OSTAR preview

30 or so boats to set sail singlehanded across the North Atlantic on Monday

Skipper	Nat	Boat	Type	LOA
Bouchacourt, Jacques	FRA	Okami	Futura 50	50
Caseneuve, Anne	FRA	Croisières Anne Caseneuve	Class 50 Tri	50
Bourke, Peter	USA	Rubicon	Outbound 44	44
Wheatley, Mervyn	GBR	Tamarind	Formosa 42	42
Adams, Bob	USA	Perseverance	Open 40	40
Craigie, Rob	GBR	Jbellino	J 122	40
Cumming, Rob	GBR	Egotripp	Tripp 40	40
Gelder, Reini	AUT	Light for the World	Crowther 40 tri	40
Lampe, Jan Kees	NED	La Promesse	Open 40	40
Magrath, Andrew	GBR	Roaring Forty	Class 40	40
Rottgering, Uwe	GER	Fanfan!	Greyhound 40	40
Swets, Huib	NED	Vijaya	De Ridder 40	40
Westerman, Roberto	ITA	Spinning Wheel	Open 40	40
Petty, Andrew	GBR	Jemima Nicholas	Intrepid 40	40
Hildesley, Pip	GBR	Cazenove Capital	Oyster 395	39
Black, Steve	USA	Caribbean	Prima 38	38
Crowther, Peter	GBR	Suomi Kudu	Swan 38	38
Alcorn, Geoff	GBR	Wind of Lorne II	Saltram 36	36
Falla, John	GBR	Banjaard	Swan 36	36
Nannini, Marco	ITA	British Beagle	Sigma 36	36
Brant, Paul	GBR	Ninjod	JOD 35	35
Freeman, Jerry	GBR	QII	One off  35	35
Hurley, Barry	IRL	Dinah	JOD 35 (Mod)	35
Koopmans, Dick	NED	Jager	Koopmans 35	35
Quaglia, Sandro	FRA	Diavolo Porco	Adventure 35	35
Trentini, Luca	ITA	FIBRA	Open 35	35
Zoccoli, Luca	ITA	In Direzione Ostinata e Contraria	Open 35	35
Chalandre, Christian	FRA	Olbia	S & S 34	34
Mead, Oscar	GBR	King of Shaves	J/105	34
Collins, Michael	GBR	Flamingo Lady	Westerly 33	33
Sayer, Will	GBR	Elmarleen	Sigma 33C	33
Miller, Katie	GBR	bluQube	Figaro II	32
Snodgrass, Jonathan	GBR	Lexia	Sunbird 32	32
Hannah White	GBR	Pure Solo	Figaro II	32
Tortolani, Gianfranco	ITA	Citta di Salerno	Adventure 30 Open	30

This innocent-looking list of skippers and boats represents the 35-strong fleet due to set off singlehanded the wrong way across the North Atlantic on the OSTAR this coming bank holiday Monday on the event's traditional course from Plymouth to Newport, RI. In fact we understand that the actual numbers on the start line are expected to be closer to 30-31 with sadly Luca Trentini and Steve Black definitely not being able to make it.

The OSTAR is not the race it once was. The event, as was, effectively outgrew the Royal Western YC who have traditionally run it under various names (Carlsberg STAR, Europe 1 New Man STAR, etc) since it was first held in 1960. In November 2001 they farmed off its Grand Prix component, typically the ORMA 60s and IMOCA Open 60s, to Offshore Challenges who now run that part of it as the Transat, today effectively a warm-up race for the Vendee Globe it immediately preceeds.

There remains a cross-over between the two events in the 40-50ft range, but the modern day OSTAR (now standing for the 'Original' rather than the 'Observer' Singlehanded Trans-Atlantic Race) is primarily a corinthian affair and perhaps more in the spirit of what its original creator, Blondie Haslar, envisaged, although the days of unfeasible one-off boats being built for it by mad inventors from all over the globe (including the likes of 1964 and 1976 winner Eric Tabarly) seem to have sadly passed. Haslar would certainly turn in his grave if he got wind of his race now being sailed under IRC, although in practice the boat on boat competition still remains the main focus for those taking part and we can particularly look forward to some top competition between the 30 something and 40 footers.

