Struggling around the Brittany coast

Andrew Wood brings us up to date with his Mini campaign

I was looking forward to the Trophee MAP race this year - its course takes into account the many different tidal gates to be found along the west and south coasts of Brittany, as well as a good deal of detailed navigation around the reefs of the Glenan Islands and rock strewn Raz du Sein.

I had spent a couple of weeks in Douarnenez before the start working on the boat, so Domosofa.com was probably the most race prepared she has ever been. As well as sorting out a lot of minor details that have been on the ‘to do’ list for some time, I had installed a new Navman GPS which outputs a WCV (waypoint closure velocity) reading; this is a really useful tool when sailing under a spinnaker to a waypoint as it allows you to optimise the ratio between boat speed and heading towards destination, something I had to previously make a guess at.

The start was reasonable, and put me round the windward mark in the first 20 out of 80 starters before setting the big spinnaker for the run down to the Raz Du Sein. With around 10 knots of patchy breeze it was a gentle cruise to the point that really mixed up the pack. I rounded the lighthouse and transited the channel and was happy to see everybody parked up with no wind and even happier to keep in a wind lane that led me to the front of the pack.

I was up with and about to pass the leader Yves Le Blevec on Actual, when I stopped, caught in the same net as the rest of the fleet. My WCV soon started to give out negative readings as the strong current in the Raz Du Sein changed direction to the north. This is not a good place to be with no wind and everybody was desperately searching for a way out. Those that were closer to shore found a breeze and as I was going backwards where I was, this was my only hope. By the time I got there, most of the fleet had escaped leaving Nick Brennan on 419 and a few others tacking inside the 10m line in a back eddy.

This was so frustrating, we would make a few boat lengths in the right direction, then go a little bit too far out and get taken back to the start! Eventually, we luckily had a little gust that took us round the point and to our freedom. We were now at least an hour behind the fleet and I was seriously considering going back to the bar! But, I didn’t quit and the few of us at the rear decided to keep pushing and have our own private race.
The rest of the race was plagued with light and variable winds meaning that as soon as you made some gains, a hole would appear and everybody would catch up again making for an extremely frustrating race overall. In the end, I managed to claw my way up to 34th out of 80 so although it was I think my worst result to date, I did manage to make the best of some very frustrating conditions, and once again confirmed that GBR 500 is exceptionally good at upwind legs.

Some good news though, yesterday there was a local fun race for the minis set up by the local bar ‘La Point’ and although only 12 or so boats raced there was some good competition including Ecover, Actual and Synergy, all favourites for the transat. Nick Brennan (AUS 419) and I teamed up for this race which turned out to be a good partnership.

It was a simple race, just a windward/leeward course starting with a light breeze that gradually picked up to around 15 knots by the finish. Once again domosofa.com proved herself upwind as we matched and sailed perhaps marginally faster than Isabelle on synergy, rounding the mark only a few boat lengths behind, but the gap grew as we set up for the reach to the finish. GBR 500 is slightly underpowered in this angle with her narrower stern, but nevertheless, we still kept pace and managed to hold onto the 4th position beating the rest of the fleet by a long way.

So, the next plan is to sail back to the UK to do some work on the sails with the guys at Kemp, before returning for the Transgascogne in July.