Report Footy Gold Cup 2013

[gian73]

Salve a tutti,

sul sito della Footy Gold Cup 2013 ci sono i risultati finali forniti dall'organizzazione (con il relativo file scaricabile), un resoconto di Rob Vice e il link ad un po' di foto.

Attenzione: il report di Vice riporta una classifica diversa per i primi 6, gli unici che ha riportato, ma non è la classifica ufficiale, semplicemente è come probabilmente si ricordava lui le cose. L'unica classifica che fa testo è quella fornita dagli organizzatori. Ho riportato il post così come lo ha spedito lui, ho solo fatto un paio di ritocchi di impaginazione.

Eventuali errori verranno corretti man mano che (e se ) mi saranno comunicati dagli organizzatori.


Il webmaster di FootyGoldCup.org

[gian73]

Per chi mastica un po' di inglese, ecco un report di Rob Vice (GBR 41)

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Wow what a weekend that was! Lots of great racing with a fleet of Footys that all managed to sail really well across a wide range of wind strengths. Huge thanks to the organizing team for putting on the most competitive Footy race I have been a part of. For those interested, here is my review.. Rob.

This report is once again only through my eyes and I hope it will encourage others to join in the International Footy scene, too all my overseas Footy friends it was great to race alongside you again, to any that didn’t attend the race in Le Havre then you missed a fantastic event with the closest competition I can recall sailing in this class.

Let me start by describing the location, quite possibly the best overseas location for any Skipper in the southern end of the UK as the journey was a simple drive to Portsmouth followed by a sleepy 7 hour ferry trip thanks to the sponsors discount essentially giving us a free cabin and then a 4 minute (yes only twice as long as a pre-race countdown) drive to the car park. The lake is a dock with about 3 meter drop down to the water level so some wind bounce was seen near the edges and a little bit of weed that was soon blown to the leeward shore so despite early fears the green stuff played very little part in the racing.
The wind was forecast to be light north/east all weekend building as Sunday came to an end but due to the heat of the beautiful weather the sea breeze was to play it’s part. The opposite side of the car park was a good shopping center that had toilets and food facilities included and I’ll say now that the Dyson Airblade hand dryers really helped me keep my family’s fleet of 4 boats sailing when the salt water got into the radio gear!

Saturday.
The day started with a usual box check to see if the boats fitted but I was not aware of any rig template checks. The light airs saw everyone at the first start line with their biggest sails and some of them looked very large.. The race officer and team ensured we ran as per the race schedule by sailing 3 or 4 races back to back and then having a 10 minute gap before the next batch. This meant that we were sometimes rushing to tweak, tune or change sails as the wind built up but we completed 20 races (I think) in the first day. It was hard to spot trends in the leaders partly as my experimental new big rig nicknamed the Wayne (Way-in as opposed to the normal Stollery Just-in) just didn’t work very at all leaving me mid fleet and partly because so many different folks were winning. Once the wind grew and most skippers were forced into their 2nd rig it was notable that Phil Tyler (SUI 42) was able to hold the bigger rig for longer and held a significant speed advantage backed up by good starts allowed him to build what I suspect was a points advantage at the first lunch break (sorry no scores were available for me to confirm any of this) however others having success included
Jean-François Bessière (FRA114) and his son Hippolyte Bessière (FRA117), Claudio Vigada (ITA102), Erik Jankovic (SLO03), the GBR team’s ICE fleet was not having a good morning with rig and then radio issues leading to frantic repairs and changes.
The afternoon brought a change in wind direction and as the heat of the day really kicked in so the strength increased and we saw some good battles in strong 2nd suit breezes with some rudder waggling and broaches off wind. The buoys were set out prior to the event and a number of routes around the buoys were changed frequently to give the most suitable course albeit this often meant the start line was heavily biased and too short leaving 17 boats all trying to get to the same end and this is my only criticism of the race management (sorry team but you did a really great job other than this!) This meant that port/starboard pile-ups and general recalls were a little too frequent and gave the race management team some awkward moments. Despite any of this the racing was always jovial and in keeping with the Footy way.
During the afternoon the ICE fleet had started to post some race wins and good placing by CJ Vice (GBR48) and me (GBR41) started to see them enter the battle for overall leader, apparently Phil Tyler saw the scores overnight and said that I (GBR41) had a 10 point lead which I was flabbergasted by because I was sure that I was some way off the pace but perhaps shows how well spread the race wins were.
Saturday evening was the now customary Footy meal with fine food, wine and gifts from the sponsors. Everyone was entered into a Lottery and prizes were randomly drawn and awarded to all competitors they included Ferry tickets to sunglasses, Gill sailing bags to Epoxy resin kits, waterproof phone covers to Thermos flasks and enough spinnaker repair tape to last a lifetime! The rest of the night was taken up by great fun conversations with friends from around Europe. There was a vote for another new trophy called Angus Richardson Memorial trophy for the boat which skippers thought showed the most simple but innovative design and construction which was won by Eric Jankovic (SLO03) followed by Hippolyte Bessière (FRA117). Then some more French wine and renditions of happy birthday in English and Swedish to mark CJ’s 14th birthday. A short trip back to the Novotel, which was very nice and again great value due to the sponsorship deal! Where some more red wine fueled me for a late night of replacing 3 broken masts and a cleanup of all the electrical items I had in all 4 boats.

