Six Metre European Championship - Action resumes on day 4

by Fiona Brown on 25 Jul 2014 After a two-day hiatus, the fourth day of the Six Metre European Championship in Falmouth finally produced a much-needed third race for the twenty-seven competing teams. The wind failed to cooperate for much of the day and it wasn't until 17.30 that the race finally started in a rainy nine knots from the northeast. With the wind largely driven by slow moving rain clouds it wasn't long before it began to destabilise and by the second run it was down to five knots or less, making for some very challenging sailing.

In the Modern Division race victory went to Bertie Bicket's GBR86 Scoundrel I with Robin Richardson's GBR88 St Kitts second, Claes Henningsson's SWE114 Notorious third and Paul Smith's GBR107 Valhalla fourth.

In the Classics three boats were called OCS at the start and failed to go back. The race was won by Peter Andreae's GBR57 Erica, with Peter Hoffman's US83 Llanoria second, William Booth's N71 Flapper third and Rainer Muller's KC10 Gallant fourth.

With three races now sailed both divisions remain wide open, setting us up for an exciting final day. Valhalla leads the Modern Division and the Championship with seven points, four points ahead of Don Martin's C11 Blade Runner. Scoundrel I lies third on twelve points, just half a point clear of Notorious.

In the Classic Division Andy Postle and Brian Pope's GBR22 Titia came sixth today and leads the fleet on eleven points, just a single point ahead of Gallant. As the leading pair go head to head for Class victory, the battle for the third step of the podium will also be fraught with Sir Peter Harrison's K12 Nada leading a chasing pack that is separated by only seven points and includes Erica, Louis Heckley's FRA111 Dix Aout, Llanoria, Andrew Webster's USA54 BobKat II and Flapper.

The regatta concludes tomorrow and a minimum of two more races must be completed before a Champion can be declared. The forecast anticipates around 10 knots from the east in the morning, dying off again by early afternoon. The Notice of Race calls for no starts to be made after midday and the Race Committee has brought the start of racing forward to 09.00. If the weather gods cooperate it should be possible to complete two more races and end the championship on a high note.

Race Detail

Dawn brought grey skies and the predicted flat calm, so the Race Committee held the competitors ashore until 14.00, when they saw signs of a light breeze developing in Carrick Roads.

By the time the fleet was in the race area rain clouds were rolling in from the east and the wind refused to stabilise sufficiently to get a course set. Race Officer Chris Haddon sent a RIB out to review conditions in Falmouth Bay and before long reports were coming in of a steady nine knots from around 050 degrees so the fleet set off to sea.

The race committee finally got racing under way at 17.30 and both fleets cleared the line at the first time of asking, but with some individual recalls. In the Modern Division Blade Runner and Beat Furrer's SUI104 Temptation three elected to go back, but in the Classics no one returned and at the finish Thomas Kuhmann's GER30 Mena, Christian Teichmann's GBR32 Abu and Matt Brooks' USA55 Lucie were greeted with the deafening silence that confirms an OCS.

Upwind the left was tidally favoured and at the first mark Valhalla led the Moderns by a very narrow margin from Richard Clothier's GBR89 Battlecry, with Scoundrel I and the rest of the fleet right on their heels. Erica was the first Classic to round, followed by Flapper and Llanoria. Behind them came a huge raft of boats and a lot of yelling as everyone fought for position round the mark.

Down the first run the wind was already starting to drop and go left and there were place changes aplenty in the tricky conditions. The Race Committee shortened the second beat to allow for the drop in velocity, but the left-hander came too late for a second change, and the boats almost laid the second weather mark in one.

On the second run the wind was dropping to sub five knots so the Committee wisely decided to shorten at the second leeward gate. The boats were forced to reach down high on starboard, and judging the timing of their gybe onto port for the line was crucial. The Moderns had the advantage of slightly more pressure and on the line Scoundrel I crept in ahead of Robin Richardson's GBR88 St Kitts with Claes Henningsson's SWE114 Notorious third and Vlahalla fourth.

The Classics had an even greater struggle with the final run as by now the wind was all but spent. Erica had initially lost out and was back in fifth or sixth, but an early gybe saw her sweep around her rival's port flank to take victory on the line by a matter of seconds from Llanoria with Flapper third and Gallant fourth. Nada had been looking good for a fourth, but she fluffed the gybe, overshot the line, had to attempt to beat back to the buoy, failed, hit the mark and then ended up in ninth.

Back ashore the crews were wet, cold and exhausted, but relieved to have achieved a third race and eager to get out again first thing in the morning for what everyone hopes will be two final races.

