Loof takes the lead

But Beadsworth and Carr win race one in their news. Andy Beadsworth reports from day one of the Holland Regatta

Wind 14-16 occasional gust of 18. Direction 220-240 Shifty

It seems like a long time since I Have written a regatta report. It certainly felt like a long time since I sailed a star when we went out for the first time in a different boat yesterday.

Our old boat 7953 has been sold in America. We are now using 8025, Walker's Silver Medal boat from Sydney and the boat Iain and Steve won the worlds in 2002. A good boat and newer than the last.

We took delivery of it over two weeks ago and have been working hard on it since then. Having dropped out of the first European event due to lack of funds and the uncertainty of having a boat to sail, we were hoping to have done a few days or more, sailing in the UK before the event but, we were still working hard on the boat last night. The poor old girl has not been used much recently and was in desperate need of some love.

Not being able to afford having the work done both Freddie and I got on with it. With a
little help and advice from Dave Heritage and others, we undertook some keel repairs and painting (only having to wipe off one lot of paint that didn't go off. OE!!!) and a lot of re-rigging, mast polishing and refurbing and a heap of tidying up: Not a cheap exercise even though we did the work ourselves.

We have a new set of North sails, (still to be paid for) which looked great from the minute we put them up.

The first race today got off on the first attempt. The line was starboard biased and we won the committee boat just to windward of Loof (ISAF world Ranked No1). Our first test of speed in the new boat! We were faster and rolled forward on the fleet, leading at this stage. Freddie tacked out behind us to the right and we continued waiting for a header, eventually it came and we lead the group back. It was short lived and Freddy Loof had made a gain. We tacked to leeward. At the windward mark Loof had a 2-3 boat length lead on us with the pack tight on our heals.

I made a late decision to gybe at the offset mark and put Freddie under a lot of pressure, he was trying to get the jib stick on when I threw in a gybe. He managed, just, to deal with the runners and not lose the jib stick. It was a good decision and put us in a strong position as we laid down to the leeward marks.

We caught Loof and were even at the bottom. He took the right mark. We took the left heading out right. In the end it was a good decision as we led at the final windward mark but it was difficult with big shifts. We faltered a little at the beginning of the run, losing our advantage to Loof although clear of the rest of the field. He is sailing his new Lillia-built boat this week. Supposedly faster downwind. However 8025 has a reputation for being fast downwind (maybe just it was just the previous sailors). We made an adjustment to our runners and took off, holding Loof all the way to the finish, securing our victory by sneaking our gybe in, not allowing Loof to gybe and cover us but to end up going past us and gybing to leeward of us.

A good start to our campaign in 8025. I'm not sure we would have been quite so comfortable in 7953 in those conditions. The boat felt very easy to drive, tacking height in the flat water and or lighter spots yet being able to go bow forward when we wanted to.

In the second race the fleet lined up very early, close to the line. Again starboard biased. We held back nudging in to the back of the front row with ten seconds to go. I felt that the fleet were over so held back. Unfortunately not enough. The committee were good and got half the fleet. A second row start and OCS.

Having spent the first beat thinking we were going to gain at the windward mark when all the OCS boats were pulled out we ended up sailing straight past back to the shore. Very disappointed! The only positive was that most of the competition was too except Loof and Prof O'Connell.

Overall an average day but with lots of positive. A fantastic result in the first race and a good foundation to build on.

Freddie and I were really pleased the way we settled in, communication was good. Boat handling was a bit rusty but good enough and our speed excellent. Upwind and down.

Looking forward to tomorrow and another two races.

Andy and Freddie

Results:

Pos	Helmsman		Crew	Nat	R1	R2	Tot
1	Fredrik	Loof	Anders Ekstrom	SWE	2	1	3
2	Maurice	O'Connell	Ed Peel	IRL	4	2	6
3	Mahesh	Ramchandran	Nitin Mongia	IND	6	3	9
4	Marc	Blees	Gert van der Heijden	NED	13	4	17
5	Hein	Dijksterhuis	Marc van Bemmel	NED	14	5	19
6	Chris	Frijdal	Edens Rob	NED	12	7	19
7	Albert s.	Ekels	Siebe C. Ekels	NED	11	8	19
8	Han	Bergsma	Remco Beernink	NED	17	6	23
9	Andy	Beasdworth	David Carr	GBR	1	OCS	24
10	Arie	van Harwegen den b	Brad Nichol	NED	16	9	25
11	Robert	Stanjek	Markus Koy	GER	3	OCS	26
12	Mateusz	Kusznierewicz	Dominik Zycki	POL	5	OCS	28
13	Philipp	Rotermund	Fendt Florian	GER	7	OCS	30
14	Matthias	Miller	Frithjof Kleen	GER	8	OCS	31
15	Christian	Monberg	Martin Leifelt	DEN	9	OCS	32
16	Alwin	van Daelen	Peter Peet	NED	10	OCS	33
17	Cees	van Grieken	Van de Pavert Johan	NED	15	OCS	38
18	Henrik	Dannesboe	Ramis Fayzullin	SUI	18	OCS	41
19	Alberto	Barovier	Nando Collanino	ITA	DNF	DNF	46
19	Ante	Razmilovic	John Tremlett	GBR	DNF	DNF	46
19	Sander	Jorissen	Veldhuizen Erik	NED	DNF	DNF	46
19	Vasyl	Gureyev	Korotkov Volodymyr	UKR	DNF	DNF	46