Being the Blind Date schipper and new chairman of the foundation 'Zeilen met Visie' (Sailing with a Vision) that owns the Blind Date, I will give you a short report of our first race.
It was just a small (9 miles) race on a wednesday evening, organized by a local harbor in Lelystad, Netherlands. We entered this race as a preparation for a multihull race in the weekend of 1-2 september.
We feel that racing is a good way to prove our skills in boat handling.
This season we sailed every week one or two days. Many local skippers are now familiar with a ship that looks and sails like no other ship. It looks fast, but nobody knows how fast it really is. It looks strange, and nobody knows how strange it really is.
Despite the many trips we made this season, our crew was not very experienced. All four 'official' Blind Date schippers were on board, but Henny and Fredjan have sailed only once or twice this season, due to busy schedules. Jan Schippers, the initiator of the Blind Date project has not sailed because of shoulder problems.
Hans, who was new on board (we never even met before, except on LinkedIn) did the navigation. Fredjan did the steering. Hans, Fredjan and I have many years of regatta experience on multihulls, but not with the Blind Date.
We spent the afternoon practicing shunts and other maneuvers. The weather was perfect, with a western wind varying from 15-25 knots. The Blind Date was doing fine with one reef in the main sail. In gusts we frequently reached speeds of 12 knots. Newcomer Hans was excited!
In the race we had a good down wind start. We were third in a field of 14 yachts. Unfortunately there were no other multihulls. The bad start of most other ships showed the low level of the competition. Soon we passed the two yachts before us and then we saw the whole field behind us become smaller and smaller. Some ships had trouble keeping their spinnaker full and we even saw one ship turning over in a gust.
I think we sailed a pretty good race. The shunting went well and rounding the buoys was no problem at all. Hans turned out to be a great navigator. He spent the first five minutes of the race programming his iPhone. After that we found our way with our eyes closed, inventing yet another meaning behind the name Blind Date.
We finished in one hour and three minutes, if I remember well. Average speed 9 knots. Our first opponent finished a half hour later, doing 6 knots average.
I knew all along the race that it would be very hard to improve this result. This is the wind speed where the Blind Date performs best. The speed of keel yachts is limited by their hull speed. In light winds they are much harder to beat. The course had no legs straight into the wind, so the keel yachts did not have much advantage of their ability to point a little higher than us. (Upwind we sail a 50° angle with the true wind).
I know that we can take both the Blind Date to a higher level of regatta sailing. However for that we will need to invest in a better rig and less nose diving. Also we should do more training, which is not really an objective. Seeing what we have accomplished gave me a very good feeling.
When we got back to the harbor, I was very curious how the other sailers would respond. Much to my surprise, the racing committee had not made any objections when we enrolled. Of course they could not find a proper handicap for us. They gave us a handicap that put us on the last position. Modest as we are, we were not bothered by that at all. We had decided by then that this would be a one time experience anyway (these races are held every wednesday evening), because of the lack of competition.
In the end of the award ceremony Jan took the microphone and thanked the organization for letting us in, and offered anyone who was curious about the Blind Date to sail with us. Some people said that they would certainly make use of that invitation.
I considered adding a comment about the strange contradiction between sailing as fast as you can and hanging all that weight under your ship. And then putting so much sail on the mast that you still capsize. That is a weird way of doing, when you think of it.
However I did not find it a proper place and time to make enemies. (They were with many and we were on their hunting grounds).
We left, tired and satisfied, before I could say anything wrong.
The next race will be with multihulls.