Bloody Mary

I can’t honestly say that I was looking forward to competing in the Bloody Mary. At the turn of the new year I don’t need to remind you that England was looking more like Finland. The extreme weather threatened the cancellation of the 37th Bloody Mary, something that Queen Mary Sailing Club would only ever do as a last resort.

Looking at the forecast, under normal circumstances there would have been no way that I would have bothered to get out of bed that Saturday morning. With sub-zero temperatures, and a wind chill from a strong northerly breeze threatening to make a freezing day feel Arctic, the prospect of competing in the Bloody Mary was not my idea of fun.

However, I had to be there. Rodney Cobb, the Devoti D-1 dealer, and his wife Sue had spent a good deal of the week battling through snow to fetch a brand-new boat from Holland. They were driving up from the Eurotunnel, having stayed in France the previous evening. Also, the designer and father of the D-1, Luca Devoti, had flown over from Italy, so making the 45 minute drive up the motorway from Winchester was the least I could do.

I bumped into Luca in the clubhouse that morning, and he told me that I must be mad to be competing in this event. I couldn’t disagree, but my only hope of chickening out of competing was if Rodney and Sue didn’t show up in time for me to make the start. But they did!

Luca and the Cobbs helped me unpack and regard the brand-new D-1 just in time for me to make the start. The only adjustment I needed to make to anything was cutting the gennaker sheets a little bit shorter and and then I was ready to go. No more excuses.

It was good while it lasted, racing against two other D-1s, in some challenging, gusty conditions. But then it all came crashing down around me when, having just set the gennaker on the second run, the two-piece carbon mast folded at the join. Once I’d been towed ashore by two of Queen Mary’s brave rescue boat crew, we inspected the damage. Luca congratulated me for earning the dubious honour of being the first to break a D-1 mast, although I could at least console myself with the fact that it was a bad lamination that had caused the failure. No doubt Luca will be having harsh words with the mast manufacturer.

Congratulations to Andy Smith and Tim Needham, who won the Bloody Mary in their 505. To give you an idea of how cold it was that day, when Andy and Tim Needham to let off the shrouds and forestay, nothing moved. Everything was frozen solid.


Merlins, Phantoms, and Handicap Voodoo

The Bloody Mary was also the first event in a new winter travellers’ series that I have put together recently, called the SailJuice Global Warm-Up. With the help of some generous sponsors, I’ve put together a serious that includes the Bloody Mary, the Steve Nicholson Memorial Trophy, the John Merricks Tiger Trophy and finishing with the Hoo Freezer. It’s a no-discard series and so it rewards tenacity for just turning up as much as it rewards good sailing skills.

I was meant to be competing at Northampton at the Steve Nicholson Trophy in a D-1 again, but car trouble prevented me from picking up the boat. Still, I went along to watch, and while I wasn’t jealous of the competitors who would be racing that day as I drove up on that chilly morning, when I arrived I changed my mind. It was a beautiful sunny day, and 148 boats had come to compete.

As I stood there watching the racing with Nick Peters of LDC Racing Sailboats, who had lent out his RS100 after competing in the first race, we could see the Bloody Mary-winning 505 take a big lead ahead of the chasing pack Fireballs and Merlin Rockets. I wondered if it was going to be back-to-back victories for Smith and Needham. however they finished third in their division, which was dominated by the Merlins, led home by Matt Biggs and Ben Hollis.

I couldn’t help but feel a little sorry for the Fireballs which, despite having a crew on trapeze, seemed to sail around at almost exactly the same speed as the Merlins. Where the speed differences between these two boats are marginal, their Portsmouth Yardstick PN handicaps are rather more different. The Fireball races off 982 and the Merlin races off 1014. Surely some mistake? No, as I remember writing in a Yachts & Yachting article a few years ago about how to win handicap races, one of the best answers is to compete in a development class which is always getting faster and always staying ahead of its official PN number.

My development class theory doesn’t account for why the Phantom seems to be going so well on handicap. In the singlehanded division at Northampton the Phantoms were almost as dominant as the Merlins. The Phantom is a one-design and yet it too seems to be doing rather well on its standard handicap number.

If my hunch about favourable handicaps for the Merlin and Phantom fleets needed further proof, then I found it a few days later when I happened across the Starcross Steamer results from Exmouth the previous weekend, and found that the top 10 out of a mixed handicap fleet of 70 were:

1st Phantom 1275, Simon Heusen
2nd Merlin Rocket 3684, Andy Davis & Tom Pygall
3rd Merlin Rocket 3610, Richard Dee & Chris Gould
4th Merlin Rocket 3691, Richard Whitworth & Olly Turner
5th Phantom 1359, Simon Hawkes
6th Merlin Rocket 3655, Rich Adams & Turkish
7th Merlin Rocket 3983, Chris Martin & Ben Hendon
8th Phantom 128, Ian Jay
9th RS200 960, Jayne Johnson & Nicki McIlroy
10th RS200 1228, Paul Bartlett & Greg Bartlett

This isn’t the first time I’ve pointed out the anomalies in the handicapping system, and I’m sure it won’t be the last. But I am looking forward to catching up for a chat with the RYA’s Bas Edmonds who has been piloting the new computerised handicap returns system which has the potential to revolutionise the way handicap racing is run. Well done to the Bloody Mary organisers who for the first time ran the handicap numbers for this year’s event rather than sticking blindly to the official numbers. Hopefully they have blazed a trail that other events will have the courage to follow. More on this subject in the coming months.


10 years old and still looking futuristic

10 years ago many people gathered around the first Musto Skiff to be exhibited at the Dinghy Show and marvelled at the impressive posters showing Paul Brotherton putting the boat through its paces and wondered who would be capable of sailing such a challenging dinghy.

Ten years on and the Musto Skiff class has become a mainstream dinghy, the class has achieved full ISAF status and hosts a full range of training and racing events in the UK and also overseas.

Rick Perkins, 2007 Musto Skiff National Champion said: “When I visited the show in 2000 I clearly remember looking at the Musto Skiff and discussing it with my wife … I pointed out that the boat looked far too difficult to sail and would likely only be sailed by pros and Olympic types. As it turned out our expectations about what is possible for an ordinary weekend sailor to achieve have moved on a great deal and the Musto Skiff class has become a mainstream dinghy sailed by ordinary club sailors all over the world, even me.”

The Musto Performance Skiff Class Association quickly realised that training and learning were going to be key to the development of the class and was very innovative with the organisation of training events. The class developed a culture of sharing information and expertise. Perhaps the leader of that culture is Richard Stenhouse who is the current World, European & National Champion. This culminated in Richard, and wife Kit who also sails the Musto Skiff, in releasing the class K16 training DVD.

Richard said: “After years of sailing in classes where information was very hard to come by it was great to join the Musto Skiff class as the others were so open with help which was handy as I had not used a spinnaker much and had never trapezed. I learnt a lot, and sharing that through the K16 DVD was a lot of fun.”

To celebrate the 10th Anniversary of the class the builder Ovington Boats is producing a limited edition run of 10 boats. Each of these 10 boats will be produced in a platinum coloured gelcoat (all other boats are white), they will be supplied with a black spinnaker with the MPS logo cut in, will have a fully pimped up rope kit and be supplied with all the necessary covers and bags.

Each 10th anniversary boat owner will also receive a special Musto Evolution Jacket which will be embroidered with the MPS 10th Birthday logo.