Quest's Long lunches may set new winning race strategy

by Di Pearson on 10 Sep 2002 Despite persistent rumours, Bob Steel's reliable race winner, Quest, is for sale.

Steel purchased the Nelson Marek 46 in 1998, and represented Australia that year in the Kenwood Cup team which finished 2nd. The following year, he represented again at the Champagne Mumm Admiral's Cup, but unfortunately did not do as well.

With a formidable crew, Steel took the boat to Hamilton Island Race Week last year and won the IMS category.

A man who likes to stay ahead of the game, Steel decided this year to see how Quest was set up and configured for IRC, as he saw it as the larger and more competitive division. He took Quest to the Hahn Premium Hamilton Island Race Week, and fortunately, they got the points on the board and won.

Speaking of their success, Steel said, 'I guess you make your own luck. We are pleased with ourselves. We have a full inventory of fairly new Doyle Fraser D4 sails. Brad Stephens and 'Greeny' (Mike Green) did a good job, and Ron Jacobs too; he's won at Hammo around eight times in all sorts of divisions and categories, including three times with me.'

While Steel had let it be publicly known that Quest was on the market, he subsequently took his crew to lunch at Hamilton Island. During a few little drinks, sentimentality overcame Steel and he declared he would keep Quest.

'I don't really recall the luncheon. I decided in this campaign to put the crew luncheon on early, and I'm glad I did, because then it's out of the way early. I think we are going to have to have more lunches, because the next day we came out and won two races, and in fact, rolled into the next day to win two more races, and the day after, another race, so I think the key to success is to put the crew lunch on early, it gets them really motivated,' he said.

The audio interview can be heard at http://www.sail-world.com/multimedia/bobsteel.ram

Quest has more than done the job for Steel, winning and top-placing in numerous events, but when you look at the big picture, it is the combination of boat, sails and crew, as Brad Stephens, the Head Sail Designer for Doyle Fraser at Somersby explained, after winning at Hamilton Island.

'I am the mainsheet trimmer and I am in charge of the sail program and overall trim of the boat. Over the past year we have been doing a lot of work on carbon fibre sails, and when Quest moved from the overlapping rig to the non-overlapping rig, it was a good opportunity to take a whole boat into the next state of evolution of sails. We've spent a lot of time with development work and testing, and so on, before we made the sails.

'In January we produced a set of carbon fibre sails and that has been a tremendous experience with using fibre in the sails. Then of course the boat went on to win the Sydney-Mooloolaba race, and the boys sailed the boat during the winter series. Prior to Hamilton Island, I spent a day on the boat and had a good look at the sails, we had some excellent sail shapes, so I was quietly confident heading to Hamilton Island.'

Stephens said that the crew spent a day before the regatta preparing Quest, and then went for a sail, clocking good speed.

He went on to say, 'there are three of us on the boat doing sail trim and we were working constantly all the time talking numbers. There's myself, Jack on headsail trim, Terry on spinnaker trim, and of course, Greeny, from the Doyle Fraser loft, steering the boat, and all the time we are talking about our speed, and Jake (Ron Jacobs) of course, telling us whether he wants us high or low, just constant talk about trim and so on.'

'The first two days for us was always going to be small boat days, so we knew we had to work hard to be in the top group and look for ways to make our mark, and that's what we did, so we are very happy with that.'

This audio interview can be heard at http://www.sail-world.com/multimedia/bstephens.ram

Looking at Quest's pedigree, it is obvious whoever buys her will be on a winner.