Early race leader retires from OSTAR 2009

by Event media/various blogs on 28 May 2009
OSTAR 2009. In an email sent to the Race Office at 0700, Anne Caseneuve has informed us that she has unfortunately had to retire from the race and is returning east. We have no further information at this stage.

The retirement of the only two trimarans in the race leaves the Line Honours Prize of winning OSTAR 2009 to a mono hull. So now the battle to Newport is really on. The retirement of the two tris emphasises the toughness of the OSTAR and shows that anyone who finishes is a winner. The first three days of this race have lived up to the reputation of the race as being one of the toughest in the world. The fact that most of the competitors are not professional sailors adds to the special ethos of the race.

This follows yesterday’s news that Reini Gelder retired.

Yesterday - The OSTAR race office has received an email from Reini Gelder, sailing on the trimaran 'Light for the World', to say that at 1200 UTC his starboard top diamond broke with a loud bang. He saved the rig by immediately tacking. He is now running under staysail and three reefs in the main towards Lorient, France. He says it has been a fantastic 48 hours of racing but unfortunately it is now over for him.

Wednesday 27th May 2009

By all accounts, Tuesday was another testing night for many of the OSTAR skippers. In Hannah White’s words, ‘it's been a complete baptism of fire in the last 48 hours’. At 2.15 this afternoon she reported, ‘this is the first time the wind has dropped below 20kn since the start’.

Oscar Mead describes ‘A WILD night out in the race course, less a race course for ‘King Of Shaves’, more a survival course ………with winds topping out at 45 knots.’ Oscar goes on to say,

‘I am swimming in water down below (Oscar is on the lowest freeboard boat in the fleet) and there is stuff everywhere. The cooker has jumped off its mounts and there is NO WAY I can stand up’.

Jan Kees Lampe has more to say about a difficult night. With strong winds and very rough seas as La Promesse was about to leave the continental shelf he says:

‘It changed the boat into this floating lunapark. Tons of water coming over. Deafening bangs, when the boat smashes the water’. Jan Kees maintains that he felt like, ‘filthy pants in the washing machine’ while on his boat in these tempestuous conditions.

When faced with these challenges so early in the course, some skippers have been thankful for Jerry Freeman’s (QII) words of wisdom and advice. In his article ‘The First 3 Days’, Jerry explains what OSTAR skippers might expect to experience during the early days of the race and suggests survival strategies for coping during this testing and demanding time. On an encouraging note Jerry observes:

‘The third night is relatively easy, you are off the continental shelf so no more fishing boats to worry about, tidal influences have gone so no choppy waves every 12 hours, the AIS screen is looking empty?' - www.jamorph.com/blogstar/ostar/poll/first-three-days.

Hannah White - http://www.hannah-white.co.uk/blog.aspx

Crikey!!

Hiya all ok here, it’s been a complete baptism of fire in the last 48 hours. This is the first time the wind has dropped below 20kn since the start and it isn’t planned to last long. Thanks to Iggy’s sea sickness tabs I have only been very slighly sick..! The boat is doing a fab job in these nasty conditions and I’m looking forwards to getting into some calmer conditions so I’ll have a clean up, dry out and have a go at fixing a few bits. The cockpit is a mess and my danbuoy went off during the nasty weather so it looks like I have big bird from Sesame St in the cockpit! I have very little sail area up at the moment, and am not going very fast, but the breeze is due to fill in a couple of hours.. I am going to use this time to get some needed rest.

All ok 2 days down, another 20 ish to go!!
H xx


Top 10 OSTAR 2009 Positions at 28 May 2009 08:00:00

Line Class Corr Name Skipper

1. 1 4OKAMI Jacques Bouchacourt
2. 2 2 LA PROMESSE Jan Kees Lampe
3. 3 6 SPINNING WHEEL Roberto Westerman
4. 4 1 PURE SOLO Hannah White
5 . 1 1 CAZENOVE CAPITAL Pip Hildesley
6. 5 3 QII Jerry Freeman
7. 1 2 JAGER Dick Koopmans
8. 6 7 IN DIREZIONE OSTINATA E CONTRARIA Luca Zoccoli
9. 7 5 BLUQUBE Katie Miller
10. 2 2 VIJAYA Huib Swets

www.ostar2009.com