The League table for 2013 only contains results from two regattas so far: the Global MBA Trophy and the Alumni Business Cup.

Kellogg/WHU, who were part of the “MBA Fastnet” team at the ABC, drop one place to third. AUEB also part of that team drop to fourth. HEC’s third place at the regatta means they come into the league in 5th place, level with Warwick, who missed the action in Marseille.

INSEAD’s Winning team

INSEAD’s  All- Dutch team, led by Maarten De Vries, won the 21st ABCup, ending a three year period of LBS wins.  The INSEAD crew won two sailing races, came second in three and third in three more, including – crucially – the shore games. Maarten and his crew have now won the trophy a record four times.

London Business School’s team “Blue”, skippered by Klaus Rasmussen and Rob Cotterill came second overall, and won the new “Stelton Sailing Trophy” for the team that won the sailing part of the regatta.  LBS Blue had the same points, but more wins than De Vries’s INSEAD team, and so won on the water. They only managed 5th place in the on- shore games, which put them 2nd overall.

Winning the on- shore games with an impressive knowledge of wine tasting and art history, third place in the regatta went to the HEC/ INSEAD team, skippered by Philippe Lerique.

The Alumni Business Cup (ABC) has been held every year since 1992 in various locations across Europe. The 2013 edition was held in Marseille, France, based around the Islands of Frioul, just West of Marseille’s Vieux Port and Corniche. Six crews battled for the title:  Two from INSEAD, two from LBS, One joint HEC/ INSEAD crew and a mixed team “MBA Fastnet”, made up of MBA alumni who are participants in the crew of a Volvo 60 Fastnet campaign. Organisers this year were Marc LeBorgne of INSEAD and Philippe Lerique of HEC.

Thursday saw winds of over 20 knots in practice and for the first race, which was sailed with small genoas. All three races were “technical” windward- leeward races.  LBS Blue won this race, staking a claim to the trophy. In the second race, INSEAD’s Marc LeBorgne won, while LBS Blue and INSEAD De Vries were caught up in a rule 11 incident, which led to the INSEAD boat’s disqualification. By the time of the third race, winds had dropped enough to allow spinnakers and larger genoa sails. Maarten De Vries’s crew won, staking their own claim.   At the end of day one, Marc LeBorgne’s crew were leading with 6 points, with LBS Blue on 7 and both HEC/INSEAD and De Vries’s crew on 10.

Friday’s winds were even more extreme, with the crews starting out with small genoas and two reefs in the first race and with storm- jibs in the second race, as winds gusted above 40 knots. It was survival sailing – two sails were damaged.  HEC/INSEAD  proved to be the masters of the conditions, winning both races: the first a circuit of the famous Isle d’If, and the second a passage race to Marseille Vieux Port.  At the end of the second day, both INSEAD teams an HEC/ISEAD were tied on 8 points each, with LBS Blue on 11.

Saturday saw only a slight abatement in the winds, as the teams delivered the boats back from Marseille, to the shelter of the Frioul islands.  The sea- state was slightly better, however, and the organisers decided to get in one race – a tour of the If island. LBS Blue were again involved in a rule 11 incident, this time with HEC/INSEAD, who were disqualified after a protest. Maarten De Vries’ INSEAD team won the race, with LBS Blue second.  After day 3, De Vries’s crew were on top with 9 points, LeBorgne’s crew second with 11, HEC/INSEAD third with 12 and LBS Blue fourth with 13.

Sunday finally saw ideal racing conditions with 15 – 20 knots of wind, and spinnakers allowed. Two technical windward- leeward races were sailed that morning, in time for the boats to be handed back over to  charter company Team Winds that afternoon. LBS Blue sailed two strong races, finishing first in both, while INSEAD DeVries came second in one , but were pushed into third place in the final race by an MBA Fastnet team, enjoying a very late surge.  With a second discard kicking in, that left LBS Blue and Maarten DeVries’s crew equal on 11 points, which meant that LBS Blue won the sailing  on number of wins.

LBS and INSEAD should be able to consolidate their positions in places 1 and 2 of the league, as main competitors Bocconi, Cranfield and Warwick will not be attending.

