With two days to go, Stiletto has had the best performances with a first in the
opening race and a fourth in yesterday’s race, placing them fifth overall out of 30.
Hot Rats has also sailed well and earned top-ten finishes in the last two races,
and should move up the table after the discard. Rebellion is finding the Solent a
fantastic location but a humbling tactical challenge, and has suffered a spi-pole
break in one race and a retirement due to a spinnaker wrap from hell in another, but
nonetheless sits 24th and has some satisfaction picking off backmarkers. Not a lot
of improvement expected as heavy winds also today as we want to hang together before
Fastnet start on Sunday.
We’ve also enjoyed a few duels and roundings nearly together, with each boat beating
the other at least one race — except Rebellion has yet to best Stiletto. Much fun
and a special atmosphere, hopefully we can entice a bigger group of First 35s to
enter next year and get formally or informally scored as a class.
Scandinavian First 35s are active, below a clip from SWE 5 “Maria”.
The crew will also participate in the by-invitation-only Big Boat Challenge in Denmark 11 and 12 June toghether with another Swedish First 35. (BTW, the video clip on the BBC site about 50 seconds in features a First 35 in a slightly embarrasing broach, courtesy of yours truly … Ah well, it was a gusty day. We did a Chinese too.)
The well prepared and experienced teams of Stiletto and Shark are showing very good results. Both boats have won fleet events lately, in light winds which earlier have been a bit of a weak point for the boat. These crews have evidently found a cure. I’m sure we’d all like to know how. So comments below are encouraged, guys!
Shark with symmetrical spinnaker
Christopher’s blog has all the details of their race weekend winning the VAN UDEN RECO CUP 2011.
Stiletto crew
Stiletto, racing in the Solent, won the Warsash Spring Series and Spring Championship 2011. A happy and proud looking crew posed with celebrity blue water sailor Mike Golding.
Shark, BEL 3535 (well chosen number, Christopher) had a good day last weekend and sends the following report:
Sailing the last winterseries was great. We had a very gusty day. Average breeze around 15 knots, sometimes less. But the gusts were up to 25 knots. As I told you before, these winterseries are no regular up & downwind courses. It’s around the cans and sometimes you don’t even have a real upwind part. So no big need for tactics here, just raw boatspeed and some good handling. IRC 2 and ORC2 start together. The boats are all around 36 foot, and match in boatspeed. This is good for us to see if we have the mast-setup right. Too bad, that also this time, there was no real upwind part. We managed to get a clean downwind start and stretch away from the fleet together with a Bashford 36. It was a broad reach, but dangerous sailing in gusty conditions, from 15 to 25knots in 1 second… We had our tactician counting down to the gusts, and with a good twitch at the helm I pushed the nose down everytime the gust hit us. After every gust, we could come up again and point higher than the mark. This “S” sailing gave us a lot of boatspeed, we even managed to let the boat start to surf, everytime the gust hit. We experience that on flat water, above 8.8 knots of boatspeed, the boat starts to surf and the numbers go fast into the 2 digits.
We had a strong fleet, as you can see in the list below, but managed to arrive at the downwind mark in first position. In the upwind part, the Bashford 36 passed us, but we stayed in contact and within 5 boatlengths of him. It was after 1,5 hour that the wind picked up a little and became a steady 20+ knots, that was clearly the breaking point on the Bashford, he shifted gear and managed to finish almost 3 minutes ahead of us. This gap was only created in the last part of the race. So I think in heavy weather, at sea, that a well sailed Bashford can outsail his handicap against a F35. The Salona 42 must have made some mistakes in the beginning of the race, because he passed us at the last mark, and also finished 3 minutes ahead. The rest of the fleet, the boats where we compare ourselves with, like a J109, Dehler 36, an X362 sport, etc… finished at least 2 minutes behind us in real time. After corrected time, SHARK finished 1st, 34 seconds before the STERN 33…
We are really satisfied with the boatspeed of Shark, and the way she handles on the water. I could have never imagined that a 35 footer which weighs 5500 kgs, could sail and behave so alive like the F35. We are still searching for little extras in boatspeed, and trying to get more people in the rail on a reach (as you can see on the pictures) This will all improve the results! We are already sailing with a lot of mast rake, but I feel that I can handle more pressure on the rudder going upwind, so I eased the forestay 4 complete turns. We are now almost at our maximum forestay length. Next weekend is VAN UDEN RECO CUP, the Opening Regatta of the season! So we will see if this is a good decision… I will keep you posted as always!
RORC has implemented some changes in the IRC rules, these are to be found here.
The one change which might affect most yachts is that crew weight is now limited. Previously only the number of crew was mentioned in the certificate, but now there is a maximum weight equal to 85kg times the number of crew. So 595 kg for crews of seven, 680 kg for crews of eight. Practicalities around weighing in and keeping the weight during a series is left up to the organisers.
One First 35 reported that their IRC rating dropped quite significantly (.04) from 2010 to 2011. Apparently this has to do with the way the calculations of T keels are made, but with the nature of the rule, we will not know for sure.
Anyone know more about IRC rule changes for 2011? We’d be pleased to know!
Christopher van der Haute and his crew have spent the winter getting Shark ready for the 2011 season, and has posted their experiences from removing the wooden toe rails in the forum. Shark’s web page can be found here.
All the best to Shark and the crew in the upcoming season!
Shark in action
SHARK @ 2011
Shark had a Winter-stop from November until February. We had a lot to do on the new boat to make her more crew-friendly and cruise-ready.
All the preparations on Shark are finished and the boat is already in the water.
We have the opportunity to sail the last 2 winter-races before our Race-season 2011 begins at the end of April. There is a pretty high level in this winter-competition, so we will get the chance to do some proper fine-tuning on the rig.
Shark will be sailing in the following IRC races :
1. March 5th : Winterserie – Goofy’s @ Colijnsplaat
2. April 2nd : Winterserie – Goofy’s @ Colijnsplaat
3. April 23-24 : Van Uden Reco Cup @ Stellendam
4. June 10-11-12 : North Sea regatta @ Scheveningen
5. July 2-3 : Delta Week @ Zierikzee
6. August 26-27-28 : Breskens Week @ Breskens
7. ? September : Oosterschelde Race @ Wemeldinge
8. October 15th : Antwerp Race @ Terneuzen
We wish you all a very good season with your First 35 !
Paul Woodward, helmsman on GBR 2187L Stiletto, sent some good looking shots of their F35 racing in the Solent in 2010. The owner of Stiletto is John Barrett.
Kurketrekker being chased by Stiletto
Close racing in the Solent, two First 35s hot on the heels of a Dehler 36
He also lists the regattas they will participate in during 2011:
Warsash spring series in the solent – late march early april
Easter – RORC Red Funnel Regatta – Cowes
2/6 ostend – Ramsgate
3/6 euro regatta Ramsgate
4/6 Ramsgate > Boulogne
11>13/6 Cote De Opal
25/6 Round the Island Race
15/7 IRC Nationals Cowes
27>30 IRC regional Championship Ramsgate
6/8 Cowes Week
26/8 Breskens Weekend
Busy schedule for what looks to be a well set up and raced boat, the best boats have their list already agreed and crew committed by this time of the year (for us in the northern hemisphere, that is …). The results last year were generally very good in IRC2. For 2011 the rating has dropped a bit for Stiletto, interesting as nothing has been done to the boat, Paul says. So Stiletto should be well placed to have another good season. Good luck to Paul and the rest of the crew.
We’d love to hear other boats’ plans, too. Guaranteed to make the web site
Stiletto close reaching just prior to dropping the spinnaker
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RORC has implemented some changes in the 
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