The first race of the season is most often a disappointment. Things that worked last year doesn’t work the first time out. We are unorganized and slow. However, the Seilmakeren 2008 is the worst start ever.
Seilmakeren Doublehanded 2008 is a race from Bergen to Stavanger and back. It’s more or less 180 nautical miles long and it shorthanded limited to a crew of two. It’s a free race with only the start, pitstop and goal defined. It’s up to every boat to choose it’s track. In principle you can either go out into the ocean outside of all the island, or go in-between all the island. We choose to go out into the ocean. We lost more or less 4 hours by this move. So we decided to go inside north and Back to Bergen. Both tracks where the wrong decision. Going North there was no wind at all. In periods we went backwards. In periods we moved by the current, we where swirled around, we sailed into wind-less areas while we could se boats passing us outside.
In short a rather frustrating race. But it started well:
We had a wonderful sail to Bergen in incredible spring weather. Sun for a week is not common at the West Coast of Norway in May. But alas, no wind.
As a painted ship upon a painted ocean we sat from Wednesday until Saturday morning. Then we just gave in.
We started well and choose to go with the new asymmetric spinnaker. A good choice the first few miles. Further up the road we should have changed to a symmetrical, but then it was to late. When we finally changed we got back the lost but shot into a windless spot and stayed there while the others passed us at good speed.
The same story happened over and over again.
It was all in all a wonderful trip, but a rotten race.
The Kaskelot depiction takes you topside
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