With the last training weekend and the delivery completed the MBA Fastnet Team is now looking forward to their first race which will be the Channel Race at the end of July.
The last training weekend was very intense for the MBA Fastnet team. It started with match racing against each other on two J109s though the IJsselmeer and the Waddenzee. The races covered typical conditions of offshore sailing, demanding skill, courage, and endurance. After 22 hours of non-stop match racing through a day and a rainy night with little or no sleep, the first part of the training ended in Hoorn.
From there the train took the team to Vlissingen, where the Volvo 60 was waiting for another night sail on the North Sea to Den Helder. In nice reaching / downwind conditions the team went through drills of spinnaker hoists, gybes and drops all through the night.
The delivery of the Volvo60 turned out to be quite the opposite: a lot of time on land to relax and only 48 hours on the water – at least for most of the team. Two strong low pressure system forced the team to wait in the harbour for days. Unfortunately, the main was damaged after tacking against strong winds along the Portuguese coast. From here on it was motor sailing with jib and trysail to Porto. Given the continued bad weather forecast most of the team had to fly back home from Porto as there was no chance to get the boat to the UK on time to be back at work on Monday.
Even though everyone knows that sailing depends on the wind the MBA Fastnet team didn’t quite expect 9 days not to be enough to bring the Volvo60 from South Portugal to the UK. Team Heiner and three of the MBA crew continued to fight strong winds all the way up to the Netherlands.
For more details and pictures see also on our MBA Fastnet Challenge Facebook page!
The MBA Global Sailing League 