(Oslo, Norway)- What is billed as “the world’s largest overnight race”,
the Faerder Race saw an amazing performance from one of the top J/111s
in Scandinavia. With a total of over 700 boats participating, the two
J/111s sailed in the R40 Class, a hyper-competitive 40 ft racing class
with four Xp-38s, three Arcona 410s, a couple of First 40s and a number
of other fast boats. In total, 41 of Norway’s and Sweden’s most
competitive 40-footers were on the line. Here’s the report from Peter
Gustafsson, sailing on the J/111 BLUR:
“Some races are more special than others and attract sailors from far
away. It may be for historic reasons, for great parties or the number of
boats on the starting line. The Færder Race has all of those
components, and that’s why we keep coming back each year, despite having
to endure a 400nm delivery back and fourth from Sweden.
All 700+ boats in many different classes, racing a number of different
courses, start in the middle of Oslo and finish in Horten in the middle
of the Oslo Fjord. The bigger boats races 85nm to Tristein, just
outside of the iconic Færder Lighthouse, and the race usually provide
everything from calm in the narrow Drøbak straits to offshore conditions
out by the lighthouse. And everything in between.
The two J/111s, BLUR and DACAPO, were excited about the weather
forecast. It pointed to a northerly 10-12 kts, possibly 14-16 kts in
the evening, so it would be a fast race. Our routing indicated a finish
around midnight and 0100 hrs Saturday morning.
Friday morning greeted us with a grey sky and a few drops of rain. The
winds were pretty much as forecasted, but as usual, very puffy inside
Oslo’s bay.
The
tricky part was to choose between A5 or the big A2 Whomper, as the wind
went back and forth 30 degrees. We made a late call for the A5 and got a
nice hole 20% down from the northern mark where there were a lot of
boats including the J/111 Dacapo. To leeward we had both Bavaria 42
Match Ille Moro (winner of many regattas in Norway) as well as Arcona
410 DAD Sportsware with UK sailmaker Anders Nordström. The race was on.
After the first few puffs, we were slightly ahead of the fleet, peeled
to the A2 Whomper, and went for TWA 150, which tends to be the fastest
angle in a blow. I was a bit worried at the start that we would be
under-powered, but I didn’t have to worry. There was plenty of power. We
struggled as the wind shifted 20 degrees back and we had to go back and
forth between soaking and planing modes. Every time there was a big
puff we extended on the fleet.
The wind increased all the way down the fjord as we passed through the
shorthanded fleet that started 10 minutes ahead. Most of them had blown
out their spinnakers and where sailing with white sails. We picked a
lighter spot for the gybe, and hit the mark at the perfect angle. The
last stretch was amazing with 15 kts average boat speed and a 19 kts
peak when we passed a capsized F18 catamaran. WOW! The first leg took
just under an hour and we were way, way ahead already.
We choose to go to J2 and then re-set the A5 for a fast reach down to
Drøbak where we peeled back to the A2. We had some troubles since two of
our spinnaker sheets were chafed during the first leg, so there was
some quick maintenance needed. Dacapo choose a more westerly routed and
caught up a little before we got in to the groove again.
Towards Filtvet it was straight forward. The current was with us, so we
tried to stay middle or west where there was more pressure. A decent leg
where we managed to keep the distance.
We
changed helmsman & trimmers to get some rest after an intense first
part. Pelle and Magnus worked hard to stay in the current and also work
the shifts. We had TWD ranging from 000 to 030, and managed to get the
most of it while staying to the west of the fleet. We had some luck with
the shifts getting around Fulehuk at the east end of Bolærne.
Then it got very light, but we sailed conservatively on rhumbline
working the puffs that came along. We caught up with three of the X-41s,
the King 40 Magic and a ILC-40. All of them started 20 minutes ahead.
And now we couldn’t see the boats in our class, except for Dacapo with
the red gennaker.
Rounding Tristein the forecast was for 14-20 kts of wind. However, it
was already evening and very light, so we didn’t trust the forecast. We
started out with J1 but soon we had 12 kts of wind and had to go to #2.
Initially, we managed to match the King 40 and the X-41s, but as the
wind picked up we lost them.
We stayed west and went through Bolærerna, pretty much the same way as
everyone else. We tried to stay out of the current and the choppy sea.
Suddenly we had 20 knots and went to J3.5 just before it got dark (as
dark as it gets in Scandinavia this time of year- you can still wear
sunglasses!). Pretty tough sailing, but we managed to sail to the
polars. But, we knew that the bigger boats were catching up fast in
those conditions.
At the buoy in Åsgårdsstrand we met the boats from the shorter courses.
Lot’s of Express and similar boats who got into a lot of trouble after
rounding for the last upwind. We had an Express dropping the rig just
to leeward, several boats had torn sails, some went head-to-wind with
engine and sails just flogging. It was chaos and carnage. But under a
full moon it was kind of spectacular.
We worked hard all the way to finish and crossed the line just after
00:30. We knew we had sailed a great race, but not really sure how much
the bigger boats had gained during the lass hours of upwind slog. In
the end, our J/111 BLUR won with a corrected time of 12:13:52. Our
J/111 colleagues on DACAPO, skippered by Jorgen Heje, took 8th in class
15:33 back on handicap. A great showing overall for the J/111s!”
For some fun viewing, watch this
YouTube sailing video of the J/111 BLUR experience- great footage.
For more Scandinavian sailing information on the Faerder Race and
others, contact Peter Gustafsson at ph# +46 733 304000 or at email-
peter@blur.se.
Check out the website- http://www.blur.se
The
Moss Seilforening crew managed to win 10 of 13 races, posting just one
race below 2nd in the entire regatta. In other words, it was a
“runaway” for the MSF team! The big battle was for the balance of the
top five and the podium places. Bergens SF managed to hang in there,
winning four of their last five races to take the silver with 54 pts.
Third was Grimstad SF just two points back with 52 pts total. Fourth
was Handelshoyskolen BI with 50 pts and fifth place went to Asker SF
with 46 points, mostly due to their last place in the final race.
Showing
their training has begun to pay big dividends, the Arendals team posted
eight 1sts and five 2nds in their 14 races to win by four points over
the Asgardstrand sailing club- also winning ten races but having a few
bad ones to contend with. Third was KNS (Kongelig Norsk Seilforening)
only one point back from ASF. 
