EuroSail News #5381

In This Issue
• Caro Unbeatable in IRC Zero
• Impossibly close Ocean Fifty victory
• Still on the fence? - IMA
• Kiel ORC World Championship
• Tom Dolan ready for the Solo Guy Cotten - Concarneau
• Tony Russell - Controversial world champion
• Half Ton Classics Cup
• 5th Dragon Edinburgh Cup and UK Grand Prix
• Cowes Week event App
• Featured Charter: Sunreef 70 - Seazen II
• Featured Brokerage:
• • Baltic Yachts 62
• • New Verdier Class40 No192
• • Bavaria C57
• The Last Word: Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

Brought to you by Seahorse magazine and YachtScoring.com EuroSail News is a digest of sailing news and opinions, regatta results, new boat and gear information and letters from sailors -- with a European emphasis. Contributions welcome, send to

Caro Unbeatable in IRC Zero
Adrian Stead, a veteran of eight Rolex Fastnet Races and winner of two, was running the tactics on Caro. Photo by Paul Wyeth, www.pwpictures.com. Click on image to enlarge.

Max Klink's Botin 52 Caro has won IRC Zero and is looking like a solid contender for overall victory in the Rolex Fastnet Race. The Swiss boat crossed the finish line at 07:25 hours local time this morning, covering the course in 2 days, 16 hours, 40 minutes, 2 seconds.

Caro finished just over two and a half hours ahead of arch-rival Warrior Won on corrected time, and no other boat still racing in IRC Zero has a realistic chance of bettering Caro's performance.

While others were keen to pin overall victory on Caro, with so much of the fleet still at sea, Klink was understandably reluctant to celebrate success too soon. "Winning the Rolex Fastnet Race is any sailor's dream, so to win would be beyond words, something we never expected," he smiled.

Running the tactics on Caro was British professional Adrian Stead - a veteran of eight Rolex Fastnet Races and winner of two. He was swaying with physical fatigue and lack of sleep.

"We've worked hard, we didn't leave anything out on the race track and after that difficult start to the race we have really, really come back into it. The breeze filled in just at the end and we were able to come into Cherbourg at pace. We saw the VO65s and Lucky slow down on the way in yesterday afternoon, so we got out a few chocolate bars and worked extra hard for the last few miles." -- James Boyd

rolexfastnetrace.com

Impossibly close Ocean Fifty Rolex Fastnet Race victory for Anglo-French duo
Following the long pause in arrivals in the Rolex Fastnet Race into Cherbourg after the two Ultims on Sunday night, the next home on Monday was Eric Maris' MOD70 trimaran Zoulou, which crossed the line at 18:03:15. Among her formidable crew were multihull legend Loick Peyron and America's Cup winner Thierry Fouchier.

The MOD70 trimarans have raced transatlantics previously and have proved to be robust, so they could cope with the winds into the high 30s and the vicious sea state, which they encountered in the opening hours of the race. They'd possibly even been too conservative, Maris felt: "It was not survival conditions, but not far from it. It was pretty rough. We were going upwind at a -y state. I think we reefed a bit early coming out of the Solent. We caught up with the rest of the guys ahead of us. After the first 10 or 12 hours, the rest was easier. We had little wind going round the Rock. The rest of the night going to the Isles of Scilly was pretty light. We had some good wind this morning, I was helming at 30 knots - that was fun, and then the rest of the afternoon was very light, very very light. The boat was good; it did really well. It had the best of crews obviously…so all in all, pretty good!"

Sadly Zoulou was the only MOD70 competing this year, however while they should have been blazing around the race course free of competition, in fact the lead Ocean Fifty trimarans spent most of the race far closer to them than they should have been given their 20ft length deficit. According to Loick Peyron this was due to them often coming in from behind with the breeze.

After at least 20 years in gestation, the Ocean Fifty box rule trimarans are finally gaining traction in France. Of the five starters [around nine are shortly to be racing in anger], two retired, leaving Luke Berry and Antoine Joubert on Le Rire Medecin Lamotte, Pierre Quiroga and Justin Baradat on Viabilis and Petit Coeur de Beurre sailed by Matthieu Perraut and Vincent Lancien to fight it out. Tacking out of Christchurch Bay before the front runners put Petit Coeur de Beurre on the back foot for the rest of the race. For the remaining duo, the race proved to be the severest of offshore match races that would last all the way to Cherbourg. -- James Boyd

rolexfastnetrace.com

Still on the fence? - IMA
I started writing this in Livorno, Tuscany, sheltering from yet more torrential rainstorms. Two weeks ago at the IMA Maxi European Championships I rechristened our base of operations Torrento rather than Sorrento due to the almost continuous rain. I completed this article leaving Pisa Airport in another storm.

Over this period England has been basking in sunshine with no rain. The Myth of Malham race, from Cowes down to Plymouth and back, has always been regarded as excellent practice for the Fastnet course. This was in the days we had prevailing southwesterlies. This year's race was a mixture of easterlies and calms, very atypical.

It was good to see two IMA members competing, also in Fastnet preparation. Peter Morton's Maxi72 Notorious (ex-Caol Ila) took line honours easily, while Jean-Pierre Barjon, venturing out of the Med for the first time with his Botín 65 Spirit of Lorina, followed.

