Ex-Bears take on the 40s

We speak to Dan Gohl and Tom Gall about their 40 entry into the Transat Jacques Vabre

While Mike Golding and his new Ecover notched up a useful second place in last weekend's prologue race for the Transat Jacques Vabre, three British boats filled the second to fourth placed slots in the 30 strong Class 40 fleet. First among these boats was not the new Simon Rogers design of veteran boat captain Simon Clarke and his posse of Hamble heavies. Nor was it Miranda Merron's crew on board Peter Harding's new Owen Clarke designed 40 Degrees, but a team of nippers from the Bear of Britain youth program aboard a Marc Lombard-designed Akilaria production boat.

22 year olds, Dan Gohl and Tom Gall inherited this campaign and their Class 40 known as Concise just a few weeks ago. Originally the campaign was put together by another Bear of Britain sailor, 19 year old Ned Collier Wakefield who persuaded a property developer friend of his parents, called Tony Lawson to buy the boat and fund the program.

Their boat was originally to have been one of the Owen Clarke-designed Express 40s built on the Isle of Wight but with this facing a late delivery (the Express 40 of Norwegians Rune Aasberg and Tom Thoresen's that was supposed to be on the TJV start line this Saturday we are told only began construction two weeks ago!) forced the team into making a dramatic U-turn, eventually ending up with their present Tunisian-built Akilaria. Despite this change of tack, they took delivery of their new boat only at the end of August, with less than two months to commission the boat, qualify and get to the start line.

Aside from hassle over the boat, the team went through another significant change when Collier Wakefeild and Tony Lawson had a 'difference of opinion' that led to the former leaving the team. Thus Dan Gohl, originally Collier Wakefield's co-skipper, graduated up to skipper, joined by Tom Gall, also from the Bear program (but on Peter Harrison's Chernikeef side). Gall works for North Sails and has been involved with the campaign from the outset putting together the sail program. "The whole program had come so far that he [Lawson] thought he’d carry it on anyway," says Gohl.

So the perfect arrangement - the Class 40 race horse, with Tony Lawson as owner and Gohl and Gall as jockeys. "That's pretty much the arrangement. It is a good deal. It is good for us. He looks after us really well," says Gohl.



In terms of their backgrounds both Gohl and Gall have recently been with Kit Hobday and Peter Harrison's Bear of Britain youth training program. Gohl says his background before this was always in big boats, however Gall was an ardent F18 catamaran sailor before graduating up to keelboats when he started work at North. Gall admits that shorthanded ocean racing is something he has always dreamed of doing.

Having sailed extensively on the Farr 52s, the duo have had no problems stepping down to a 40 footer where the gear is smaller and more managable, even though they are only two up. "It is real different - shorthanded, fun - it is obviously a bit slower," says Gohl. "It rates the same under IRC. It is ideal for this kind of thing. It was hard racing it inshore - you have to pull out some special manoeuvres on some thing because it is really not set up for inshore. It is probably quite good for us with our inshore background."



While they took delivery of the Akilaria late, Gohl and Collier Wakefield had managed to carry out a reasonable amount of training on board the Class 40 Nick Bubb sailed in last year's Route du Rhum. Gohl also helped deliver Phil Sharp's Class 40 back from Guadeloupe after the Route du Rhum. As he was originally supposed be racing the TJV with Collier Wakefield, he also ended up making two qualifiers, the first with Collier Wakefield, the second most recently with Gall.

Since getting the Akilaria to the UK, it has been based around the corner from thedailysail office in Hamble Yacht Services, along with Simon Clarke's new Simon Rogers designed Class 40 and Peter Harding's 40 Degrees. The knowledgable Clarke in particular they found extremely useful as someone who's brain they have been able to pick about their campaign and getting the boat together.

As to the boat itself, Akilarias represent the largest contingent of boats in the 30 strong Class 40 fleet, with nine entered including Dominique Vittet's race favourite Atao Audio Systems. According to Gohl, Akilarias come in several configurations some, with cruising interiors. Theirs doesn't have this, but is different from the standard racing boat as it has halyard tunnels running through the cabintop. They also have no seats in the cockpit, not a problem says Gohl as they'll probably use a bean bag.

Quite what will happen to the Concise campaign after the Transat Jacques Vabre remains to be seen. Gohl says that Lawson was considering selling the boat, but this is not certain now. Part of this may depend upon how the boat gets on in the TJV and how it gets back from Brazil. "We are like first reserve to get on the ship at the moment. We might end up going to Antigua if we don’t get on the ship," says Gohl. "Yeah, suffer some more warm and sunny weather!" adds his co-skipper.

We hope that Tony Lawson will hang to the boat and allow other members of the Bear of Britain program to try their hand as shorthanded offshore racing. In the meantime we look forward to watching the progress of the lads to see how readily they have made the transition from fully crewed inshore racing to shorthanded offshore.