ODST Event - 18th & 19th September
Sept 18 and 19 in Bruinisse we joined the fantastic ODST. Conditions were wonderful again, a good blow, sun and a magnificient fleet of 70 skiff's from all of Europe. We found ourselves racing in Allcomers B ‘matched’ with 5 foiling Moths, an RS100, RS800, RS700, Laser 4000, two RS Vareo's and our ISO1001.
Race officer ‘Archie’ from RS UK set courses for 3 class starts for Musto Skiff, 29er and 49er reaching off after mark 1 to the outer loop then Allcomers A (RS500 and Feva) and Allcomers B staying on the inner loop. There were separate finishes at the base of each course to avoid conflict between the 2 groups.
Saturdays racing took place in a comfortable maximum Force3.
In race 1 both Vareo550 and Vareo341 managed to finish close enough to the RS100 to claim the first 2 places. There were some significant shifts requiring some delays for repositioning of the marks before Race 2, which the Vareos used for some boat on boat tuning.
At the start of Race 2 Vareo550 took a port flyer and quickly found himself amongst the 500s who had been becalmed part way up the first beat, the RS100 with it’s 10M mainsail had better upwind speed in the lighter airs and finished just far enough ahead to claim 1st. The committee boat had to be moved to suit the new wind direction for race 3 with the increasing wind suiting a new winner in the Belgian RS800.
Overnight leader was RS100 with 9 points, followed by Vareo550 and 2 foiling moths joint 2nd with 10 points each. The results were amended to exclude the Moths in the morning as they had asked to be recorded as a separate fleet within the start.
Sunday saw smaller shifts but much stronger winds, the first 2 races in 12 to 15 knots, the last two in 15 to 22 knots, blowing offshore from the launching area to a new race area to the left of the islands. With numerous capsizes causing breakages and some minor injuries the fleet gradually reduced during the day.
In race 4 the RS800 repeated his first place performance from Race 3 and the Iso 1001 posted a useful 2nd bringing them both back into contention.
In race 5 Vareo550 was the only boat to successfully gybe every time with the spinnaker allowing him to finish ahead of the RS100 on the water for the second time that day and 1st overall on corrected time.
In race 6 the RS100 and Vareo550 were now fighting it out for first overall. The 100 avoided capsize by keeping his spinnaker below deck but lost on handicap following a death or glory final spinnaker run from the Vareo.
The last race saw just Vareo550 and the depowered Iso 1001 complete the course in the strongest wind of the weekend.
It was a superb event (but we need more Ios' next year...). see www.skiffbenelux.com for more details.
Thx to Vareo Nick for the report.
Results
- RS Vareo - GBR550 Nick Crickmore 9 1 2 (3) 3 1 1 1
- RS100 - NED108 Richard Rot 14 3 1 2 4 2 2 (dns)
- ISO - NED1001 Hans Smorenburg 18 (5) 3 5 2 3 3 2 Maarten Mortier
- RS800 - BEL1106 Luc Meeuwissen 28 4 4 1 1 (dns) dns dns Blondie
- RS700 - GBR879 Jan Tymowski 38 6 5 4 5 (dns) dns dns
- Laser 4000 - GBR4062 Marc Josse 43 7 6 6 6 (dnf) dns dns
- RS Vareo - NED551 Niek Grobbee 45 (dnc) 7 dnf 7 4 dns dns
- RS Vareo - NED341 Arwin Bos 47 2 (dns) dns dns dns dns dns
