Victory for HiQ in the Stockholm City race

by Event Media on 29 Jun 2006 It was his third straight win out of four course races at Sandhamn this Wednesday and he was fastest in the Speed Race in Stockholm city this past Tuesday. Klabbe Nylöf, skipper on the trimaran HiQ, gave a clear signal today of which boat is the fastest of the three Scandinavian trimarans in the Nokia Oops Cup fifth event.

'It felt fantastic, everything is working out perfectly right now, as compared to the result achieved in Gothenburg. In Gothenburg we did not have the time to train for the type of weather conditions that we had today, where we met a lot stronger winds', explained Klabbe Nylöf, who won the race in front of Skipper Knut Frostad, with Nokia Academy, and third Thomas Johanson with TietoEnator Audi.

The wind increased tremendously in strength today, up to 28 knots in the gusts, as comparison to the nearly doldrums sailing condition yesterday in the Stockholm Speed race. Furthermore, the trimarans had to endure rough seas with waves measuring up to a couple of meters high out at Revengegrundet. This concluded Fleet Race in Nokia Oops Cup’s second course race of the Stockholm City Race.

Klabbe Nylöf had a celebrity sailing star on board today, Paul Cayard, the skipper of the Volvo Ocean Race VO70, Pirates of the Caribbean, which made a flash appearance over the day in Sandhamn. Cayard’s main duty was directing tactics onboard HiQ.

'It was a great asset for us to have Paul with us, he has astonishing merits and experiences. He is a calm person and contributed with a lot of great support and helped us improve our self confidence on board', said Klabbe Nylöf.

'Even though it was the first time Paul sailed on a trimaran, he easily became a great team member. Klabbe Nylöf wanted to point out that his crew made an outstanding performance today, great team work… over all, picture perfect.

'One of the reasons why we won today is because we won three out of four heat starts, we where the first one away and we were able to maintain our lead until the finish line.

'We have now been able to reach the same high level as Knut (Nokia Academy) had last year on his trimaran. As a result, we have learned more about the abilities of our boat and the crew has a thorough knowledge of handling our trimaran.'

Nokia Academy missed the start in the second heat but took home the victory in the fourth and last heat.

'I was not surprised that it went so well for HiQ, especially when they were tacking. They know their trimaran well and sail it real good. We are definitely not satisfied today, but we have learnt a lot about the abilities of our trimaran today. It was the first time that we have sailed a course race in these strong winds that we had today. - We had some problems in our first heat, due to the fact that we had too much sail up. Therefore, we took a calculated risk to change sails between the two first heats. As a result we had a late start in the second heat. Problems also occurred when the wind is blowing hard while tacking, we lack balance and we cannot go up as high into the wind as we wish. The question now is, what can we do to resolve these issues… we have a long journey ahead of us.

'Our last heat went a lot better, the wind had slowed down and we felt that we had regained both control and balance in our trimaran.'

TietoEnator Audi missed the start in the first heat, which resulted in that they fell behind the pack immediately. But in the second heat Thomas Johanson and Kenneth Thelen regained their fighting spirit, they where almost parallel to HiQ on the starting line. But immediately after the starting line, TietoEnator Audi made their first tack. HiQ remained on their original course and was able to make their first tack further down, close to the first buoy, which resulted that they sped away. On the second lap, Nokia Academy was able pass TietoEnator Audi.

'We made some bad starts but in the last heat we had an awesome start and in the fourth heat we had a real good tack. Simultaneously during our tail wind, we where able to push down HiQ, but we made a bad tack and thus lost our advantage.' Skipper Thomas Johanson also explained that in the third heat they received problems with their Gennaker, which caused them to terminate the race.

'We will now recharge our batteries, learn from the lessons today and build up a positive attitude for the upcoming race, Eurocard Gotland Runt,' Johanson concludes.

Standings in the Nokia Oops Cup, Stockholm City Race, round 5:
1. HiQ, Klas Nylöf, 13 pts (1-1-1-2)
2. Nokia Academy, Knut Frostad, 11 (2-2-2-1)
3. TietoEnator Audi, Thomas Johanson, 6 (3-3-3-3)

For more info and latest results visit www.nokiaoopscup.com