Star Dancer - Overall Class 3 Winner and Leg 2 Class 3 Winner!
STAR DANCER'S OCCASIONAL LOG
Rob Packham
Mon 2 Jul 2007 18:40
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Class 3 Winner
Star Dancer is Overall Class 3 winner and Leg 2
Class 3 winner in the AZAB provisional results list. We came 11th in
the fleet overall list out of 51 starters.
We won the Overall Class 3 by 3 hours in
a corrected time of 15days, 16hours, 41minutes and
44seconds. (taking account of our IRC endorsed Handicap -
.939)
Our elapsed time for both legs was 16days, 17hours
and 10minutes and we are thrilled with that. When we set out we
reckoned that 20 days at sea would be going well.
SPECIAL THANKS TO MANY
PEOPLE
The AZAB has been a big project personally but
enormous fun to do. Like anything it would not be possible without
the help and support from many people. Here are a few of
them.
The Boat
Star Dancer - our beautiful Southerly 110 - was the
real star of the show. A big thank you to Northshore for a great
boat.
In strong wind conditions she went superbly
throughout and proved a real seaboat in the big blow we experienced on the leg
out to Ponta Delgada.
She surprised a good number of people with her
speed and sea-going ability in the heavy sea conditions.
The Sails
Peter Sanders of Sanders Sails, Lymington made all
the sails. The main and genoa were just right for the job, giving us
good speed whilst strong in the storm where we had 12 hours of 35/50kts of
wind (max 61.3 recorded!)
The most beautiful sail is out BIG red and gold
spinnaker. She drove us along for many hours including two 30 hour
spinnaker runs on the return leg. Many thanks to Peter
Sanders.
Third Crew
Our third crew member deserves a mention. The
Raymarine autopilot (ST6001) took care of all the hard work and we only
seriously took over in the big blow when we found we could anticipate the big
waves and needed to helm proactively to guard against a gybe. Mr
Autopilot was on watch for most of the 16 days at sea!
Weather
Weather information is important to put the boat in
the right position. A master class from Chris Tibbs before the race
- he of RYA Weatherbook fame, and a resident here on the Isle of Wight -
was invaluable. Many thanks Chris.
Our satellite phone allowed us to download synoptic
charts as well as GRIB files of weather information to put into our laptop based
MAXSEA software. The variable and changing weather on the outleg had
us keeping pretty much to the rhumb line but the return leg saw us heading north
of the rhumb by over 60 miles and allowed us to take big advantage of the
strong northwest winds we experienced for the last 3 days of the
race. Just as well really because after the first night we were
pretty much at the back of the fleet! Thanks to Mademoiselle GRIB!
Communications
Communications were excellent - satphone and
software supplied by Ed Wildgoose of mailasail.com. The Iridium
phone never missed a beat and in addition to the important weather information
it gave us the opportunity to stay in email touch with our friends and family as
well as the occasional chat. The Webdiary is part of the mailasail
package and has been great fun and allowed us to keep friends across
the world informed of our progress. Thanks Ed.
The Crew
I met Robert Hooykaas on the Cape Town to Boston
leg of the Global Challenge in 2005 - Robert sailed the whole race on
Stelmar. Peggy (Robert's wife) and Jenny had 6 days in Boston
waiting for us and a friendship was formed. Robert is a great
seaman, a brilliant helm and Mr Cool under pressure. We experienced
the storm together with big seas - Robert's calmness was a real comfort as
the wind got up into the 50's and waves built during the afternoon.
When he went home to Holland after the first leg we had had great fun, sailed
well to 2nd in Class 3 and experienced some very special sailing time
together. To my good friend - thank you Robert.
John Crabtree OBE, my brother-in-law sailed the
return leg, breaking away from his busy life and young family to join in the
adventure we had dreamed about and planned some years ago. I say OBE
because he was awarded it in the birthday honours during the race for his work
with the charity SENSE - supporting deaf-blind people. Over
recent years he has raised well over £2million for SENSE which is an
amazing achievement. And what a special crewmate, a great
navigator and no mean cook. He came on board recovering from a knee
injury - ligaments etc - and was in frequent pain as the knee
stiffened. We had a great time together and agreed what a unique and
special experience it is sailing a race of 1250 miles over 8 days with one other
person - difficult for others to understand the up and downs, the tiredness and
the joy of sailing into Falmouth in the middle of a beautiful moonlit
night - and the special thrill of a great race result.
John - you are a great man and a great mate - thanks.
The Sailor's wives
Big thank-you to Peggy, Diana and Jenny for
allowing us to live our dreams. We were out there sailing, enjoying
the thrill of the sea and the race while you were keeping it going at home
and thinking of that little boat out there in the big Atlantic - all
alone in the middle of the night. Thanks.
The Royal Cornwall Yacht Club and the Clube
Naval de Ponta Delgada
The AZAB has a great reputation and we experienced
tremendous friendship and support from the Royal Cornwall and the AZAB Race
Committee. Very special thanks go to Anne Thomas for all the
organising and support. What a task David and his team undertook in
Race Control. Always there and co-ordinating the response to any incident
as well as the daily position reports and website updates - a big
thanks.
The Clube Naval de Ponta Delgada were generous
hosts in the Azores. They met each boat, whatever time of day
or night, and saw them across the finish line. A very special
sailing club.
Postscript
Jenny and I are now back on
the Isle of Wight and Star Dancer awaits in Falmouth for the weather to pick up
a bit for a delivery trip home to Yarmouth. Our friends in Ruffian -
Peter and Emma are headed back to Scarborough and Alan and Marilou of Montaraz
have to get to Oban in Scotland. We met so many good people during
the Race.
We all plan to meet up at
the Royal Southampton Yacht Club on the 15th September (Southampton Boat Show
time) for the prize giving and AZAB 2007 reunion.
And to you the reader(s) thanks for the support -
we could feel it on the wind and that makes a big difference in the middle
of a dark night in a rough sea.
Rob Packham
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