Sunday.
Sunday dawned far too early, but an all-you-can-eat breakfast kept the Vice boys busy and enable me to clear my head and get ready for day 2. The racing program promissed racing until 2:15 giving time for scores and awards before everyone needed to depart, but once again the wind was a little later showing up and the again the first race or three were all in very light conditions. Phil Tyler (42), Eric (03), Hippolyte (117) Halvard Duclos (FRA111) Claudio (102) and Federico Steri (ITA77 who had another great paint scheme on his yacht) all had great races with CJ keeping the ICE presence felt. But personally I needed more wind and that waited until lunchtime before it arrived when I could get back up to speed. Once again I feeling the effects of an experimental high aspect ratio big rig that just didn’t work at all so sailed in 2nd rig almost all day.
CJ suffered more radio problems before my foggy head cleared and I finally realized that we were sailing in salty water and with a leaky boat the corrosion was causing all sorts of radio problems like range issues, sails going out or in without warning and eventually a rudder servo that decided it was motor and almost ripped the thin carbon radio plate in half! So a trip to the aforementioned toilet block to fill the boat with water and apply copious amounts of sticky tape to seal up the holes. Quite why I left it so late before I figured this out I don’t know, but finally we were certain that we’d fixed it so launched with great anticipation and CJ started the next race in the lead only to glitch again on the last leg before finishing in the top 3. Astonishment followed in the next race when he retired just after the start with terminal failure. A hasty recovery of the stranded ICE and to my embarrassment we spotted that after the sticky taping exercise we had not sealed the drain hole, so water had once again poured in!!! A quick dry was not enough and we ran out of time to swap radio plate so CJ was forced to sit out the last race of the regatta. My luck however had returned and I put a string of wins and 2nd places together in the afternoon to make things interesting when the final places were awarded.

So the final awards were made and the victor was Phil Tyler with a fine performance from his new BoX 4 design. This latest iteration has slightly more ballast and deeper rocker and I think narrower hull but still a basic box section which generates more hull power and it showed when he was holding bigger rigs than most. He was so often the fastest boat on the water by a long way and he sailed very carefully keeping out of trouble and picked many of the right shifts on the first beat to command a lead which some of us could close down a bit on the run but so often not enough to win!
I came in second with my ICE that with the exception of a failed big rig is no different from the last 4 years.
A fine performance by Hippolyte Bessière was awarded with 3rd place and also top junior. His new design has a very powerful stern while simple lines under the water and wafer thin milled aluminium fin and elegant high aspect ratio rudder allowed a fast hull to carry a lot of sail and his recent selection to the French national 420 team proved he knows his way around the race course!
4th place went to Federico Steri (ITA 77)
CJ came 5th with his ICE plus sticky tape!
6th was Claudio Vigada who sailed the yacht he did so well with in both the gold cup and Italian championship in 2012 and again he sailed consistently always posting good scores.

My thanks again to all the race team you did a great job in organizing a wonderful event and picked a great weekend to get the sunny weather too! I will no doubt give more thoughts to the designs and share some of the photos and video taken by my GoPro at the water level which I hope will show good close up footy-age. But I close this review by reiterating that this are only my views and unashamedly seen through my own eyes, other will agree or disagree as they sit fit and I hope more people will post their thought because with Footy passion this group will continue to grow and become stronger friends.

And now I have to find a UK venue to host the 2014 Footy Gold Cup as the fleet made it clear it’s time the UK hosted the race again.
Well done to everybody and I hope to sail with you all again soon.
Rob.


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Il webmaster di FootyGoldCup.org

[gian73]

E adesso ci sono anche le foto. Sono circa 150.

Photos of the Footy Gold Cup 2013 » Footy Gold Cup 2013


Il webmaster di FootyGoldCup.org