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BEL
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Tough
weather conditions in our second Goofy (December 3rd 2005)
Wind and course preventing us to use our powerfull gennaker.
A
strong southerly wind, 5 to 6 Bft with strong gusts and a course with only
a 0.8 mile down wind leg prevented us to use the gennaker. |
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Mentaquilibrium
sails a moderate first Goofy in ORC-Club
Things looked very promising for our first race in the ORC-Club Fleet. Blue sky, wind 4 to 5 and only little waves, a good team on board: Bernie at the mast position, Marc at the pit, Stolio at head sail trim and tactics and Thomas at the helm. We went for a good position on the starting line, but in our effort to stay clear of a fighting pack of 5 boats we managed to be almost a minute late when the start signal came blasting out of that grey vehicle on the shore. At first we managed to stay close to the leading pack in the first upwind leg but we didn’t tack towards the coast as most boats did. At the rounding of the first mark we had a very fast hoist of the gennaker but when we started to trim the sail the clew didn’t come closer. The sheet is fixed on the clew with a shackle and this had apparently come loose. The team did a very nice job fixing the problem and we started this first downwind leg with a substantial loss of time. We rounded the downwind mark close behind Windfall, a Tyfoon 37, and until the next mark we were reaching in close contact at high speed. The rounding of the third mark was the start of a long upwind leg towards the bright shining low hanging sun. With over a hundred boats participating there were many right of way situations. We closely missed the upwind mark because of the strong tide and were forced to make two extra tacks. Then it was gennaker time again but because of the wind coming from the side a miscommunication on board made the sail change into a shrimp fishing net, weighing tons to hoist back on board and forcing us into a 360° turn before making our way again towards the next mark. On this leg we finally reached high speeds, topping 12.5 knots and making it hard for the IMS yachts Hawkeye and the one “met de houten poot” to pass us. Gradually the wind was falling and we had a nice short upwind leg towards the finish line in which Stolio did a fantastic trimming job to pass Escapade, a first 27.7. The results were shown the next day on ClubRacer on following link: www.clubracer.be .
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Mentaquilibrium
sails highest mileage in the Long Distance Race
Wemeldinge October 8th 2005. Today’s race was real fun! The boats had to cover as many miles as possible within a given time frame. The crews received a list of fixed stretches between buoys and every stretch could be sailed only twice. Even more: all stretches had to be covered contiguous to each other. We planned a course making wind and tide work in our favour and embarked an enthusiastic crew willing to make this race a success. Thomas, at helm and mainsail trim, and Stolio, at gib/gennaker trim, were accompanied by Mark at the pit and Bram at the mast and mainsail traveller. The start of the race was given in the local pub on the shore, from where one crew member from each boat had to run over the pontoons to jump onboard their boat which was already leaving the docks. Crews were immediately hoisting their sails motoring as fast as possible towards the harbour exit where the engine had to be cut off. The wind force 2 slightly from astern on port on the first compulsory stretch made all spinnakers go up and we felt the eagerness of all competitors to go for best performance. On board Mentaquilibrium we knew we had to be very focused and fast if we wanted to end up with a good performance.
And
so we did. We went for as many gennaker stretches as possible, topping a
maximum speed of 10.99 kts. We went with the tide to the far end of the
course to come back when the tide turned 2 hours later. We rounded twenty marks closely and efficiently with the crew hoisting and lowering the gennaker in no time. We only had a 2 tacking stretches and even then we carefully considered all headers and lifts to reach the next mark in the shortest time. The finish line was drawn at the harbour entrance. The fleet was allowed to cross this line between 5:00 and 5:30 pm. Crossing before was equal to not finishing, crossing too late was penalized. Mentaquilibrium finished at 5:22 pm after sailing a total of 39.4 miles in 6 ½ hours. We had to wait for the printed results to realize we had sailed the longest distance and after time correction according to an SW factor we were at the top of the ranking. Results will be published on the club’s website: www.wsvo.nl . The evening ended with a fantastic mussel diner, where else than at the Oosterschelde can you eat such delicious mussels! Pictures and a movie of the race can be found in our gallery in the media section of this site.
