SAIL DOOGIE

The family and I drove to Paris on the 26 and spent the night there. The next morning I took a quick flight to Palma where I will be sailing the copa del rey on the Bella mente. This will be my last event after a 3 month tour. After 1 month of being scrunched in a far 30, it is nice to be able to stretch out a little.

The team raced from marseille to la seyne sur mer in a building mistral. Our luck ran out and the rig came down when the backstay broke. However, our team rallied and within a few hours after getting back to the dock, we had our back up rig in the boat. We had to use the crane from a French navy ship since there were no other cranes available. The leg ended up getting canceled because of too much breeze.
The next day we raced 2 windward leeward races. We sailed well and finished 3,3. The first race was moderate with some gusts to 20. Second race started in 17-20 but quickly built to 28. We had a fun run down keeping the boat under control. It was nice to get some breeze finally. I really wish we had more breeze early on.

We had a good day in marseille with 3,3,4. We had some consistent results and sailed well in very shifty and variable conditions.

We’ve had some ups and downs the last few days. Some absolute shockers on some inshores and offshores and some good results. We won the race into Royan and have had quite a few top 10 results. We are often in 3rd, 4th, or 5th on the race course, only to lose a few boats on the last run. WE are fighting hard to get some good results. We had one race this morning in Royan after a day off yesterday. Tomorrow we will have 1 or 2 race and then pull the boat out of the water, rig down, and drive to the med. We will be driving overnight because our route crossed the other Tour’s route and I guess there route was more important than ours! Don’t they know who we are? ?

We finished in 7th on the offshore into Pleneuf-Val-Andre. A good showing but some of the teams we need to beat still finished ahead of us. We had 1 windward leeward race here in Pleneuf. First start was a general. We definitely pushed the line. I don’t think we were over but the group to weather of us definitely was. Second start was a Black flag start. Over at 1 minute before the gun goes, and your DSQ. We picked a midline spot and had a glamour start. Much of the fleet becomes very conservative on the black flag and with some good line sites, I was able to pull us close to the line confidently. We had good speed but a minute or after, quickly started to lose pace. We tacked for clear air and quickly found the culprit, a 6 ft piece of sea wead on the bulb. We got the kelp stick out, and after the second wack, were able to clean it off. Back up to speed! The breeze was shifty and Philippe did a good job staying on top of it. We raced cleanly and passed a boat at the last bottom mark before the reach to the finish. We finished 6th. The team left yesterday for Lorient on another 200 miler. This one is going to be light and slow. Once in Lorient, we have a coastal race on Saturday and windward leewards on Sunday.

The team raced from Calais to Dieppe and there we did 2 days of windward leeward races. We had some good results and one shocker. We are still sitting in 6th overall. The team is now racing from Dieppe to Pleneuf-Val-Andre. This leg is about 200 miles and the boys will be plenty tired when they hit the dick tonight at about 1-5 am. Once they arrive, we will rotate 4 crew members to do the inshore racing the following day. After that is another 200 mile race to Lorient. The team is now in 12th on the tracker so hopefully they can pull some places on the long reach back to harbor.

We raced from Dunkerque to Calais today. It was a 21 mile course. We started with a short up and down before point towards Calais. Our first start was a general recall as the 3-4 knot current carried the whole fleet over the line. Second start was clean. We again struggled to get off the line but quickly found some clean air and were right in the upper half of the pack. It was a 1 mile beat to the top mark but it went quickly with 3-4 knots of current pushing us. Now the current always make racing a little more interesting but throw in a Starbord weather mark rounding in there and yahoo! We were over stood on the port layline and getting set up with current. However, the fleet compressed and things went wrong and we ended up ducking a few boats and to gybe around to get back on the right side of the mark. We rounded, set the kite and quickly jibed to try and get out of some of the current. The plan worked and we were able to just get around about 15 boats. The bottom mark was another pile up with everyone trying to make it around without hitting the mark and fighting the current. Now we started a long upwind slog for 4 hours to Calais. The race was just short enough so that it was full hiking the whole way up. It was tricky picking the right lanes between shift and current. We ended up 11th. Again, not a disaster but we are aiming for much better. Tomorrow we are racing a few windward leeward’s here in Calais.
The prestart action is definitely a different style with all this current. I thought the days of sailing in the SF bay would be the similar but this is on a different scale.

I’ve been in Dunkerque, France for just under a week now and have been plenty busy. Immediately after arriving I began helping to get the boat through measurement and all the safety inspections for the Tour. Not an easy accomplishment since it seems some rules are written on the spot.
We’ve had 2 days of windward leeward racing here in very light air and strong currents. Every morning starts with dock off at 8:30 am to make the locks. By the time we clear the locks and are out to see, it is about 10 am. First start at 10:30 am so we don’t have much time to screw around. The current here is something fierce, with some very large tides. We are currently sitting in 8th after 3 races. We have some work to do on the starts but our speed seems ok. We have had some rough starts and have managed to claw our way back through the fleet.. Tomorrow is our first “distance” race but it is only about 21 miles long. It will be light air and upwind. We will start with a favorable current but there is a good chance that the anchor could be deployed for the race. We have to carry 2 anchors for this event. One anchor is sealed and cannot not be used unless in an emergency. If the seal is broken, we will receive a penalty. There are a few things on the boat that have seals so that we cannot move them but the rest of the gear is a free for all. So these little Farr 30’s are equipped with a small stacking system downstairs and our gear all sorted into a few bags for easy stacking.
Off to get some rest.