The Sailors' View

After racing, Peter Kay, tactician aboard Robin Richardson's second placed Modern St Kitts, gave us his thoughts on the day. 'I think he did the right thing to get out into the bay. We got out there quite early, so we'd done a beat already by the time the committee boat got on station and it was pretty steady. Our strategy was going to be go left just for the tide, but with a such a small fleet that is so close in speed it's more a case of making your mind up as you get off the line as it's interboat.

'If you are on a line with 100 boats you can make a strategic decision about shall we go left or right and the chances are circumstances will allow you to do that. But in this fleet, although we got a bad start, one tack and you are into clear air and then it's a case of, do I go back with everybody else because I don't want to go out on a limb, which is what we did.

'Fortunately the wind had gone left so we laid up into the mark almost on the layline, which helped against the boats outside us and the boats on the inside had over stood so were fetching in. Everybody rounded the first mark in a gaggle, we rounded fifth and we all spread out on a rather sloppy run.

'It was light but it wasn't holey, which is nice because it gives you the opportunity to use that good communication in the crew, with the trimmer getting the helmsman to come up in the light and down in the puffs and all that sort of thing. And fortuitously we managed to wriggle our way down so that the leaders had gone out to the right, the boats behind us had fanned to the left, but actually hadn't made progress on us, and we made the mark. So it was only Scoundrel that managed to gybe in and just cleared us. It was a marginal call to gybe in front of us, we'd come inside the other two boats that were outside us so went round second, cleared our air and tacked and we were almost laying the windward mark again, so that was fortuitous.

'I was pleased that we had managed to get down the run quite quickly. I sailed in this boat in 1988 in a breezy regatta and it was definitely a boat that was very quick in a breeze, but not so quick in the light stuff, and I'm sure it's going quicker now.

'Then the wind went really light on that last run and it was still very tight and the boats were nose to tail, so it was a case of just keeping your air clear and trying to get as much depth as you could when the little puffs did come through, and we managed to do that all the way down. Fortunately we'd kept our wind clear and we'd been diving low enough in the little gusts to be almost laying the line, so we didn't have to put in much of a gybe to make the line. I think inevitably people fanned out, all trying to take each other's wind as we came in there, which gave us the opportunity to gybe and follow Scandal across the line.'

Complete Results:

Classic Division

Sail No	Boat Name	Owner	Helm	R1	R2	R3	Total	Nett
				21 July 14	21 July 14	24 July 14
GBR22	Titia	Andy Postle/Brian Pope	Andy Postle	2.0	2.0	6.0	10.0	10.0
KC10	Gallant	Rainer Muller	Ben Mumford	3.0	4.0	4.0	11.0	11.0
GBR57	Erica	Peter Andreae	Peter Andreae	9.0	9.0	1.0	19.0	19.0
FRA111	Dix Aout	Louis Heckly	Bernard Divorne	7.0	5.0	7.0	19.0	19.0
US83	Llanoria	Peter Hofman	Eric Jespersen	1.0	17.0 OCS	2.0	20.0	20.0
K12	Nada	Sir Peter Harrison	Marcus Fitzgerald	8.0	1.0	12.0	21.0	21.0
US54	Bobcat II	Andrew Webster	Andrew Webster	11.0	6.0	5.0	22.0	22.0
N71	Flapper	William Booth	Lars Guck	5.0	17.0 OCS	3.0	25.0	25.0
SUI24	Midinette	Bertrand Keller	Arthur Keller	4.0	17.0 DNF	10.0	31.0	31.0
GBR72	Thistle	Tom Richardson	Tom Richardson	15.0	8.0	9.0	32.0	32.0
S15	Carmela	Walter Kuhlmann	Walter Kuhlmann	12.0	12.0	8.0	32.0	32.0
GER30	Mena	Thomas Kuhmann	Dr Thomas Crebbin	6.0	10.0	17.0 OCS	33.0	33.0
GBR32	Abu	Christian Teichmann	Christian Teichmann	10.0	7.0	17.0 OCS	34.0	34.0
US55	Lucie	Matt Brooks	James A Hilton Snr	17.0 DSQ	3.0	17.0 OCS	37.0	37.0
FRA86	Vingt Ans Apres	Patrick Le Floch	Patrick Le Floch	14.0	13.0	11.0	38.0	38.0
GBR40	Valdai	Sir Robert Owen	Dirk Stolp	13.0	11.0	17.0 DNS	41.0	41.0

