Solo Racing Festival 2011

Another successful gathering of the clans organised by the Solo Offshore Racing Club

Organised by the capable fellows at the Solo Offshore Racing Club led by Jerry Freeman, the fifth Solo Racing Festival took place on Saturday at the Royal Southern YC in Hamble, with more than 120 delegates (sold out, standing room only), a compact display of shorthanded offshore racing vessels on the RSYC pontoons and some top notch speakers, the event subsidised by North Sails and BluQube.

VIP guests were in evidence such as Vendee Globe skipper, and perhaps coolest of all, Banque Populaire crewman, Brian Thompson, who was there to field an unannounced call from Dee Caffari, at the time negotiating the South Atlantic in the Barcelona World Race. Dee was in understandably buoyant mood having jumped from ninth to seventh (overtaking Hugo Boss and with Groupe Bel’s retirement) in the previous 24 hours.

Mike Golding and Steve White were also on hand from the IMOCA 60 world, along with freshly awarded Pantaneus YJA Yachtsman of the Year Geoff Holt and Mike Perham, who in 2009 became the youngest person to have sailed singlehanded around the world.

Yacht designers were represented by Nigel Irens, Merfyn Owen and John Shuttleworth, who has recently returned to the marine industry with a vengeance as designer of Adastra, a giant 42.5m long power trimaran being built by McConaghy featured on the cover of Boat International this month.

The morning began with the 'Shorthanded Race Fair' - an opportunity for skippers to meet the organisers of all the significant shorthanded races taking place this year, with all the organising clubs represented: RORC, RWYC, RCYC, RSYC, MOCRA, UK Mini group and SORC [not the American one], etc. Given the overall tally between these clubs and organisations, there now exists a substantial calendar of solo and doublehanded racing in the UK. Among the event representatives was Colin Drummond, who founded the Azores and Back Race in 1975. The 10th AZAB is taking place this year, starting from Falmouth on 10 June.

Throughout the day, Alex Bennett was busy signing copies of his newly published autobiography High Seas-High Stakes (more here).

With former OSTAR competitor turned TV presenter, Hannah White, acting as the confident master of ceremonies, Commodore of the Royal Southern YC Mark Inkster introduced the morning session.

Lending gravitas to the proceedings (as if it were needed) Britain’s most capped solo round the world racer, Mike Golding spoke about his continued determination to win the Vendee Globe, the giant vacuum that is the sailing sponsorship scene in the UK at present and the need for a new ‘star’ in the UK solo sailing world (Ellen wasn’t mentioned by name...)

No meteorologists this year. Instead sports psychologist and author Ian Brown gave an illuminating presentation about the ‘winning mindset’. Ollie Dewar then went on to talk about this September’s doublehanded Class 40 lap of the planet, the Global Ocean Race and Josh Hall’s newly launched Class 40-sanctioned Global Solo Race, the singlehanded equivalent, taking place over 2013-14.

Following on from the morning’s touting from the race organisers, so legendary Royal Western YC race director John Lewis opened the afternoon session outlining plans for his club’s solo and shorthanded schedule of events, regarded as the 'crown jewels' of British shorthanded sailing: the OSTAR, doublehanded Round Britain and Ireland Race and the newly relaunched TWOSTAR, following the same Plymouth-Newport, RI route as when the race was first held back in 1981, when it was won by Chay Blyth and Rob James aboard Brittany Ferries.

The talk by Nigel Irens was particularly pertinent given Sodebo, which he designed with Benoit Cabaret, being at the time two weeks from possibly claiming the solo non-stop around the world record off another of his designs, Francis Joyon's IDEC. Irens touched upon the breakage of Sodebo’s sistership OmanAir in last autumn’s Route du Rhum-La Banque Postale where the forward crossbeam broke causing her to capsize while mid-Atlantic. Most of the boat has been salvaged but the repair bill is estimated to be around 2 million Euros. Irens extolled the virtues of rope fuses around offshore boats, now that they and their gear have become so stiff and unforgiving.

Irens, who we could have happily listened to all afternoon, went on to show video of some of the best moments in multihull racing – Sodebo’s alarming near pitchpole right at the start of her latest record attempt. “His shore team was saying ‘he does that all the time’. But he has done plenty of miles and that seems to be the way it is.”

There was addition video from some of the ORMA Grand Prix, the famous images of the ORMA 60s racing around Ushant with the wind against the tide (our colleague Andy Nicholson’s screensaver) and, perhaps best of all, the spectacular onboard footboard casually shot and commented upon by Loick Peyron as his trimaran Fujifilm catastrophically broke up around him during the 2002 Route du Rhum (we can’t find this clip anywhere on the web, but will try and post it at some point – it’s on the official French video from that race if you can get hold of a copy).

Possibly the biggest news in British shorthanded ocean racing at present is the Artemis Offshore Academy and Performance Manager John Thorn gave a presentation on how the Academy works, the initial selection and what they’ve been getting up to training over the winter in La Grande Motte. We’ll be publishing an academy update with John Thorn later this week.

Peter Olden presented this year’s Solo Offshore Racing Club program which sees the number of events increasing this year to 16. First up is the Nab Tower Race on 26 March, the warm up for Round the Isle Wight Solo on 16 April.

The singlehanded Channel Week, which sets off from Lymington overnight on 15 July bound for St Peter Port, visits St Malo, St Quay, Treggier, Weymouth before returning to Lymington is open to 25 yachts and already there are 20 paid up entries.

Next year SORC plan to run the ‘1000 miles Solo’ from Falmouth to Ireland, Spain and back to Falmouth which can be used as an OSTAR qualifier.

Well scheduled to round off the day was the account by charismatic London-based Italian Marco Nannini of his part in last autumn’s Route du Rhum aboard his Class 40 UniCredit. This included some fabulous anecdote such as his frustration when he got caught too close to the high pressure “if a baby seal had been there, I would have clubbed it with a winch handle” and his famous 'Haribo race tracker'. Nannini is now seeking sponsorship for his Global Ocean Race campaign.

The Royal Southern Yacht Club proved the best venue yet for the Solo Racing Festival and we hope they decide to return there in 2012.