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Very fast 18th edition
of the Antwerp Race What started as a cold rainy day turned out to become the fastest edition ever of the Antwerp Race. With Thomas and Christopher at their regular positions, Bernie at the mast and Marc at the pit we had a dynamic crew which was up to the job. We left the harbour at 8h30 and reached the starting area at 9h with the start sheduled at 9h30. Our major concern was to position the boat to the windward side of the very large fleet to have clean air, our second concern was to avoid a premature start as we had the tide and a strong wind pushing us towards the line. The start was a little chaotic with two boats colliding in the middle of the line and boats luffing out of control but we managed to start ahead and to the windward side of the big pack. We chose to be conservative and get out of that tricky situation without taking any risks so we waited a few minutes to hoist the gen. Once the gen was up the turbo charger was on and Mentaquilibrium reached 12kts in no time leaving the crowded fleet behind. Pepper (Melges 24) and Matsuru (MaxFun 25) hoisted their gen immediately after the start and were ahead of us. Unfortunately we overshot the first mark E8, so we had to sail 10° closer to the wind than the fleet. They were sailing on a tight reach and thus going a little faster. We joined the the front pack of the fleet and had some interesting close contact sailing towards mark MG17. Near the mark we passed in front of Wildeman to get the inside position, extracted the pole and took off with a well timed bear-away set. With wind coming from straight behind we had to make a good set of gybes to maintain speed. So we did and we managed to leave the big pack behind for the second time. We started to outrun the slower boats that had started in the group before us. After mark 42 we sailed a very tight reach trying to keep the gen on. Behind us Sjambok (1D48) arrived at full speed. Sjambok had to overtake us to our windward side because of the shallow waters to weather so they sailed a closer angle to the wind which caused their gennaker to explode! Once we had reached mark 48 we started to fall off and got back to 10+kts speeds. On this leg we topped 14kts overtaking some 40 foot boats. The only boats overtaking us were the Standfast 56 and 64. At mark 85A we had to run almost straight downwind causing the speed to decrease. Once in the portuary zone we had less pressure and very shifty gusts caused by the big buildings and structures. One of these gusts caused our gennaker to tear from top to foot, from luff to leach! We had to recover the torned pieces out of the water and pulled them back on board and unfurl the gib. This cost us several precious minutes. As we were on a tight reach we sailed with the gib towards mark 86. This gave us time to prepare our 2nd gen which we hoisted past mark 90. We took the gen down while rounding mark 99 to sail on a tight beat for two miles towards mark 98. At mark 98 we set the gen for te last time in the race. The run towards mark 107 was very tricky with very light shifty winds coming from straight behind. Larger boats like Xipho and Stortemelk managed to overtake us on this leg as their tall masts were less affected by the nearby shore. We took the gen down rounding mark 107 and sailed a tight beat towards the finish line. We tacked once near the docks and crossed the line at 13h53m53s.
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Mentaquilibrium
places 3rd in the 2005 Van uden Reco Regatta SW Class
After a mediocre race on Saturday resulting in a 6th place we managed to end 2nd corrected time on Sunday resulting to a 3rd place overall. There's only one thing to say about Saturday's race: No Comment. We left the harbour way too late, couldn't find the committee boat, crossed the line 10 minutes after the gun and then had trouble finding the first mark. Just great! Then came the long chase towards the leaders of the fleet. We never managed to catch up with them and finished somewhere in the middle of the fleet, one hour behind the leader, Gorgeaous, a Sun Fast 40. Although we had quite an amusing situation when Yorick explained the small margin between the luffing right and remaining on a proper course to a fellow competitor. Sunday's race was much better, we arrived at the starting zone well on time, we were first to cross the line at the pin-end, the favoured end of the line. The rest of the fleet had chosen the boat-end. We sailed towards the left hand side of the course to search for more pressure and a lift near the shore and that's what we've found. We still managed to cross ahead of the Oyster 43 "Third Coast" after 45 minutes of racing. We managed to hook on to the leaders of the fleet during the upwind leg using the gain of little windshifts thanks to Marc's effort to set the lift/header function on the race master after every tack. We rounded the windward mark in 5th place but after a properly timed set of gybes, taking us to the favoured side of the track, we managed to cross the line in 3rd place, only 8 minutes behind "Gorgeous". Good tactics and navigation made the difference. This 6th and 2nd place corrected time resulted into a 3rd place overall. We'll be back next year!!
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Official J-80 Class in the Netherlands!!!
Ipco Marine announced the foundation of the Official Dutch J80 Class.
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Tuning Program at
full throttle!
The goal of the TPP (Tuning Perfection Program) is very obvious, Mentaquilibrium needs to become one of the fastest J80s afloat. Every detail will be checked and rechecked. Every choice we'll have to make will be considered and reconsidered. TPP will involve: optimizing our sail wardrobe, finalizing the running rigging, trying out different mast trims, making the hull smoother than silk,... After all that we'll compare the achieved gain on our VPP. Boathandling which is very important in one design racing will also be optimized. Once TTP is completed we'll be well prepared for the late season regatta's.
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