It should be pointed out that in these hard economic times, the OSTAR has no sponsor and the Royal Western YC should be commended for still holding the event and even managing to get HRH Prince Phillip down to start the race on Monday.

What remains unchanged in the OSTAR is the impressively eclectic mix of individuals taking part. After some decidedly amateur demographic analysis on our part, we reckon these fall into around five groups.

Firstly there are the regular stalwart competitors in the Royal Western's shorthanded races. Titan among these is certainly Stoke Fleming publican Peter Crowther, who first sailed this race on the fourth occasion it was held, back in 1972. This will be Crowther's eighth OSTAR and having lost his traditional junk-rigged schooner, Galway Blazer in 1996 (no OSTAR is complete without a junk rigged schooner and there is one in this race - Jonathan Snodgrass' Lexia), he is competing on this occasion aboard a rather more run of the mill Swan 38.





Other OSTAR regulars include Jerry Freeman sailing his third race, this time taking the helm of Mary Falk's QII and ex-Royal Marine Mervyn Wheatley (above) also on his third race having been the unexpected handicap winner in 1995. Frenchman Jacques Bouchacourt, who first sailed the event in 1992, this time returns with the biggest monohull in the fleet while Italian Gianfranco Tortolani, back for his third OSTAR helping, is this time on the race's smallest monohull. Although a relative newcomer, Dutch sailor Huib Swets is also firmly this group, sailing his second OSTAR but having also competed in the RWYC's doublehanded Round Britain Race and having co-organised last year's doublehanded race up the North Sea to Norway/the Shetlands.

Thanks to the efforts of Paul Peggs, Jerry Freeman and the team at Racing at Petit Bateau, there is now a growing number of amateur singlehanded offshore racers in the UK and this element is reflected in the entry list. The Racing at Petit Bateau program effectively works on a four year cycle with races of increasing length and sophistication culminating in the OSTAR. It is thanks to their endeavours that we have the likes of Rob Craigie, Paul Brant and Marco Nannini competing in this OSTAR.

There are another group of who are doing the OSTAR because it is a long term ambition and yet another who are yacht racing professionals of old, for whom the OSTAR has long been on their list - this includes Sandro Quaglio, who raced the Whitbread in 1976 and also built Tituoan Lamazou's first Ecureuil d'Aquitaine Open 60 in the mid-1980s.

For us the most interesting group is the young blades who are contemplating a future career in solo offshore racing, the potential Vendee Globe skippers ten or 20 years hence. This includes Hannah White, Katie Miller, Oscar Mead (son of well known Cowes-based Etchells sailor Laurence) and ex-Bear academy sailor and the race's local hero from Plymouth, Rob Cumming.

If there is to be headline news in this race it will certainly be the catfight between Hannah White and Katie Miller who are both young British women sailors and both racing Figaro 2s. They are two of the three women's competing - the third is Pip Hildesley on the Oyster 395, Cazenove Capital.

Both are also refreshingly different characters. Miller is out of the Ellen MacArthur mould, earnest, from the Midlands and will succeed through grit and determination, whereas White is more of the Emma Richards school, charm personified and likely to be found downing tequila in the bar at 4am.



One thing the organisers at the Royal Western YC perhaps hadn't considered was how their race fits in with term time for in this build-up week prior to the start, both Katie Miller and King of Shaves skipper Oscar Mead (above), who at the tender 18 years of age is the youngest competitor in the race, have been forced to speed to and forth between Plymouth and Hampshire this week to complete their exams.



Katie Miller (above) was delivering her Figaro 2 BluQube down to Plymouth from Cowes when we spoke to her yesterday but was having to do an about turn the moment she arrived to head back to complete the last exam of her degree tomorrow, before returning to Plymouth in the afternoon. Mead has been in the same position this week, only with A-levels!

Apart from this rather major distracation, Miller says that BluQube is prepared and ready to roll: "The boat is ready to go, I am ready to go. She has a new computer installed, she has plenty of fuel for the trip, I have got a radar installed although icebergs aren’t going to be so much of a threat now although it will be useful for me mentally when we are going over the Newfoundland banks with all the ships and fishing boats. So I am fully kitted up to go - all the food is on board, all the clothes, spares and kit."