Modern Division

Sail No	Boat Name	Owner	Helm	R1	R2	R3	Total	Nett
				21 July 14	21 July 14	24 July 14
GBR107	Valhalla	Paul Smith	Robert Smith	2.0	1.0	4.0	7.0	7.0
CAN111	Blade Runner	Don Martin	Don Martin	1.0	2.0	8.0	11.0	11.0
GBR86	Scoundrel I	Bertie Bicket	Bertie Bicket	7.0	4.0	1.0	12.0	12.0
SWE114	Notorious	Claes Henningsson	Claes Henningsson	3.0	6.5	3.0	12.5	12.5
GBR88	St Kitts	Robin Richardson	Robin Richardson	8.0	6.5	2.0	16.5	16.5
GBR89	Battlecry	Richard Clothier	Ben Clothier	4.0	8.0	7.0	19.0	19.0
SUI132	Sophie II	Hugo Stenbeck	Rob Davis	5.0	9.0	6.0	20.0	20.0
GBR90	Lyonesse	Robert Leigh-Wood	Robert Leigh-Wood	6.0	5.0	11.0	22.0	22.0
GBR94	Wildcat II	Andy Ash-Vie	Andy Ash-Vie	11.0	3.0	10.0	24.0	24.0
SUI104	Temptation 3	Beat Furrer	Beat Furrer	9.0	10.0	5.0	24.0	24.0
FRA107	Tsigane	Stefan O'Reilly-Hyland	Stefan O'Reilly-Hyland	10.0	11.0	9.0	30.0	30.0

R1 - Classic Division - 21 July 14

Sail No	Boat Name	Owner	Helm	Place	Points
US83	Llanoria	Peter Hofman	Eric Jespersen	2	1.0
GBR22	Titia	Andy Postle/Brian Pope	Andy Postle	3	2.0
KC10	Gallant	Rainer Muller	Ben Mumford	4	3.0
SUI24	Midinette	Bertrand Keller	Arthur Keller	5	4.0
N71	Flapper	William Booth	Lars Guck	6	5.0
GER30	Mena	Thomas Kuhmann	Dr Thomas Crebbin	7	6.0
FRA111	Dix Aout	Louis Heckly	Bernard Divorne	8	7.0
K12	Nada	Sir Peter Harrison	Marcus Fitzgerald	9	8.0
GBR57	Erica	Peter Andreae	Peter Andreae	10	9.0
GBR32	Abu	Christian Teichmann	Christian Teichmann	11	10.0
US54	Bobcat II	Andrew Webster	Andrew Webster	12	11.0
S15	Carmela	Walter Kuhlmann	Walter Kuhlmann	13	12.0
GBR40	Valdai	Sir Robert Owen	Dirk Stolp	14	13.0
FRA86	Vingt Ans Apres	Patrick Le Floch	Patrick Le Floch	15	14.0
GBR72	Thistle	Tom Richardson	Tom Richardson	16	15.0
US55	Lucie	Matt Brooks	James A Hilton Snr	DSQ	17.0

R2 - Classic Division - 21 July 14

Sail No	Boat Name	Owner	Helm	Place	Points
K12	Nada	Sir Peter Harrison	Marcus Fitzgerald	1	1.0
GBR22	Titia	Andy Postle/Brian Pope	Andy Postle	2	2.0
US55	Lucie	Matt Brooks	James A Hilton Snr	3	3.0
KC10	Gallant	Rainer Muller	Ben Mumford	4	4.0
FRA111	Dix Aout	Louis Heckly	Bernard Divorne	5	5.0
US54	Bobcat II	Andrew Webster	Andrew Webster	6	6.0
GBR32	Abu	Christian Teichmann	Christian Teichmann	7	7.0
GBR72	Thistle	Tom Richardson	Tom Richardson	8	8.0
GBR57	Erica	Peter Andreae	Peter Andreae	9	9.0
GER30	Mena	Thomas Kuhmann	Dr Thomas Crebbin	10	10.0
GBR40	Valdai	Sir Robert Owen	Dirk Stolp	11	11.0
S15	Carmela	Walter Kuhlmann	Walter Kuhlmann	12	12.0
FRA86	Vingt Ans Apres	Patrick Le Floch	Patrick Le Floch	13	13.0
US83	Llanoria	Peter Hofman	Eric Jespersen	OCS	17.0
N71	Flapper	William Booth	Lars Guck	OCS	17.0
SUI24	Midinette	Bertrand Keller	Arthur Keller	DNF	17.0

