The
2011 Voiles de St. Tropez will be remembered as the year that the wind never
showed up. Luckily the event is as much
about the festival of sailing as it is about the actual racing. The site of St. Tropez in France mixed with
the incredible collection of sailing vessels gathered for is event make it THE
sailing festival of the year.
Now to
the actual racing; I was here competing on Highland Fling,
the Richael Pugh 82 in our final event of the
year. We had made many upgrades to the
boat and were sailing her better with each event, so we were looking forward to
this regatta where we would be up against the more optimized RP 72 Shockwave
and the Vrohlic 62 Jetou. Race day 1 was very light winds and we had a
nice pin end start and rounded the weather mark right behind Shockwave. We opted for the A 1.5 spinnaker while they
went for their code 0, and this proved key as we were
able to sail lower and closer to the course to the next mark. They eventually peeled to their 1.5 also, but
we continued to extend, found some nice lanes of breeze, and opened up a nice
lead. Due to the light winds, the
committee decided to shorten the race at mark 2. We were first across the line, beating boats
much bigger than us, and also corrected out on handicap ahead of all the
others, so a nice win to for us.
Race 2
was another light air affair. Starts
were really tricky with 43 boats in our class, and of all different size and
type, making it quite tough to hold a position on the line. We managed another clean start and lead the
class around mark 1, and went to our code 0 sail on the next leg as we saw the
traffic from the 3 classes that started ahead of us as being the greatest
challenge. This sail allowed us to sail
over the fleet and extend on Shockwave who went with their A1.5 spinnaker. The team did a nice job in the 5-8 knot winds
and we managed to again cross the line first and correct out ahead of all those
behind us.
We
then had a day of no wind, a lay day, and another day of no wind, so a bit of
waiting, and frustrating for everyone. Going
into the final day we had a nice lead of 4 points over Shockwave and 5 over Jetou, so the plan was to sail clean and not lose the
regatta. A great start and clear air saw
us lead the fleet to the top mark again, and then extend to a huge lead as the
boats behind starting running out of wind.
At mark 2 the committee started recording times in case they later
wanted to make that the finish ( a unique feature of
this event!) and we had our time on everyone luckily as the wind started to die
everywhere. Eventually the committee
conceded and abandoned the race, which gave us the overall victory.
So
although there were very few races finished, we were really encouraged by our
performance. We are a very wide boat
with twin rudders and great stability which makes us a heavy air weapon. But conversely, this wide bodied boat means
lots of hull drag in light conditions.
To counter this we were very aggressive with the trim of the boat,
moving all our sails inside the boat to the bow and sailing with most of the
crew down below and forward. This helped
lift the wide part of the boat out of the water and made a huge difference,
giving us speeds in these light conditions we had not seen before.
So a
great event for us, even if there was not much actual racing. And always a fun event with the hundreds of
boats gathered, and everything from old wooden schooners to modern day race
machines. And of course, the huge crowds
and beautiful people to go along with this show just make this a fun and unique
event.
This
was also the end of a great season on the Highland Fling program, as we won the
last three events of the year- Loro Piana in June, the Rolex Maxi Cup in September, and now St.
Tropez. The team really worked hard and
i am quite proud of what we achieved. Great kudos to the crew.
This
pretty much marks the end of my 2011 racing season, as we pack up the Highland Fling for the year. I
have a couple small events in the Caribbean in November, a match race in the
BVI and a pro-am event also in the BVI.
Then
we roll out a brand new Highland Fling now being built
in China for next season, a TP 52 that we will shake down in Florida in
December, and then race in 2012 in Key West and the Caribbean, before shipping
it over to Europe for the summer season.
So another exciting year ahead if all goes as planned.
From
Peter