Vuelta a España a Vela - Rookies to champions and record breakers

by Vuelta a España a Vela on 11 Jun 2010 Vuelta España a Vela – Round Spain Race - fleet is complete in Hondarribia and making ready to start the first 90 miles leg on Saturday. With the arrival late Wednesday of Dee Caffari and Anna Corbella’s GAES Centro Auditivos, the eight boat fleet of IMOCA Open 60’s reached its full complement.

The race fleet represents the full range of experience, honours and potential from Olympic champions to Vendée Globe and Transatlantic race winners, through the rising stars of the Spanish IMOCA Open 60 movement whose approach, industry, diligence and drive may very soon see them seriously challenging the French firmament which has dominated the solo and short-handed racing to date, to the young or less experienced rookies for whom this 1730 miles stage race is a first step on the ladder to racing round the world as a duo.

And with less the 48 hours before the first start, the mood around the pontoon off the Cofradia de Pescadores in many ways reflects the different personalities, experience and readiness. France’s Vendée Globe 2004-5 winner Vincent Riou was quietly splicing on the deck of his new PRB. Marc Guillemot, Safran’ skipper, the IMOCA World Champion who won the last major IMOCA Race, the TJV, took the chance this afternoon to spend a few relaxing hours sightseeing with his wife.

The Fundació Navegació Oceànica Barcelona (FNOB)’s W Hotels-Nova Bocana took the chance to sail as the breeze dropped away late afternoon. Their Barcelona team counterparts off near sistership Estrella Damm have been working on final checks to their multimedia equipment among whilst World 49er champions and double Olympic medallists Iker Martinez and Xabi Fernandez of Movistar have been fulfilling a brisk media schedule and finalising their planning.

It would be a brave speculator who would predict who the form teams will be over the whole course, so different is this race from what has gone before in the rarefied world of Open 60 racing.

Riou sails with Jean Le Cam who has won the French Solitaire du Figaro offshore stage race record three times. But Safran is a more proven, successful boat than her new PRB sibling and Guillemot has a strong team including his TJV co-skipper Charles Caudrelier Bénac, a younger lion who won the Figaro in 2004.

Two of the FNOB teams, Estrella Damm and W Hotels-Nova Bocana have sailed many racing miles, making two transatlantic races since early November as part of their preparations for the Barcelona World Race.

That may contrast with Martinez and Fernandez whose first proper race it will be for the Olympic medallists on the well proven Movistar, but when it comes to boat for boat, fleet style racing which much of this course should develop, who would bet against this remarkably successful pair’s experience and drive.

In effect the rookies who are looking to learn as much as they can as they go round the course, are the Gijon pair Juan Merediz and Francisco Palacio on Central Lechera Asturiana, the former Mutua Madrileña/Ecover 2 and the sparky Catalan duo Jaume Mumbru and Cali Sanmarti, successful Mini sailors, who have been up against the clock to be ready with the 2005 built Pakea.

For Dee Caffari and Anna Corbella and crew on GAES Centro Auditivos, the Vuelta a España a Vela comes just after their IMOCA Open 60 emerges from the two month refit in Barcelona.

Caffari, the only woman to have sailed solo around the world in both directions, is on sparkling form. She is enjoying the challenge of working together to form a strong racing partnership with Corbella, who only a few months ago was a complete rookie to Open 60 sailing, far less racing around the world.

Her Spanish racing partner was formerly an accomplished Mini sailor with previous experience in Olympic class dinghies, but in essence she is on a nine month learning curve to be ready to compete with Dee in the upcoming Barcelona World Race.

It was only in February that Corbella stepped for the first time on the IMOCA Open 60 on which Caffari finished sixth in the last Vendée Globe, and seventh in the last Transat Jacques Vabre transatlantic race with Brian Thompson.

It was not so much a baptism of fire but an extreme initiation in some severe gales and freezing temperatures: GAES Centro Auditivos is in good shape now after an extensive refit, she explains: “The boat has had eight weeks in the shed in Barcelona and the team have done a lot of work, a little bit rushed in the end but it always is.”

She admits that arriving in Hondarribia really brought home the strength of the assembled fleet for this Vuelta a Espana a Vela: “You kind of start of thinking…’ tour round Spain it’ll be good media exercise and you can learn the boat,’ but then you arrive and see this line up of sailors and think ‘Oh my god this is going to be absolutely full-on!’”

“But the difference is this will be all about boat speed and boat-to-boat tactics, you will see very quickly if your boat is quick enough. You are in sight of each other all the time which is different environment for us on Open 60’s and that will be fun, and the focus will be a bit more intense.”

But is Caffari worried about what this race might prove in terms of their boat’s speed?
“In the bigger picture it is not something for us to focus on too much. We don’t have that much time. Our focus has to be a boat for us to get around the world and Anna has a lot of miles to do. But it is always good to be sailing against other boats, and we missed that a lot in the UK at times. For us to have this opportunity to sail against the other Spanish teams that have been talked about and not seen.”

She is pleased with the progress that her Spanish protégé is making as they prepare for the Barcelona World Race together.

“The more time we have together the better. She is really confident now on the boat, because she knows I know it and so she is happy with that. But for me now it is about making her competent and confident. I can push that bit harder knowing what she can do.”

“When we did the delivery down in February she was quite shocked how physically demanding it was. When you come from a Mini on to this and start to hoist sails it is hard. It was nasty weather, all wrapped up, two different languages, as a first experience on an Open 60 it was easier to say you drive I’ll do it.”

“So that was quite good for her to see I could just do it, and now she knows what to expect. On a nine months time scale she has taken it very seriously, has been in the gym all the time, and is more confident now and enjoying it more.”

“What is really good is that things happen quicker because there is a lot more grunt around, but as I said to Anna it will all be easier when there is just the two of us. Obviously we smell of roses and the boys tend to miss out on that fact. But obviously these are short legs and so the boys will all be kept outside unless they are moving things or collecting a sail!”

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