Transat 6.50 Dominik Lenk 2013

UK Mini Fastnet 2011

Posted May 29, 07:20 PM · 1 Comment

On Sunday the 15th, Andy Olliver and me started in the UK Mini Fastnet with his Pogo 1 ‘Prim Avel’. The race started about two weeks ago for us when we sailed the boat to Plymouth from Southampton. From then on I have been updating small bits and worked towards getting the boat through safety inspections.

Andy joined me the Wednesday before the race. At this point the marathon turned into a sprint. We were still up at three o’clock the night before the race with Andy rewiring some solar panels and me splicing together new barberhaulers. Most of the other sailors were enjoying a last good sleep in a hotel at this point.

Of course, among the chaos, I also forgot to take my sleeping bag out of a yachtclub room that was now locked, so my good night’s sleep consisted of a couple shivering hours on the floor.

After the start the fleet reached for Eddystone Lighthouse, just off the coast of Plymouth. At this point we were already in a chasing position as we had to drop the mainsail just before the start to save a sail-batten from a watery death. Later we wedged it in place with a bit of plastic tubing.

Heading upwind round Eddystone we caught at least one boat. It was a bumpy, wet ride and their electrical system actually failed sometime in the morning, forcing them to head back. But looking at the tracker after the race, I am quite proud to say that we stayed with the fleet.

Around the same time, Jerry Freeman from SORC wrote in his race-report “… Andy Oliver has the experienced Dominik Lenk wringing the best out of the only Pogo 1 in the fleet; 171 Prim Avel.” (Thanks Jerry, that made me smile.) Most of the fleet were sailing Pogo 2s, an updated version that is theoretically faster.

But no hiding behind an old boat—approaching Fastnet Rock on the coast of Ireland, the wind continued to shift and we made the mistake of sailing to high. We lost quite a bit of ground there and rounded Fastnet Rock almost four hours after the leader.

By this point our GPS had also taken to constantly assume a man overboard: The MOB button had got stuck and we could no longer cancel out of the dialogue. Later it died completely. Quite amusing, but not very helpful as it meant that we had to use the backup GPS without programmable waypoints.

After Fastnet, we bore away and hoisted the Spinnaker. The lack of sleep was starting to show and Andy was also looking a bit whiter than normal—still we were blasting downwind at twelve knots, spray everywhere. Knowing that the other boats would probably be in front we were pushing very hard and were using our biggest spinnaker. After a couple of broaches we changed it for a smaller one. This took us almost an hour, which goes to show just how tired we were.

But even after that, the speed of the boat was skyrocketing. I was just trimming the spinnaker when we slowed down on top of a wave and the top part of the winch decided to part with the deck. Thankfully it landed in the cockpit and Andy could reassemble it. (In the dark while we were still doing well over ten knots, mind you.)

We gybed in the morning. About five minutes later the bowsprit broke into two pieces. The whole thing was strangely unspectacular. No big bang, just a slight ‘plop’, with the whole lot dragging in the water shortly afterwards.

Us sailing towards the finish in Plymouth harbour. Note the bowsprit—it should really be two to three times as long.

I don’t know about Andy, but I first needed to spent a couple minutes catching up. With the bowsprit gone, the race became a white-sail cruise. Both of us talked about just turning back and abandoning the race—after all a broken spar is a good excuse—but eventually we agreed to rig up what we can and finish properly. It was only a slight detour via Coninbeg; we were already as far away from Plymouth as we could get.

We made our way to Coninbeg at an astonishingly slow six knots. I was sitting on the foredeck trying to come up with a way to rig a shorter version of the bowsprit, so that we could at least put up a small kite. The challenge was to somehow attach something to ragged aluminum without it chafing through in a matter of minutes.

I started working the aluminum tube with a knife in order to get a splint through. Pretty pointless on a rocking boat, as I soon found out after almost piercing my hand instead. At some point, I remembered the wooden bungs from the safety list. Somewhere I read that they are pretty pointless for filling holes in your boat, as these holes are almost never round. However, they were a perfect fit for the bowsprit! It let me attach a strop to it without worrying that it would chafe through. It held all the way to Plymouth, and even all the way to Southampton as I am told.

Sometime after Coninbeg we hoisted our Code 5 and were actually hitting 10 knots again occasionally. The Code 5 was the biggest spinnaker that would fly properly from our bowsprit but it was actually the perfect choice for this leg.

Our speed was still way down and nothing compared to the speeds some of the protos were making coming down this leg, but both Andy and me were pretty elated to be moving again.

Another 200 miles later, after some drifting around near Land’s End, we were just miles away from Plymouth. I was helming during the last night when I could suddenly feel the boat slow down and start vibrating. We had hit an UFO. We checked the rudders, took the Spi down, sailed backwards, heeled the boat—nothing helped. It must have been a seriously big jellyfish clinging on for good life: There was no hard impact together with a very big speed difference and we could just not get rid of it. I though about diving, but it was the middle of the night and the moon had not yet come up.
Thankfully, after an hour or so, it just let go with a woosh and the boat accelerated again. We counted ourselves lucky; afterwards we heard that the French leaders had lost one and almost both rudders to something similar.

Sailing into Plymouth, we had a last little gybing match with the Polish Mini, who eventually caught us just meters from the finish line. Both of us were greeted by big cheers from the crews who had already finished, all lined up on the balcony of the Royal Western. A great reception; thank you guys!

The big thing to learn from this race is sleep management. We pushed very hard until Fastnet, knowing that we had the oldest boat and would need to give all that we had to stay in touch with the fleet. But during the downwind-mayhem sailing down the Irish coast, the tiredness caught up with us, which probably also claimed our bowsprit.

Nevertheless, it was a great race, maybe not quite as far up on the leader-board as I had hoped, but a valuable lesson in mini racing. Thanks to Andy for having me on his boat and James, the race director, and his team for putting on a great regatta together with the Royal Western: A friendly atmosphere and the pre-race lunch made for a great experience before we ever left the dock. And let’s not forget the regular Twitter-updates during the race or the post-race cocktails :D

Next up, the French Mini Fastnet from Douarnenez and the Rolex Fastnet in a ‘big boat’…