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.

Support from the ZOA Business Ambassador is generously split between the Sail for Water charity, and the MBA Fastnet Challenge 2013 campaign.

While each team member fully finances their own participation, without the additional financial support of Kellogg-WHU and the ZOA Business Ambassador the campaign lead by Team Heiner on the Volvo 60 would have not be possible!

Huge thanks to Kellogg-WHU and the ZOA (Sail for Water) Business Ambassador!

In the Saturday session we first had a chance to let off different flares by the beach side, learning best techniques for handling and using flares in the event of an emergency. Then we moved on to training in and on the water. With temperatures around zero we were luckily able to fulfill this part in the Falck Nutec indoor pool, rather than in the open sea!

Christian Hausmann (LBS) training rescue techniques

We went through numerous different scenarios during the pool training, such as escaping from a submerged and rolled over helicopter, or being hoisted by a helicopter rescue sling. To make the training more authentic pitch black conditions were created with lighting available only from strobe lights used to simulate lightning, while at the same time the wave, rain and wind machines were switched on, producing winds up to 8 Beaufort (34 – 40 knots). It is quite an impressive experience to try to turn a life raft and get into it with all the forces of nature fighting against you.

On the theoretical side we learned about many different kinds of safety equipment, especially life jackets and life rafts, and fire fighting techniques and equipment.

The Sunday session continued with handling of heavy weather, MOB (Man Overboard) manoeuvres, distress signalling and SAR (Search and Rescue) operations. This session was followed by an one hour exam, which all of the 9 participating crew members passed alongside Roy Heiner.

Helicopter Escape Drills

This was another great weekend for the MBA Fastnet Team 2013, bonding with amazing experiences and very valuable take aways – not just the ISAF certificate.

Now after 3 weekends of training in the cold Netherlands we are ready for the sun and very much looking forward to our first training on the Volvo 60 in Portugal!

Members of MBA Fastnet Team 2013 – ready to go!

Team Heiner HQ – Lelystad, The Netherlands

The MBA Fastnet Challenge 2013 crew have undertaken two training weekends now at Team Heiner HQ in Lelystad, The Netherlands.

During these weekends they were all put through their paces – and various crew positions – on both Max Fun 35′s and J109′s. There was a definite focus on improving boat handling skills and efficiency of actions, but particularly as crew of the same team, not just as a bunch of individuals who happen to be on the same boat.

Needless to say the physical schedule was demanding, and the learning curve was steep. Yet as one crew member summarised “Pushing one’s boundaries started on day one for each crew member: not to train was simply no question – regardless illness/flue or tough work schedules.”

Roy Heiner and the crew – getting to know each other

Just as important, however, were activities undertaken off the water. While the crew have raced together or against each other in various races in “bits and pieces”, they hadn’t been part of the same crew before – which is an entirely different way of “getting to know you”! After meeting Roy Heiner and the crew of Team Heiner, the professionals who will be guiding them through this journey, the crew were able to spend time understanding realistic team goals and expectations.

Time was also spent on land to aid in better understanding the theory of sailing, teamwork, and particularly communications on board a professional racing yacht – down to dry-runs of precise boat-handling manoeuvres while on land!

After two weekends in the winter months in predictably cold weather, strong winds, and giving their all to learn and grow as individuals and as a team, Roy Heiner gave the crew some welcome news – they were ready to train next on “Team Heiner One”, the Volvo 60 the team will be using for their Fastnet campaign!

Rehearsing boat-handling manoevers

Roy Heiner delivers the verdict

Working on the hull of the Volvo 60

Team Heiner have been hard at work at their team base in Portimao, Portugal, preparing the Volvo 60 Team Heiner One for the upcoming MBA Fastnet Campaign 2013!

Below you can see a “before and after” shot, while on the right you can see Team Heiner crew hard at work.

Stay tuned for upcoming features on the crew and an in-depth look at Team Heiner One.