(The Hague, The Netherlands)- Here’s the report of the women’s
two-handed team sailing the J/105 PANTHER from the Netherlands. Yvonne
Beusker (left in this photo) sailed with her friend Edith Voskamp all
season long in the Netherlands/ RORC races as a warm-up/ training for
the Rolex Fastnet Race. Here is their story as told by Yvonne about
their Rolex Fastnet Race experience:“Monday 10 August around noon time - what a splendid welcome- drizzly Cowes! The non-stop journey from Scheveningen (NL) prepared us from no wind and sun on Saturday afternoon to a 20-23 kts of wind and, well, the rain the days following. Once sailing you remember it’s all relatively close. Our welcoming committee, while being washed in with the currents into East Cowes, were fanatic battling Cowes Week competitors, cheered by the music ashore. It’s good to be back!
But we’re in for far more than just a cruise. About a little more than a year ago, the idea popped up over a coffee while planning the year’s Two-Handed race schedule for ourselves. Sure why not do the Fastnet Race? Crazy? Maybe. But, we made sure to put the opening of the registration for Rolex Fastnet 2015 in our agenda as we know with the limited number of participants, it’s fully booked in no time.
In
The Netherlands we have quite an active competition in the Two-Handed
scene which is perfect for a good preparation: from October 2014 through
to end of March 2015 a winter competition out at the North Sea with the
Two-Handed class. The regular 2015 competition kicking off with 50 Mile
race competing with 110 yachts. Then working our way to the first Dutch
Two-handed Nationals 2015 ever during North Sea Regatta in Scheveningen
(NL); a stiff competition of 22 yachts, racing 2 long distance races,
130 mile Vuurschepen Race to Harwich, immediately followed with a 180
mile return of North Sea Race to Scheveningen and last but not least
another 4 days of around the cans inshore racing. Fantastic! Even
better, with accumulation of all these miles in the last year we had our
qualification for the Fastnet more than confirmed.So there we are Sunday 16 august, D-Day. We have to pass the gate first with all our orange storm sails up before we can do our preparation for the start. And we’re checked in!
In the days ahead of the start, we’d gone out to get accustomed to the surroundings: tides, stating line and other local conditions. We were fortunate to have our coach Erik van Vuuren with us, who knows the area pretty well and for last minute tuning of the boat.
Media helicopters fly above the Solent to record all they can on the epic 90th anniversary Rolex Fastnet Race. It is very impressive to sail between all the other 390 competing yachts, and these 100 ft Maxi’s and 70 ft Tri’s really make you feel humble on our 10.5 meter yacht. And we’re all competitors. Imagine, in which sport can you have a Formula 1 car race against a Golf 2nd generation and actually even win?
We were looking for signs— could the crash of both our watches and our starting watch be a sign that we are entitled for the Rolex chronometer? With our J/105, we were part of the fastest yachts (on paper) in Class 4, the largest class with a fleet of 72. Both duos as well as full-crewed yachts are combined in the Classes and thus start together. We were prepared for a really light weather start and actually light weather throughout at least Monday. Knowing such upfront made us prepare the anchor with enough rope and make the mental frustration level a little more acceptable. The tide is strong in the Solent, so we wanted to make sure not to drift over the starting line and being obliged to return to do a restart.
Well let’s not waste too much on our start; we basically got stuck between other drifting yachts and score-wise were falling near bottom. We knew the return from the rock would be a blast, where our J/105 could be planing downwind. The starting position turned out to be an expensive mistake and we’ve been fighting all the way throughout the race to make up for the loss, return to an 18th position in our Class 4A.
When
you’re sailing with a team, it’s pretty obvious: you split the crew
into teams and have them divide watches among them. So how does that
work with us, duo’s? Well, we basically do the same work as the
full-crewed teams, but in essence just need to work a little harder. You
know that if you race together you are more efficient. Being human too,
other elements kick in: sleep and rest, every moment you can.
Approximately 60% of the time one is sailing solo, the other 40% you
need for: sail arranging, repair, sleeping, eating, navigation.To perform in a longer period of time it is key to see when one can rest. We get the latest compressed weather files via iridium satellite to plan ahead. That feels like getting back in time even before 1995! To give you an idea, while you’re out surfing through free Wi-Fi at your local coffee shop, an average file download of 40kb takes 1.5 minute to set up plus an additional 4 minutes to download with 9.6 kb a minute satellite connection- - - or longer if the connection is lost! So, dear friends, that’s why we skipped the sharing of these nice pictures and movies during the race. With the raw data files we make our weather forecast, strategy and plan ahead when to expect action or one of us has to rest. My friends warned me not to get carried away in this blog with the details on the weather and strategy, but obviously feel free to ask if you’re up for it.
Work and play, for days. The highs of the trip must have been the start, the rounding of the Fastnet rock and really, the last 100 miles or so planing back with outrageous speeds, and cheering dolphins all around us playing with the waves of our bow. That’s why you have a J/105!! Thursday night at 03:15 UTC we were welcomed in Plymouth by Coach Erik; as the Dutch do, he’d been cycling his butt off for 350 kilometers from Cowes to Plymouth to be in time to take our mooring lines! What a man! We LOVE him! So good to see you all again! We LOVE you all!
A few facts and figures (thanks Chris!) on the 90th anniversary edition of the RORC and the famous Rolex Fastnet Race 2015:
- Since 2005, the first Two-Handed Class was allowed to compete in the Rolex Fastnet Race.
- In total, only 176 duos have completed the Rolex Fastnet Race since it was first allowed
- Out of this total, only 19 Two-Handed Dutch boats have finished the race
- And for the record books, J/105 Team PANTHER is the only all-female duo to have completed the Fastnet Race!
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