She says the butterflies arrived on Tuesday for the first time. "They came with some force! Before I had been quite blasé, excited and keen, but there was no nervousness. Yesterday when I was running around trying to organise last minute stuff, like trying to find my EPIRB registration certificate, then I started to get the butterflies. And I’ve suddenly started waking up early now which I didn’t use to do."

Read more about Katie Miller's BluQube campaign here

While Katie Miller is 21, Hannah White is a generation up and now 25 has already made one attempt on the OSTAR when she competed four years ago aboard Derek Hatfield's former Spirit of Canada Open 40, when sadly she was forced to retire. For this race she has chartered Liz Wardley's Figaro 2, now that the Papua New Guinean Amer Sports Too bow-elf turned solo sailor has this season donned pink and is sailing on Dona Bertarelli-Spath's Ladycat D35.

White chartered Wardley's Figaro back in March when she went down to pick up the boat and was exposed to the Figaro mecca of Port la Foret for the first time. While Miller has committed to the Figaro for next season, White also has this as a goal.

"I love the Figaro and I really love the boat," says White. "That is definitely something I would really like to go and do. It is certainly an amazing way to enhance your skills and you learn so much. Even my brief time in Port la Foret with Liz was fantastic and her skill set compared to my skill set is incredible and it really inspired me to want to go on and learn more, but it is a tough class to convince a sponsor to get into. There are now four Figaros in the UK and there is lot of talk about doing something over here, but I think if you are going to do a Figaro you have to get involved and go down there, learn the language and be one of them. That is the only way to do it really."

Wardley is still helping her with the weather as is Brian Thompson - White was PA for Thompson prior to the Vendee Globe - who has also been coaching her and helping with her nav.

While Miller is sponsored by BluQube, White managed to secure sponsorship from the unlikely source of online music company PureSolo. "They are launching their company in the US at the same time as I arrive and they wanted a fairly cheap but corporate platform from which to launch the project and it is a social networking platform, and I am very keen on my Facebook and Twitter and all those kind of things so I will be keeping that up during the race," she explains.

A glance at the Puresolo.com website reveals that it can also be used for karaoke, so expect to see some distressing video emanating from the mid-Atlantic. "It is brilliant. I have loads of really great songs to sing all the way across. I love music and I have always listened to music when I go sailing. This time I am going to be singing to myself, I’m just going to share it with a lot of other people. I know I am going to have the severe piss taken out of me, but that is fine. You have to do what you have to do." Oh, the shame!

In typical style the sponsorship came about when White happened to buy the right person a pint while watching the rugby at Twickenham. "I met one of their founding investors at Twickenham. He was sitting in a row behind me and I bought him a Guinness! It has taken a good couple of years to convince them to do something, but finally it was the right project and the right timing and the right amount of money." At the moment puresolo.com is a start up and probably won't have the funds to back White beyond the OSTAR.

Back to practicalities and White says she too is ready to go, having loaded everything on board yesterday, meanwhile she tells us other are scrabbling around in a last minute dash to find in one case rope, another sails...

Puresolo has had the advantage of being IRCed a bit more than BluQube. When White acquired the boat it was fully class compliant and she has fitted a new main with a third reef and unlike BluQube has set up the spinnaker tackle so she can use asymmetrics. The Figaro class briefly went through a phase of allowing asymmetrics a couple of years ago, which they subsequently resended, so a couple of cheap and relatively unused A sails have ended up on Puresolo.

"In terms of boat handling it is a lot easier and it is predominantly an upwind race - I am sure at some stage I am going to regret not having symmetrics, but I think in the grand scheme of things I think it is an easier way to sail the boat," says White. "I have never been a fan of end-for-end gybing on my own in a big sea! And it has helped my rating a bit which is good. It brings me about 15 points lower than Katie's Figaro. I think she has changed her main to make it more IRC-optimised, but otherwise it is the same."

At present the record for a 35 footer - Mary Falk's QII is 21 days, so White says she is aiming at a crossing of around this time.

This afternoon is the cut-off point when all the competitors have to be in Queen Anne's Battery down in Plymouth. Yesterday around half the competitors had already arrived. While the glamorous A-listers may no longer be competing in the OSTAR, the North Atlantic remains the evil bastard ocean it always has been and competing on a boat smaller than an Open 60 means that at some stage the boats in this fleet are certain to come in for a pasting. It is no race for the faint of heart.