Knives out

Andy Nicholson reviews the Mumm 30 racing at the weekend ahead of the Europeans next week. Photos from Ian Roman

The knives have now been well and truly sharpened in the UK based Mumm 30 fleet ahead of the Europeans, hosted by the Royal Southern Yacht Club in Hamble, starting next week.

Another ‘multi race day’ was held on Sunday by Condor Racing. The team lead by Bill Oakley again showed that a highly competent team of three people can get five short races in (plus three practise starts) in tricky conditions. The wind was generally sub 8 knots for the first part of the day, with big shifts and a west going tide. The south westerly seabreeze finally won, providing a 14-16 knots for the final two races to mix things up.

Looking at the scores (which include the five races from two weeks ago), Asterix is well and truly on top of the heap. Louis Browne’s team have however seen their dominance slowly eroded by the chasing pack, with winning margins shortening. They do still win though. Asterix seems to come off the line well, with plenty of speed and are still the quickest boat in the fleet. They are also sailing well downwind, which has usually provided them with the opportunity to overtake any remaining boats.

Crew work in all the boats is pretty sharp now, the only thing that really stood out were the number of kites that went up with twists in them on the second lap. A clean hoist does jump you half or one boat length ahead and can dramatically change your run. In such light conditions, there is no reason why the tapes can’t be run. I do have to put my hand up though, with the first hoist of the day on Rainbow having a twist, no excuses here.

The day also provided an excellent opportunity to put the new fruit up. With most boats switching between racing jibs and practise jibs, and trying new spinnakers.

Robert Barr’s Kanati remains the most attractive boat on the water (the boat not the crew…) and showed that they will be ones to watch come the main event, a nice port tack start on the first race was executed perfectly. Onboard in Jochem Visser on main and UK’s Tom McWilliam trimming. Mike Budd on Seven decided to take an early bath on Sunday after completing three races. Seven is still using old Hyde Sails and were definitely suffering against the newer suits. Budd still looks very competent in the close boat on boat sailing, and impressively managed to squeeze round the windward mark on a very thin (ie nowhere near it) layline. Budd will have Paul Brotherton, Simon Russell and Jeremy Robinson in his crew for the main event and new Sobstad sails.

With the breeze up for the last two races, Geoff Gibbons’ White Shark was off like a rocket, they obviously have the right settings for that amount of breeze, scoring a second and a third. It was interesting to see how much tighter the fleet was in the more stable conditions.

The ‘young lads’ on Media Network have been putting a lot of hours in and are really getting up to pace. Although Sundays racing didn’t paint them in too good a light, with a bigger fleet and consistent sailing they should be ok.

We’re happy with where we are at on Rainbow - TheDailySail stickers look excellent. The branding is a happy ‘menage a trois’ arrangement with owner Bent Dietrich - VMG Racing are doing some work on the boat and you’ll see them advertising on the site soon. Rainbow is probably the most travelled Mumm 30 in the world, including having done the Transpac, Tour Voile and Route des Iles.

The race main is setting up ok with only a few rig adjustments needed. Our speed seems to be in the right ball park and crew work seems to have moved up to the final notch.

The entry list for the Europeans has now topped 25, which is what would be expected. The amazing thing is that no Italian boats are yet entered (or that we know of). There were rumours of the Joe Fly gang coming over and Ian Walker being tactician, but no show so far. Why not? They may be happy in their own little world in Italy but for them not to support the Europeans is very disappointing. Plenty of Northern European owners made the expensive and difficult trip to the worlds in Elba last year, so why can’t the Italians be bothered to come here and support this event? Hamble does sell cappuccinos as well as lager, and mobile phones do work here.

Even the Solent has decided in its own way to be as welcoming as possible. Strange algae goings-on means that you can actually see the keel – just like you can in the Med!

Overseas entries so far include Peter de Ridder’s Mean Machine, Jimmy Pahun’s Region Ile de France, Diarmuid Foley’s Mammy!, Harald Bruning’s Topas and Pronk’s Silicon Theatre Secenery from the Netherlands.

We all know that Mumm 30s are the best (sub 50 foot one design) racing boat in the world (ask anyone), and come this Saturday the Solent will be awash with them - we look forward to welcoming all our European competitors. Racing proper starts next Wednesday with 11 races scheduled through to Saturday.

Many thanks to Ian Roman for the photographs, more on the following pages

Two multi race days:

Boat Name	Sail No	Helm	R1	R2	R3	R4	R5	R6	R7	R8	R9	R10	R11	Pts
Asterix	3093R	Louis Browne	2	1	1	1	1	2	1	1	1	1		12
Rainbow	4640	Bent Dietrich	1	2	3	4	2	1	2	6	3	2		26
Kanati	1430R	Robert Barr	3	4	2	3	3	OCS	3	2	5	6		46
Media Network	1305	Clayson/Gimson	6	3	4	2	7	OCS	11	9	6	4		67
Offbeat	7530R	Ian Gill	5	7	9	5	4	9	6	7	7	9		68
Tigger	8730R	Chris Thorne	7	5	6	8	9	8	10	11	9	8		81
White Shark	30R	Geof Gibbons	8	DNF	8	7	DNF	7	9	8	2	3		82
Monkey Business	7730R	David Wilkinson	DNC	DNC	DNC	DNC	DNC	5	7	4	4	7		102
Alfa Laval	18399	Antoine Cardin	4	8	5	6	7	DNC	DNC	DNC	DNC	DNC		105
Plus 3	66	Nigel Biggs	DNC	DNC	DNC	DNC	DNC	6	4	10	8	5		108
Highlander	8930	Gregor Logan	DNC	DNC	DNC	DNC	DNC	4	5	3	DNC	DNC		117
Moonshine	1530R	Jack Kelly	10	9	10	9	5	DNC	DNC	DNC	DNC	DNC		118
Panther	7930R	David Eddowes	9	6	7	OCS	6	DNC	DNC	DNC	DNC	DNC		118
Seven	5930	Mike Budd	DNC	DNC	DNC	DNC	DNC	3	8	5	DNC	DNC		121

Entry list (as of today) for Europeans:

Yacht	Owner
Aeolus	Lambertus G P Dalmolen	NED 6535
Alfa Laval	Southampton Institute Sailing Team	FRA 18399
Asterix	Louis Browne	GBR 3093R
Bite the Bullet Theoule Mandelieu	Richard Bonham Christie	FRA 4
Cotes d'Armor	Vincent Biarnes	FRA 22
Highlander III	Gregor Logan	GBR 8930R
K-Yote Kid	Sailing Club "Lazeris" Tauras Rymonis	FRA 18399
Kanati	Robert Barr	GBR 1430R
Mammy !	Diarmuid Foley	IRL 50590
Mean Machine	Peter de Ridder	NED 7179
Media Network International	Edd Clayson & John Gimson	GBR 1305R
Monkey Business	David Wilkinson &	GBR 7730R
Moonshine	Jack Kelly	GBR 1530R
Offbeat	Ian Gill	GBR 7530R
Orloff	A.P.C.C.	FRA 18329
Plus 3	Ben Todd	GBR 66R
Rainbow	Bent Dietrich	GER 4640
Region Ile de France	Jimmy Pahun	FRA 2012
Scud	Stichting Benodet	NED 6553
Seven	Mike Budd	GBR 5930R
Silicon Theatre Scenery	R. Pronk	NED 523
Tepacap	Association Tepacap	FRA 17
Topas	Harald Bruning	GER 5373
Triple P	Fezi Khaleghi Yazdi	NED 6922
White Shark	Geof Gibbons	GBR 30R