Full article in the August issue of Seahorse

Kiel ORC World Championship: Highest quality and great quantity
The ORC World Championships in Kiel (August 4-12, 2023) will combine the highest level of racing with what promises to be a record-breaking number of participants. Already less than 18 weeks before the start, 101 yachts are registered in Class A (13 entries), Class B (26 entries) and Class C (62 entries).

With the recent entry of the German TP 52 "Outsider" (Hansen/Teichmann/Kieler Yacht-Club), all nine medal winners from the 2021 ORC World Championship in Tallinn/Estonia are now also going to be at the start in Kiel. They are joined by two reigning ORC World champions, the Grand Soleil 44P "Essentia 44" (Catalin Trandafir/Romania) in Class B and the Italia 11.98 "Sugar 3" (Ott Kikkas/Estonia) in Class C. The Swan 42 "Katarina II" (Aivar Tuulberg/Estonia), bronze medal winner at the 2022 ORC World Championship in Porto Cervo (Italy), completes the field of top teams. All together they belong to a circle of favorites, with the "Outsider" team in particular wanting more than a triple repeat of their recent silver medal performances after earning second place in the 2018 ORC World Championship in The Hague (Netherlands) and again in 2021 before the Worlds in Tallinn (Estonia).

Five professional sailors are getting on board for this event, led by Markus Wieser (VSaW and Bavarian YC). Born in Bavaria, he has collected titles in many classes and is considered one of the most successful and versatile tacticians in several classes: the Vaurien, the Tempest (reigning World Champion in 2022 off Kiel), the Flying Dutchman (multiple Olympic campaigns), three European Championship titles with the Asso 99 class, World Championship titles in the 5.5, 6mR, Dragon and Swan 50 classes as well as two TP 52 World Championship silver medals are to his credit.

But the German competition is also continuing to upgrade: Jes Gram Hansen from Denmark is a regular crew member on "Halbtocken 4.5", and is joined on board by Frans Hinelaaar (Netherlands). The match race specialist is also no stranger to Superyachts in the J-Class. -- Hermann Hell

Preliminary schedule of the Sailing World Championship off Kiel, August 4-12, 2023:
Friday, August 4 to Saturday, August 5: Registration & Measurement.
Sunday, August 6: Practice Race & Opening Ceremony
Monday, August 7 to Friday, August 11: Races
Saturday, August 12: Final Races & Award Ceremony

orcworlds2023.com

Tom Dolan ready for the Solo Guy Cotten - Concarneau
After a series of mainly double-handed and crewed races so far this season, Irish sailor Tom Dolan returns to solo racing mode this week when he takes on the 47th edition of the Solo Guy Cotten - Concarneau against high calibre opposition.

The event is seen as a final dress rehearsal for his late summer pinnacle, La Solitaire du Figaro Paprec and comprises two days of coastal, windward-leeward races and a long offshore race of 335-380 miles. Dolan's career-best on this key indicator race is his fifth in 2021 but he is determined not to be over focused on achieving a top place, but is looking just to sail very well, make good decisions and 'control the controllables'.

The first coastal windward-leewards look set to see winds of 15kts to 20kts while Wednesday's weather looks more straightforward than the last editions.

"It should not be too stormy and not too uncertain." Explains Dolan whose last solo race was back in March when he finished sixth on the Solo Maitre CoQ.

"The important thing here is not to be projecting too much forward to La Solitaire, I want to focus on my processes, doing things well, not getting ahead of myself but just taking each race as it comes." Says Dolan.

La Solitaire du Figaro Paprec starts from Caen on August 27th and takes in three stages from Caen to Kinsale and Roscoff on the bay of Morlaix finishing in Piriac-sur-Me

tomdolanracing.com

sologuycotten.blogspot.com

Tony Russell - Controversial world champion
Tony Russell, as an 81-year-old. Click on image for photo gallery.

The world of 18 footer sailing, and many of the men who sailed the boats, in the early years of the 20th century was a far-removed type of sailing to the professional racing and competitors who steer their high-tech machines around Sydney Harbour in 2023.

Fuelled by individual wagering between two rival crews or spectator gambling with organised bookmakers aboard the following spectator ferries, the racing took on some robust action which occasionally resulted in on-the-water fisticuffs.

Adding to the high-octane situation was the nature of the competitors. Many were first grade professional rugby league footballers with a willingness to bring the violence on the fields of their winter sport to the more sedate venue of Sydney Harbour.

One of the individuals who 'fit the mould' of such a competitor was Tony Russell who played first grade rugby league for the Balmain club, from 1926-to-1929, and sailed 18 footers at the Sydney Flying Squadron and NSW 18 Footers Sailing Club.

The obvious highlight was his victory, as skipper, of Marjorie Too at the 1949 World Championship on Sydney Harbour.

In an era of tough men in a brutally physical game, Tony Russell was regarded as 'temperamentally unfit' for rugby league following a series of incidents that made rugby league history.

Tony Russell's son, Barry was also a talented 18 footer sailor who won the Australian Championship in 1960-61 with Vic Robinson, in a skiff named The Fox, and was a member of Australia's 1962 America's Cup challenger, Gretel I.

EuroSail News #5381 - 26 July

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