Normandy Channel Race: on the way to Tuskar
Date: 19/05/2010
TRANSLATION OF HALVARD'S REPORT:
Here we are on our way to Tuskar. We are making the most of sailing under spinnaker, alongside the Flying Dutchmen, because if the weather files are correct, after Tuskar we will yet again be going upwind…
The Organisers of the Normandy Channel Race should go and do a tour in the mountains, where they will discover that eventually you can go downhill after going uphill on seal skins. If ski touring involved only going uphill on seal skins, there probably wouldn’t be many takers. The conclusion is that only sailors are mad enough to keep taking part in races which involve so much uphill work…
But there are compensations for all this uphill work, and it is interesting. As with all games, there is strategy, experience, and above all, if one is honest, there is also a significant element of chance (or luck, depending on how you look at it…).
I think it was luck which got us past the Lizard. We were trying something tactically, but we missed a small wind shift, and the end result was that we did come out more or less where we planned to, but not in the way originally intended. So for a while we really thought that we would lose out to some of our playmates on the water. But it must have been our lucky day, because it is clear that others did not get lucky, and it is not down to lack of doing things right. If the wind had done what it was supposed to, they would have come out well ahead of us.
We aren’t complaining - we were just very lucky. However, I don’t know how many more lives we have left, so we will have to think carefully about strategy all the way to the end of the race. In the meantime, there is quite a gap between the leaders and us, and not enough of a gap between us and everyone else behind, as is always the case.
On another subject, since we are making the effort to write to you, please have the courtesy to do likewise, and send us news of other boats and what is going on in the race, and any other news of interest.
A bientot.
40 Degrees
