Thursday, April 21, 2011

ERICSON 381

Boat: ERICSON 381

Builder: Ericson Yachts

Designer: Bruce King

More: ERICSON 381 Specifications

News:

Television coverage of GERBER Laser Vortex Nationals

Event Date: Future - 19th/20th July
Author: Laser Vortex Class

GERBER, the makers of legendary multitools and second year Sponsors of the Laser Vortex Class are really pushing the boat out at this year's GERBER Vortex Nationals hosted by the Royal Torbay Yacht Club on 19/20 July.

Not only will there be free training for all entrants on Friday 18th July but GERBER has teamed up with ProactiveTV (who produce for Skys' Watersports World) to televise the event. The use of head cams and a helicopter during the weekend will provide viewers with spectacular action shots and all competitors will get a video copy of the television show for posterity. There will be a GERBER hosted evening social and a 'star' sailor from another class will be trying to show the Vortex regulars how it should be done! The fleet will be split into Gold / Overall, Silver and Bronze fleets so there will be something to race for right through the fleet.

Spectators will also be able to see the eagerly anticipated prototype assymetric version of the Vortex being put through its paces.

If anyone would like to sail in the championships, a couple of demo boats may still be available. Contact Keith Escritt (01943 466998) to book your chance to sail in what promises to be one of the best events of the year.

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ERICSON 38

Boat: ERICSON 38

Builder: Ericson Yachts

Designer: Bruce King

More: ERICSON 38 Specifications

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Marblehead Open at Cotswold Sailing Club


Author: Roger Stollery

The fourth MYA district ranking event for this high performance ISAF class was organised by the radio racing section of the Cotswold Sailing Club at their water in the Cotswold Water Park on 29 June 2003. The event attracted skippers from 10 clubs from as far away as Cleveland. The brisk 5-10 mph southerly winds allowed some planing in the offwind gusts, which made for exciting sailing. PRO, David Munro initially set a traditional triangle and sausage course of about 1000 metres long and gave everyone 18 superb races, which everyone thoroughly enjoyed. As the wind went further on shore a zig zag was introduced to keep the windward legs a true beat. The speed and evenness of the performances gave some close encounters at the starting line, buoy roundings and the finishing line! Over enthusiasm at the start resulted in several general recalls.

The racing was dominated by John Arundell from Yateley sailing the narrow beam, deep keeled, high stability ‘Starkers Squared’. He won 7 races in confident style, whilst Peter Wiles from Poole sailing his own ‘Composite’ design won 3, John Cleave from Ryde sailing a ‘Skalpel’ and Trevor Bamforth from the host club sailing a borrowed ‘Starkers’ won 2 each. Single wins were achieved by Chris Harris from Bournville and George Beacroft from Chelmsford both sailing ‘Starkers Squared’, Paul Tickner from Guildford sailing a ‘Crazy Tube Too’ and Graham Bartholomew from Chelmsford sailing a ‘Rok’.



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ERICSON 36 CR

Boat: ERICSON 36 CR

More: ERICSON 36 CR Specifications

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Buzz & ISO Multi Gala at Downs Sailing Club


Author: FrankPhoto © FrankSteve Restall & Sarah Styles win the Buzz Open at Downs Sailing ClubPhoto © FrankIan & Katie Keam-George win the ISO Open at Downs Sailing Club

On the weekend of 28th/29th June, Downs SC held a Multi Gala for the Buzz and Iso classes. Saturday dawned with a Force 3 from the South East and a fairly flat sea, with only light cloud, sun-glasses and cream were the order of the day. The race officer set a trapezoidal course with separate
windward-leeward legs at each end to keep the two fleets apart.

The Buzz class started first and Simon Cory and Annie Smith from Downs were
quickly into the lead, close behind were Steve Restall, crewed by Sarah
Styles and Chris Dutton, crewed by Martin Wyman. These three remained close
together throughout the race and finished in that order. The second race
followed a similar pattern, with the same crews finishing in the top three
positions. In the Iso fleet, Ian and Katie Keam-George dominated proceedings
on the first day, winning all three races, followed by clubmate Jony Wells
from Essex YC. The third race was a long-distance one which took the two
fleets past Deal pier in the direction of Ramsgate. In the Buzz fleet
competition was fierce with a close encounter between Cory and Dutton at the
windward mark leading to the latter having to take a penalty. John Cass and
Julia Brazil were going well and kept pace with Cory and Smith through the
race. At the finish, Steve Restall took first place followed by Cory then
Cass.

