Underway

Bob Fisher reports from Sandhamn and the start of Gant Gotland Runt

The clouds rolled away in an 8-10 knot southeasterly breeze as the 255 yachts gathered for the start of the 364 mile Gant Round Gotland Race. The earlier promise of showers evaporated in the sunshine and there was an air of expectancy both aboard the competing boats and also on the 200-odd spectator craft there to watch battle commence.

The IMS boats competing in the Swedish IMS Championship were first away and unsurprisingly it was Peter Rudback’s IMX-40 Imagine that captured the pole position right by the inner distance mark at the windward end of the line. Currently lying second after five races, Rudback improved his chances greatly with this start, holding clear air on the first leg, a mainly starboard tack beat to Almagrundet light. At the far end of the line, the bright yellow hull of the Mumm 36, BTH, was very much in evidence with clear air and footing fast.

The rest of the IMS boats, Class 1 & 2, were next to start with the highly favoured Farr 44, Carbonita XII of Claes Cronstedt starting one-quarter of the way down the line from the committee boat and forging out into her own lane of clean air. Carbonita XII had judiciously avoided the crowding at the inner limit mark where Per Swanberg’s Farr one-tonner, Joint Venture, had blocked the way for the rest, but when the gun fired she was slow to pick up speed, while Lennart Evrell’s Beneteau 40.7 Aida pushed out through her lee and was quickly away.

Until the ORC Class 1, all 79 of them, came to the line, no one had troubled the starter by being early, but there were three who were on the course side of the line at gunfire, of which Anders Berggren’s X-482 Barcares was easily the most prominent.

Two very differently styled boats were the best starters among the 49 boats in ORC Class 2, the long, lean S-30 Melker skippered by Karl Brodin had sat close to the inner end of the line with her mainsail aback until six seconds before the start, but left just enough room for Fredrik Grufman’s Corby 25, Fast Lion to squeeze through. Also away with this group, were the J/105s and X-99s, of which Claes Brunnhage’s Garbo was 'launched' well ahead of the fleet from a speedy line crossing at the gun six boat lengths from the inner distance mark. Lief Dehlen’s Husky led the 15 X-99s.

There were two distinct match races brewing in the Volvo Ocean 60s, for whom this is the penultimate event of the Volvo Baltic Race 2004; Matt Humphries’ Elanders, with Kiwi match racer Cameron Appleton on the wheels was the gentle aggressor against Thomas Blixt’s Sony-Ericcson, while there was a greater fight in progress between Mikki Lundh’s Avant and Jonas Claesson’s JMS Next Generation; Marko Murtic’s AV-Teknik appeared to be there just for the ride and was left very much alone.

With a minute to go and Sony-Ericcson three lengths to leeward, Elanders tacked on to port and sailed toward the committee boat; Sony-Ericcson tacked to follow and they both tacked back on to starboard with 30 seconds to go and powered up for the start, bow-to-bow, with Elanders having the windward advantage. Meanwhile Avant has been all over JMS Next Generation and played a shut-out ploy at the windward end of the line. The wind had veered slightly and the strength was down to six knots, but the Volvo Ocean 60s more than exceeded this with their boat speed.

The best was left to last when the five Open 60 trimarans came to the line for another race in the Nokia Oops Cup. Series leader, Knut Frostad in Academy, has set up early and well back from the line, planning his run in to a nicety to lead these triple fingered forms away. Magnus Olsson, probably the most experienced in these boats, was next off in Gore-Tex while Stefan Myralf in Nokia blocked the passage of Klabbe Nylof in HiQ II at the inner distance mark. As they were hard on the wind, Gore-Tex appeared to sail higher than the rest.