R3 - Classic Division - 24 July 14

Sail No	Boat Name	Owner	Helm	Place	Points
GBR57	Erica	Peter Andreae	Peter Andreae	1	1.0
US83	Llanoria	Peter Hofman	Eric Jespersen	2	2.0
N71	Flapper	William Booth	Lars Guck	3	3.0
KC10	Gallant	Rainer Muller	Ben Mumford	4	4.0
US54	Bobcat II	Andrew Webster	Andrew Webster	5	5.0
GBR22	Titia	Andy Postle/Brian Pope	Andy Postle	6	6.0
FRA111	Dix Aout	Louis Heckly	Bernard Divorne	7	7.0
S15	Carmela	Walter Kuhlmann	Walter Kuhlmann	8	8.0
GBR72	Thistle	Tom Richardson	Tom Richardson	9	9.0
SUI24	Midinette	Bertrand Keller	Arthur Keller	10	10.0
FRA86	Vingt Ans Apres	Patrick Le Floch	Patrick Le Floch	11	11.0
K12	Nada	Sir Peter Harrison	Marcus Fitzgerald	12	12.0
GER30	Mena	Thomas Kuhmann	Dr Thomas Crebbin	OCS	17.0
GBR32	Abu	Christian Teichmann	Christian Teichmann	OCS	17.0
US55	Lucie	Matt Brooks	James A Hilton Snr	OCS	17.0
GBR40	Valdai	Sir Robert Owen	Dirk Stolp	DNS	17.0

R1 - Modern Division - 21 July 14

Sail No	Boat Name	Owner	Helm	Place	Points
CAN111	Blade Runner	Don Martin	Don Martin	1	1.0
GBR107	Valhalla	Paul Smith	Robert Smith	2	2.0
SWE114	Notorious	Claes Henningsson	Claes Henningsson	3	3.0
GBR89	Battlecry	Richard Clothier	Ben Clothier	4	4.0
SUI132	Sophie II	Hugo Stenbeck	Rob Davis	5	5.0
GBR90	Lyonesse	Robert Leigh-Wood	Robert Leigh-Wood	6	6.0
GBR86	Scoundrel I	Bertie Bicket	Bertie Bicket	7	7.0
GBR88	St Kitts	Robin Richardson	Robin Richardson	8	8.0
SUI104	Temptation 3	Beat Furrer	Beat Furrer	9	9.0
FRA107	Tsigane	Stefan O'Reilly-Hyland	Stefan O'Reilly-Hyland	10	10.0
GBR94	Wildcat II	Andy Ash-Vie	Andy Ash-Vie	11	11.0

R2 - Modern Division - 21 July 14

Sail No	Boat Name	Owner	Helm	Place	Points
GBR107	Valhalla	Paul Smith	Robert Smith	1	1.0
CAN111	Blade Runner	Don Martin	Don Martin	2	2.0
GBR94	Wildcat II	Andy Ash-Vie	Andy Ash-Vie	3	3.0
GBR86	Scoundrel I	Bertie Bicket	Bertie Bicket	4	4.0
GBR90	Lyonesse	Robert Leigh-Wood	Robert Leigh-Wood	5	5.0
SWE114	Notorious	Claes Henningsson	Claes Henningsson	6	6.5
GBR88	St Kitts	Robin Richardson	Robin Richardson	6	6.5
GBR89	Battlecry	Richard Clothier	Ben Clothier	8	8.0
SUI132	Sophie II	Hugo Stenbeck	Rob Davis	9	9.0
SUI104	Temptation 3	Beat Furrer	Beat Furrer	10	10.0
FRA107	Tsigane	Stefan O'Reilly-Hyland	Stefan O'Reilly-Hyland	11	11.0

R3 - Modern Division - 24 July 14

Sail No	Boat Name	Owner	Helm	Place	Points
GBR86	Scoundrel I	Bertie Bicket	Bertie Bicket	1	1.0
GBR88	St Kitts	Robin Richardson	Robin Richardson	2	2.0
SWE114	Notorious	Claes Henningsson	Claes Henningsson	3	3.0
GBR107	Valhalla	Paul Smith	Robert Smith	4	4.0
SUI104	Temptation 3	Beat Furrer	Beat Furrer	5	5.0
SUI132	Sophie II	Hugo Stenbeck	Rob Davis	6	6.0
GBR89	Battlecry	Richard Clothier	Ben Clothier	7	7.0
CAN111	Blade Runner	Don Martin	Don Martin	8	8.0
FRA107	Tsigane	Stefan O'Reilly-Hyland	Stefan O'Reilly-Hyland	9	9.0
GBR94	Wildcat II	Andy Ash-Vie	Andy Ash-Vie	10	10.0
GBR90	Lyonesse	Robert Leigh-Wood	Robert Leigh-Wood	11	11.0

Further information and the full entry list incorporating information about each boat can be found here.