On Sunday, the wind had increased to a Force 4/5 from a more Easterly
direction. However the cloud had cleared and from the beach there was a
clear view of France. The course was P-shaped, the longest leg being an
exciting three-sail reach parallel to the beach against the tide with the
crews at full stretch on the trapeze as they surfed across the waves. Steve
Restall and Sarah Styles dominated proceedings in the Buzz fleet taking
three first places, however they were closely pressed by Simon Cory and
Chris Dutton, the latter showing good upwind speed. John Cass and Julia
Brazil also found the conditions to their liking, taking two third
positions. Jeremy Blackman and Rick Clemence found that their weight was an
advantage in the stronger breeze and were chafing at the heels of the
leading boats throughout the day. In the Iso fleet the battle remained
between Ian Keam-George and Jony Wells, with the former winning out in two
of the three races.

The organisation was superb throughout the weekend, which augurs well for
the National Championships for Buzz, Iso, Boss, Spice and Blaze classes
which will be held at the same venue next year. The Buzz fleet were rewarded
with Ј25 vouchers for Wet and Windy Watersports which will come in very
handy for the minor breakages that occurred.


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Wednesday, April 20, 2011

ERICSON 35-3 SM

Boat: ERICSON 35-3 SM

Designer:

More: ERICSON 35-3 SM Specifications

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Swedish east coast sunshine for Volvo Baltic Race fleet


Author: Lizzie Green

The seven-strong fleet of VO60s racing in the Volvo Baltic Race, has spent several days of glorious sunshine in Sandhamn, an island on the outer edge of the archipelago on Sweden’s east coast, and also in Stockholm, after a parade of sail, approximately 50 nm from Sandhamn. Last minute preparations are now being made for the next stage of the Volvo Baltic Race for the SEB trophy, the 340 nautical mile, Accenture Round Gotland Race, starting tomorrow, Sunday, June 29.

The class start will be at 1400 local time for the VO60s, with the ORC Club Open and the multihulls starting 15 minutes later. This event will be the next offshore event in the Volvo Baltic Race series with full points to count towards the overall score.

Matthew Humphries (UK) and Challenge of Netsurvey start in pole position, with a margin of 1.5 points ahead of Erle Williams (NZ) and TeamRS. “We’re in a situation where we really want to work on consolidation,” says Humphries adding, “having said that, we really want to win the race as well.”

He isn’t taking any chances and during the last few days, Humphries’ crew has Challenge of Netsurvey totally prepared. “We’ve checked our runners and have taken a spare runner with us, so we’ve compromised a little bit of extra weight on the boat but while we have a small advantage, we want to make sure we can retain that, by not having any gear failure,” he explains.

Erle Williams has brought Tony Mutter (NZ) on to trim the mainsail on TeamRS. Mutter sailed on this boat in the Volvo Ocean Race and knows it inside out. “If we hadn’t broken the runner” says Williams, “we would be sitting in front right now. We just have to continue to improve. These guys [Challenge of Netsurvey] are good but we will give them a good run for their money. We started off a bit rusty, all of us, and it is coming together really well.” Williams has completed four Accenture Round Gotland Races. He’s expecting light air at the start, with the possibility of the fleet coming to a standstill at some stage. “It’s good for us,” he says, “we don’t mind a bit of tricky stuff.”

Sony Ericsson (13.5 points) with Thomas Blixt (SWE) has a one point lead over their nearest rivals, Elanders Ten Celsius (12.5 points). Blixt has completed the Accenture Round Gotland Race 15 times, and won it seven times. “I think I have some experience that the other teams don’t have, and I will use this to my advantage” he says.

Elanders Ten Celsius has Hans Wallen (SWE) back onboard, fresh from the Tornado class at Kieler Woche, and Wouter Verbraak (NED) and Mikke Lundh (SWE) are the co-skippers. “We are the most experienced guys on the boat,” Wouter explains. Mikke and Wouter sailed on djuice in the Volvo 2001-2002. “We have been really working hard on getting the crew used to the work and set up of a VO60. We are at the stage where we can use their dinghy sailing background now that they are aware of the systems, so we are really expecting to do well.”

Atea (6 points), retired from the Kiel to Sandhamn race after damaging her boom and blowing out several sails. The crew has been working hard to get the boat back into racing shape, and say they are fit to fight!

