Now that the Global MBA Trophy – Athens has been sailed, we can confirm the remainder of the season for the MBA Sailing League.
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.
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. Continue reading “London Business School Win in Athens”
The team can’t wait to take the next exciting step in their Fastnet adventure. Over the coming weekend 12 – 14 April, the MBA Fastnet team is off to Portugal to sail the Volvo 60 in the bay of Portimão. With a forecast of 17 °C and winds around 12 knots we are expecting perfect conditions for our first training on the ocean racer. Since the Volvo 60 is a highly sophisticated racing boat and considering it is the team’s first experience on such a racing yacht it will take some time to get acquainted with all the special features and high-tech equipment before we hit the water.
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.
Kellogg-WHU, the executive MBA global network with campuses in Chicago, Duesseldorf, Hong Kong, Miami, Tel Aviv and Toronto as well as a ZOA (Sail for Water) Business Ambassador have come on board as the first two sponsors for the MBA Fastnet Challenge 2013!
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!
After a long and eventful weekend the MBA Fastnet Team 2013 has taken one of the first hurdles to meet the crew qualification requirements for the Rolex Fastnet Race by successfully completing sea survival training. The practical elements of the course were obviously the most exciting part of the training.
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!
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 manoeversRoy Heiner delivers the verdict
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.
The crew of the MBA Fastnet 2013 team have been busy preparing already for their Fastnet campaign with two successful training weekends at Team Heiner HQ in Lelystad, The Netherlands under the guidance of Roy Heiner and team.
The team, in no particular order:
Moritz Vielhauer (Columbia)
Herman de Knop (Columbia)
Ina Spiess (WHU / Kellogg)
Grania Holzwarth (WHU / Kellogg)
Sascha Hocherl (WHU / Kellogg)
Benjamin Grosman (LBS)
Christian Hausmann (LBS)
Iris Co (Schulich / RSM)
Berend Groeneveld (RSM)
Erwin van Helden (RSM)
Andrei Grigorian (RSM)
Our first training weekend saw the team in Maxfun 35’s and J109’s training in some “fresh” conditions, as well as going through some onshore theory.
The second weekend was on a Maxfun 35 in January 2013, with “fresher” (i.e. colder) conditions providing opportunities for more training.
More details on the crew as well as past and future training to follow soon!
London Business School entered five teams in the MBA Winter Regatta, held at Marina Rubicon in Lanzarote on 1 & 2 February, and one of them came out on top. The Regatta was sailed in a fleet of J80 Sportsboats, crewed by 3 or 4 persons each. The “LBS Red” team, helmed by Nikolaas Van Der Loock won four out of the eight races and came second in the other four. Theirs was the youngest crew in the fleet, with two out of the four on the boat aged in their early twenties as students on LBS’s postgraduate “Masters in Management” course. Cranfield’s crew, helmed by Jeremy Renwick came second, with two first places, and the podium was rounded out by Rob Cotterill’s “LBS White” team, with one first place. The remaining race was won by “LBS Black”, helmed by Tony Ellingham. There were nine boats in all, with crews from Warwick, Rotterdam and IE as well as those from LBS and Cranfield.
Now that the Global MBA Trophy – Athens has been sailed, we can confirm the remainder of the season for the MBA Sailing League.
The MBA Global Sailing League 
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