Regattes Royalles, Cannes on Tramontana
Since a few days I am in Cannes, France on "Tramontana", one of the 114 Dragons who will race a whole week here in France. A Dragon is a small keelboat sailed with 3 persons. Very interesting boat. A lot of trim toys to play with. The mast for example has 5 different regulations. The racing level is very high. Competitors are mainly EU, with the majority North Europeans, but also the States, Canada, Brazil, Hong Kong etc. are present. A lot of champions and respected oldtimers.
The first days we prepared the boat and where training in the gulf. As a bowman, the spinnaker sets and drops are moments of high octane action. Everything has to be done fast, at the very last moment. There is no room for mistakes. On the upwind legs I trim the genoa and hike my ass out when there is wind, or sit on lee on the keel in light air. During the start I measure the line, distances, angles. The nice thing about such a small boat is that you do tactics with the 3 of you. There is a stream of information and communication and than usually the helmsman takes the decision on the tiller.
Today there was no racing due to the nasty weather. It took the organization until 2 o'clock in the afternoon to decide to cancel for today.
So yesterday was our first race. A starting line with 114 equal boats is impressionant to say the least. You can feel the heat rising up on the water moments before the start. There is a lot of adrenaline during the start, testosterone, yelling, collisions. After one general recall we where off not bad at all. Until the second upwind leg we had a somewhat 30th position, but lost a lot of places in the last downwind leg where we went extremely to the right. We dropped down to about middle fleet.
We can do better for sure, but you have to realize that the first 20 boats are pro's who do nothing else that racing Dragons and come here only to win.
Anyway, tomorrow a better result.
The first days we prepared the boat and where training in the gulf. As a bowman, the spinnaker sets and drops are moments of high octane action. Everything has to be done fast, at the very last moment. There is no room for mistakes. On the upwind legs I trim the genoa and hike my ass out when there is wind, or sit on lee on the keel in light air. During the start I measure the line, distances, angles. The nice thing about such a small boat is that you do tactics with the 3 of you. There is a stream of information and communication and than usually the helmsman takes the decision on the tiller.
Today there was no racing due to the nasty weather. It took the organization until 2 o'clock in the afternoon to decide to cancel for today.
So yesterday was our first race. A starting line with 114 equal boats is impressionant to say the least. You can feel the heat rising up on the water moments before the start. There is a lot of adrenaline during the start, testosterone, yelling, collisions. After one general recall we where off not bad at all. Until the second upwind leg we had a somewhat 30th position, but lost a lot of places in the last downwind leg where we went extremely to the right. We dropped down to about middle fleet.
We can do better for sure, but you have to realize that the first 20 boats are pro's who do nothing else that racing Dragons and come here only to win.
Anyway, tomorrow a better result.