Pontona Youth (4 points) and Nilorn (8 points), the two youth teams, will start this next offshore race with the experience of the Kiel-Sandhamn race happily behind them. Glenn Bourke’s job as mentor to the Nilorn crew is over and he returns to the UK. “We learnt a lot,” says skipper Fredrik Frejme (SWE). “To have these two guys [Andy Hindley and Glenn Bourke] onboard, with their experience was amazing. We didn’t have to try anything new except learn what to do in these circumstances.” It’s time now to put it all into practise.

Both these teams are made up from the best young dinghy sailors in Sweden and Denmark. The forecast is for light airs, which equals tactical sailing, something which these young crews excel at.

The Accenture Round Gotland Race is a well- known offshore event, with a history of over fifty years and many previous Whitbread and Volvo teams have competed successfully in the past. In 1996, the all-female team sailing EF Education won the Round Gotland Open Race, causing a sensation throughout the sailing world. Ocean sailing is one of the few sports where men and woman can compete on equal terms, and EF Education’s victory clearly demonstrated that women sailors are at least as good as their male counterparts.

In 1998, the ‘Open’ class was won by EF Language (the winner of the Whitbread in 1997-98) with Swedish Match as the runner up. EF Education was fourth. In 1999, the former Rothmans (Whitbread 1989-90) was the winner of the Open class.

The weather forecast for the start is: cloudy with 15 knots NNE. On the eastern side of Gotland, the wind will be very, very light, shifting to the NNW, decreasing on Tuesday and Wednesday to very little wind at all.

Challenge of Netsurvey 20.0 points
TeamRS 18.5 points
Sony Ericsson 13.5 points
Elanders Ten Celsius 12.5 points
Nilorn 8 points
Atea 6.0 points
Pontona Youth 4.0 points

Full crew lists, race viewer (offshore races) and results are available at www.volvobalticrace.org

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ANSA 47

Boat: ANSA 47

More: ANSA 47 Specifications

News:

Dart 18 TT at Mumbles Yacht Club

Results generated and submitted using Sailwave sailing scoring software

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ERICSON 35-2 SM

Boat: ERICSON 35-2 SM

Builder:

More: ERICSON 35-2 SM Specifications

News:

Battered and bruised Volvo Baltic Race fleet


Author: Lizzie Green

Bright sunshine for the first time in several days greeted the fleet racing in the Volvo Baltic Race as they crossed the finish line in Sandhamn today, after a gruelling race from Kiel, Germany.

Hoarse from shouting to each other above the strong winds, Matthew Humphries and Erle Williams could hardly speak when they reached the dock. After a constant fight, Humphries team, racing Challenge of Netsurvey, beat TeamRS by 27 minutes 50 seconds, to take first place. TeamRS broke a runner in the final stages and finished under headsail only.

Speaking immediately after crossing the finish line, Humphries said, “We’ve had thunderstorms and massive squalls. We were becalmed for just a few minutes last night, so we’ve had a bit of everything. Generally it was very windy and very hard to hear each other. There was a lot of screaming to get sails down when the big squalls were coming. It was a very, very exciting race and we’re really pleased with the result.”

Erle Williams and TeamRS had a few hairy moments, ““At one point Challenge dropped their chute and we carried on, trying to get round the corner of Denmark, when all the wind was on it. If we had just got round the corner, it would have been awesome and we would have made a big gain, but it was too dangerous to attempt it. We were very close to the lay-line but we were on a lee shore with 40 knots of wind and we were almost out of control and probably wouldn’t have made it, so we made the decision to get rid of it [drop the spinnaker]. It was pretty exciting,” said a relieved Williams.

Just over an hour later Sony Ericsson finished third, the last of the of the three latest generation VO60s. “The worst and the best was the wind,” said skipper Thomas Blixt. “I think I saw 52 knots of wind speed. There were a lot of waves out there. It was a little bit scary, but at the same time, it was fun with this boat. Ballast in, and sails up and we were doing 32 knots. At the same time though, you have guys on the foredeck taking down or putting up sails and you are always afraid that you will lose them. That’s the best and that’s the worst about this kind of racing.”

Elanders Ten Celsius, with Volvo veterans Michael Lund and Wouter Verbraak in charge, finished approx 30 minutes later. Lund explains; “We did what we set out to do and that was to play safe and not break anything. We pushed hard but we didn’t do any gybes the first night because we didn’t feel that the whole crew was really up to it. So we did a few ‘cow’ turns and played the penalty in lost distance but we think we took it back when we actually sailed a little bit and we are happy being close to Sony Ericsson.”

