| 2003 Round Texel, 21 june, The Netherlands |
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| By : Various Created : 1 july 2003 Last updated : 2 july 2003 Classification : general publication Copyright : restricted freeware |
| Created by : Projectgroup, 1 july 2003 |
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| Event report by Geert Ruesink |
| Round Texel 2003 Here is a small report on our Round Texel, which proved to be very nice sailing after some setbacks. Raymond and I started building up our Taipan 4.9 with spinnaker on Tuesday 16th june, planning to do the �Dutch Open�; a 3 day regatta series at Texel, prior to the Round Texel itself. In fact we hoped to get the boat (and ourselves) tuned for the big race, but it didn�t really work out that way. On wednesday, in the first race with a good breeze about 10-15 knot, after only 10 minutes of sailing the mast came down! What happened ? A shackle on the chainplate of the sidestay had broken off. Later we found the bolt and it appeared that the threading on the bolt had been severely damaged and was pulled out of the shackle. We still wonder what could have caused this to happen. The rescue service did their job and brought us back to the beach. There we discovered another problem: The mast, which can lock with a pen on the mastfoot to facilitate stepping the mast couldn�t come loose from the beam as the pen was still fitted. As a result the mastbase plate was pressed very hard to the mainbeam and the mastbase plate broke. So in the future I will remove this lock pin after stepping the mast, just in case. Now what ? We called Pieter Saarberg, and !Yes! he said it could be repaired, in time. The next day we drove to Zandvoort with the mast, were Hans Klok made a very nice new mastfoot for us, out of a bare aluminium plate. We rigged the boat up the same evening and started preparing for the start of the races on Fiday, the last day of the Dutch open. |
| Saterday 21 june 2003, Geert's rigging the Taipan F16 for the Round |
| No luck on Friday |
| Sadly enough the racing was cancelled due to too much wind and surf ! Well, the last hope was that the wind reduced a bit, so the race round Texel could happen and yes, finally, this time we were lucky. |
| White water came as close as 10 meters from the regatta housing |
| Raymond rigging the Jib on the Taipan 4.9 in F16 mode on a sunny race day. Force 4 winds |
| Saterday; The Round Texel itself |
| On Saturday, we saw much sun and a very nice breeze of 10-15 Kn. Although there was still a bit of surf, left over from the day before. It�s always interesting to see how nearly everyone is coming to terms with the surf. We took at least a quarter of an hour to decide on the right strategy. The last thing you want is ending up with breaking a rudder in the Surf ! In the end it didn�t cause us to much trouble. Now onto the start. |
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| Saterday; The Round Texel itself |
| The Start of the Round Texel itself. This was our bad part of the race, we tried to start on a way too popular place on the startline and got stuck with lots of other boats who were all parked and using arms and legs holding off other boats. We didn�t sail particular fast on the first part to the lighthouse, the boats in clear wind reached the lighthouse much sooner. We should have hoisted the spi too, I think, although it was a bit of a close reach. On the next leg to the VC boy we hoisted the spi and now our >Taipan really took of. It was a pitty that it was only a small part of the race, although any leg is rather short when you�re completing it at full speed. During this leg we jumped from a bad 2/3 placing to a reasonable 1/3 of the fleet placing. After that it was a close reach/upwind, and nothing special happened, we stayed in our position in the field. Although I noticed that I had quite a bit of weather helm, more than I�m used to. That�s I guess the problem from not sailing after readjusting the mast diamond wires and other things. |
| Saterday; After the gate and to the finishline |
| Back on the North sea, back on a reach, where we experience the most beautiful part or the race. Surfing down the waves is really fun. Sometimes you don�t see any part of the hull in front of the beam for a while as it is all submerged. But as the hull doesn�t slow down too much when submerged, we could keep the power up and blast on. Again, we thought the course was too tight to pull the spi. No one around us had set a spinnaker, but when I saw the Texel video afterward, I saw the first finishers did set a spi on this leg. So next time we�ll have to be more serious about it and take a bit more risk! But for now we were quite happy, after a bad start with a slow first leg and no further hassles in perfect sailing conditions we placed, on handicap, 239th out of 510 starters, and 464 finishers. On elapsed time we finished 213th time, finishing together with a group consisting of Nacra 6.0�s with spi, a Hobie Fox, Formula 20�s, F18�S, an A-cat and a Hurricane 5.9. kind regards, Geert Ruesink (Skipper) Raymond van der Haas (crew) |
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| Geert and Raymond right after passing the gate at Oudeschild; little over halveway: 300 mm lens + 3 x digital zoom |