Kellogg/WHU and Rotterdam are both providing team mates for the “MBA Fastnet” crew.

The setting was Portimão, a laid back tourist village on the southern coast of Portugal. Although the wind was very light, the conditions were perfect for testing out and tweaking the setup on the boat which had only been in the water for a few days after being refitted, antifouled and made ready for the upcoming campaign.

Friday was off to an easy start, beginning with some basic boat orientation as well as sorting out the sails and giving the boat a final clean and polish.

With only a couple of knots blowing for most of Saturday, the team had a good opportunity to test out the new rig and different sails in a relaxed setting. As this was the first time we had sailed on this boat as a crew, there were a few maneuvers to be smoothed out and a few boat peculiarities to get used to.

Sunday saw the team almost completely becalmed until very late in the day and most of the day was spent on going over basics like tacking, spinnaker sets and gybes as well as some motivational speeches by Roy Heiner. The team has their work cut out for them as they prepare for their next milestone in the Rolex Fastnet Campaign, the delivery from Portugal to the UK in June. We look forward to seeing the whole team together for the next part of the challenge! Stay tuned for updates!

Second Place in  Athens’ Kellogg/WHU climb 3 places in the rankings to 8th. 3rd place INSEAD remain at second, while AUEB re- enter the rankings at 24th.

Bocconi, who missed the Athens regatta this year, while winning in 2012, slip one place to 4th while Cranfield rise to third.

MIP Milano are the other team to suffer a fall, as they missed the 2013 regatta and slide 5 spots to 19th.

For the full rankings, see below.

Alumni Business Cup (ABC) in Marseille, France:  Racing on 30, 31 May and 1, 2 June, with practice on 29 & 30 May .

Cranfield Regatta in Portsmouth and Cowes, England: Racing on 6 & 7 July.

RSM Regatta in Lelystad, Netherlands: Racing on 31 August and 1 September, with practice on 30 August.

Rolex MBAs Cup in Santa Margharita Ligure, Italy: Racing on 27, 28 and 29 September , with practice on 26 September.

To round out the season, and not counting for points in the league, the 10th Global MBA Trophy will be in San Francisco, USA: Racing on 1 & 2 November.

Full details are available on the MBA Sailing League’s regatta pages: here
Or on the regatta website: http://www.rsmsailing.com/event/rsm-mba-regatta-2013/

Photo: Tim Williamson

London Business School, helmed by Klaus Rasmussen, won the 2013 Global MBA Trophy on the Faliron Bay, off Microlimano,  Piraeus, Greece.

The regatta was sailed in One- design 25ft “Platu” boats, provided by the Platu Class Association of Greece. The boats are normally sailed by their owners or by professional sailors on the match- racing tour, and were challenging and great fun to sail.

LBS “Red” repeated Bocconi’s feat from 2012 of 4 first place finishes, finishing 3rd in the first race and 2nd in the 5th.  Second place went to Kellogg/WHU, skippered by Ingrid Van Wees, who won the two other races, and got 2nd place in two others, holding onto second place despite a disqualification for a Port- Starboard incident in the 4th race. Third place was won by the INSEAD/ AUEB joint venture led by Spiros Papantoniou.

Warwick had a fine second day, bagging three third places, which was enough to see them land fourth place overall, above the second LBS boat, RSM and the joint RSM/IE boat.

Ultimately the moment we all are looking forward to most is our first experience of the boats performance out on the water – and our performance in handling the Volvo 60 and its 500 m² of sail surface. Bearing in mind the forces and loads we will be dealing with our initial state of exhilaration will most likely move quickly to a state of serious muscle ache.

This weekend will be intense and the MBA Fastnet team needs to get up to speed very fast, since this is the only “inshore” training on the Volvo 60 before having the pleasure of sailing the Volvo 60 in the conditions it was built for on our 1000 NM offshore delivery from Portugal to the UK.

For more updates, you can also follow the MBA Fastnet Challenge 2013 Facebook page!

Click on the image below for an even larger version of the image.