Nilorn, finishing eight and a half hours later, led the two youth teams who have been on a steep learning curve. Skipper Fredrik Frejme said, cheerfully; “It was very windy in the beginning and I was very glad to have Glenn (Bourke) and Andy (Hindley) onboard, especially with this crew who had never been out before in these conditions. It is because of them we are here right now.

Bourke’s answer to that was, “We did just about every manoeuvre you could do in a race and we had just about every condition that you could ever want. We had 40 knots behind us on a screaming run and they handled that really well. We had 28 knots going to windward, slamming through waves with the boat fully loaded, which felt pretty dangerous, and we had beautiful running and beating conditions either side of that. They did things like peel the spinnaker which none of them had ever done before; they went up the mast and uncrossed all the halyards they’d crossed in the night when they didn’t realise how to lay halyards out so that that doesn’t happen.”

Pontona Youth finished approximately 30 minutes later. Skipper, Thomas Dahl says the crew is raring to go. “My arms are completely numb from steering in the waves from Kiel to the southern part of Sweden where the conditions were really rough. Some of the guys got hit by ropes or winch handles, but nothing serious. I think we all have a few blue marks here and there, but we’re still keen to sail. Now we’re ready to take anything.”

The only boat yet to finish is Atea, who is thought to be under power and still has just over 200 miles to the finish.

Gear damage was evenly spread throughout the fleet. Challenge of Netsurvey blew out her reaching headsail at Kiel Lighthouse, but the crew will try and repair it as they do not have a replacement. Sony Ericsson also destroyed a headsail but with no chance of repair and TeamRS broke a runner on the final approaches to the finish line.

Nilorn broke her spinnaker pole and shredded her spinnaker, and Pontona Youth lost several battens, blew out their jib no 2 – a very new one and a very nice one unfortunately - and destroyed a spinnaker which completely exploded.

Elanders Ten Celsius got away unscathed. “The most important thing for us is that we see it as a long term race and we didn’t want to break anything and we wanted to save the boat. And when we look at the other boats and see what they have broken, I think we have done really, really well,” said co-skipper, Wouter Verbraak.

Results after three races:

1.Challenge of Netsurvey: 38h37m10sec TOTAL POINTS 20
2.TeamRS: 39h05m00sec TOTAL POINTS 18.5
3.Sony Ericsson: 39h46m00sec TOTAL POINTS 13.5
4.Elanders Ten Celsius: 40h21m32sec TOTAL POINTS 12.5
5.Nilorn 46h31m47sec: TOTAL POINTS 8
6.Atea: TOTAL POINTS 6
7.Pontona Youth: 47h01m45sec TOTAL POINTS 4

The next race will be the Accenture Gotland Runt starting in Sandhamn on Sunday, June 29th.
There will be a parade of sail to Stockholm on Friday, June 27th, returning to Sandhamn on Saturday June 28th.

Full crew lists, race viewer (offshore races) and results are available at www.volvobalticrace.org

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ERICSON 35-1

Boat: ERICSON 35-1

More: ERICSON 35-1 Specifications

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2003 Harken UK Soling National Championships

Event Date: 22nd June 2003
Author: Soling UKPhoto © Mike PrestonThe teams and prizewinners at the Soling 2003 Nationals

On 22nd June 03 at 12:20 hours the echo of a signal across the Glen of Loch Linnhe saw Mike Preston, Bryan Bottomley and Ron Preston in GBR 143 crowned the 2003 Harken UK Soling National Champions. The raising of the N flag for the abandonment of the final days racing due to lack of wind, left the 15 strong fleet to count their overnight results as the overall standings.

With close racing throughout, it was the tidal line spotters and the shore huggers that challenged for the pole positions. In winds ranging from 5 to 17 knots of breeze from the Southwest, Mike Preston in GBR 143 and Gary Richardson with former champions Stuart Lee and Roger Winward in GBR 155 scored the early victories. As the challenge was laid down between GBR 143 and GBR 155, the fourth race saw local hero Hamish Loudon capitalise with a win in race 4 to be one of the three with an overnight optimism for the top prize.

With the final days racing abandoned, the overnight results from the previous four races provided the overall standings. The event was notable for the spirit of camaraderie and sportsmanship in which it was sailed, with key sponsors Ben Nevis Whisky Distillery and Houston Brewery providing all competitors with a we something to take home for their efforts. The main prizes were awarded as follows:

Overall Results:


Thanks went to members of Loch Lochaber Yacht Club for hosting a successful and enjoyable event and the sponsors Harken UK, Ben Nevis Whisky Distillery and Houston Brewery.

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