. We fly the spinnaker and make a good 10 kt speed on a beam to broad reach. Almost the condition Arctos and we love to see. We are catching up on our competitors. This wind is forecasted to stay with us for another 5 to 7 hours. We are making good progress.

 We enjoy a smooth and fast downwind ride. There are a few boats around and we are clearly faster. There is 1boat of our class about 7 NM ahead. The leader. The rest of the group is around us in a 20 min window. 

We are going for the leader. 

We have “tracker’ on board and this gives the race committee and via Internet or telephone everyone else the positions of the boats.

Wind increases to 20 kt to 25kt Spinnaker down and Nr. 1 headsail up. Speed goes up to 13 to 15 kt. Peak is 17.5 kt!!!!!!!

What a ride. We can keep going for hours with this speed. We are leading now the fleet.

We are coming to the bass strait. Wind is changing as forecast. We are on a beating course. Wind picks up to 30 to 35 kt. Peak’s 40kt. Sailing with 2^nd reef and staysail only. Waves around 3 meters and chaotic.

Welcome in the bass strait.  It really lives up to its reputation.

BASS STRAIT WITH ITS WONDERFUL AND BRUTAL CHARM IS SIMPLY AMAZING

Arctos is violently rocking through the waves. She crashes into the waves every 20 to 30 seconds. HOLD ON OR YOU ARE THROWN AROUND. Now I understand why we have safety belts on our bunks. I’m in one of the front bunks just  behind the sail compartment and I feel how I’m pushed out of my bunk into the safety belt when Aractos is falling down of a wave. Without that belt I would have fallen couple of times out of the bunk. Moving inside the boat is very difficult.

And writing on this blog is a pain in the …….

    Welcome in the bass strait.  It really lives up to its reputation.

Spray is washing constantly over the deck. WET  WET  WET

This are the challenging moments for the bowman.




I'm preparing a sail change together with Pete

This is what I expected from this waters. This is what makes bass strait so famous. And we have below 40 kt of wind. I can imagine what it would be like in 60 or 70 kt.

Strong heeling. We make around 7 kt of speed. Not our favorite course and wind. We have to go another 15 to 20 hours thorough the strait.

A school of dolphins is crossing our way. Beautiful. And an hour later we see for a few seconds some sharks passing by as well. 

The wind keeps changing and is weakening. Many Sail changes to adapt to the wind. One of our battens on the main gets loose. It takes us time to fix it. Later another batten starts to slip too. And this on a new sail. Annoying.  We start thinking of killing the sail maker.

But with team effort we fix the problem.

I don’t remember any offshore race where we had no problems. I guess it just belongs to it.

Meanwhile we are on sail nr2 and  full main doing 7n kt.

This was a very work intensive shift.

We need wind for a reach  course to get the full advantage of Arctos.

Oh please, lord of the bass strait, let the wind change in our favor.









Night again. We keep going with an average of 7 kt but in the early morning the wind dies completely for about 2 hours. Luckily not in my shift. It is frustrating on a sailing boat without wind. Our shift starts and the wind starts to build up. Enough to come back to again around 7 kt average boat speed on a beating course direct to Hobart. 








This wind picks up again and keeps blowing for the rest of the race. Beating all the time. We don’t like it. Another storm hits us in the Tasmanian sea . 25 to 30 kt with wild sea. I never get dry. My pant’s is not waterproof anymore. I have a constantly wet ass. I run out of dry underwear. When I go for my sleep I try to find something dry to put on. When I go to fight the elements again I have to use my wet underwear. What a feeling. Stepping already wet into my foul weather. How pleasant.














On the horizon some competitors. The current between ½ and 1 kt in our favor.

Tasmania

















Arriving at Hobart Harbor. The crowed is cheering. What a feeling

Final result on the race:

It was clear that we could not keep up with the racing machines like the open 60’s or some of the boats build for this race.  Even with the handicap system it would be difficult to beat these boats.

But in our class we made it as 2^nd in our division (out of 9 boats) and 3^rd in our class (out of 16 boats).

Thought that we had the odds on our side with a crew who just met and only a few days of preparation and training and a boat which is great on a downwind course but has a hard time while beating (most of the race was on a close hauled or beating course) we did extremely well and we are proud of your result.

After we “parked” Arctos in the harbor and after having some “real” drinks our brave Duncan and Peter the young could not resist to jump in the water ( 17degrees and, well, muddy harbor water) for a little refreshment.

Duncan had a hotel suit booked and invited us to his place to take a shower and get fresh. A SHOWER!!!!!!!!! After 4 days of racing without washing I (we) had the smell of 4 hard days of sweating and fighting the ocean.

You might imagine how good that felt.


Price giving this morning. It took 1 hour!!!! To long for my taste. Too many officials holding speeches. Boring. We got our trophy for our 2nd place and we start splitting up.  

I had such a great time with this crew. Thank you very much



Since Arctos stays in Hobart for another 2 weeks I'm sailing back on "break through", a first 40.1.  We will be 4 on board and we might do a stop in Eden. We'll see.

I'll take some pics and let you know how it goes as soon as I have again internet connection. We depart in 1 hour. I have to hurry.

Cheers, Matthias