All went really well.
Beautiful weather, saturday 5-10 knots wind, sunday 15-20.
The Blind Date was functioning as it should.
I let Fredjan (my brother) and Clenn (a new schipper) do the steering.
Fredjan owned a 11,5 meter 4,5 ton wood-epoxy WadVogel Catamaran.
He knew Jan from that period and took me with him when Jan had invited him to schipper the Blind Date, three years ago.
Fredjan never fell in love with the Blind Date or the proa concept. He is a catamaran man and he does not like trimarans either.
This weekend I think he changed his mind a little, maybe because for the first time he felt he had control and because the Blind Date has at least the same speed as the WadVogel.
Clenn owns a Bavaria keelyacht. He uses it for chartering. I took him on board when he was standing on the shore, watching the Blind Date with that non believers glance in his eyes. He immediately canceled his appointments for that day when I asked him to sail with us. He likes the unusual concept with the unexpected advantages and I think he will get involved in the Stichting Zeilen met Visie.
On saturday we sailed a long race and a short one.
The racing committee had given the Blind Date a TR of 124, classifying her as the 4th fastest ship.
Knowing that that was a bit wrong, they let us start in the second and slowest fleet. However they did not change the TR!
I have not raced much in cabin multihulls, so I did not know the ships and the reputations of the other competitors.
I only knew Maarten Bakker, who sailed with us on the WadVogel when we tried the Parasailor spinnaker in the race 'Rondje IJsselmeer', five years ago. In races his own Springbok 28 catamaran - a former open catamaran upon which he built minimalistic cabins, was usually just a little faster than Fredjan's WadVogel.
I also know Haiko, an old friend when we both studied in Delft, builder of (20 kilo!) concrete canoes in that time. Haiko became a member of the windsurf test team when I tested windsurfboards for a magazine. In my opinion we needed at least one bad windsurfer in the team, because beginners sometimes have a different view. Haiko had no problem with his self respect being the worst surfer of the team. Ten years later Haiko co-owned the now 41 year old Triune trimaran 'Antje'. He took me out on the sea with Antje and taught me some navigation and the charmes of staying out on the sea, one of the islands or on a sandbank for whole weekends. The only race I did with Antje ended in the first night on the cold dark North Sea, when the mast broke. Antje was now the slowest boat of the fleet and Haiko sailed it as playfully stupid as when he was windsurfing. Still he never looses the smile on his face.
I learned from the start of the first group that production trimarans have taken over the scene. I saw one Dragonfly, two Graingers and the rest was Farrier, plus one or two unknown to me. The Graingers soon took the lead. I heard that that was the usual pattern.
In the second fleet I wondered how we would do against the three big cruising catamarans in these light conditions. After the start of the first race we soon took the lead, together with Maarten Bakker's Springbok catamaran. The whole race Maarten was not more than 100 meters from our side, usually a little behind. In gusts the Blind Date was a little faster, in lulls a little slower. Maarten's Springbok catamaran (TR 150 with spinnaker, 155 without) weighs 1900 kilo and carries 68 m2 sail. I guess that in gusts the length of the Blind Date pays off.
The second race both fleets sailed together. We had a better start than Maarten, however the distance of maybe 100 meters stayed the same during the race. We did not beat the trimarans. The slowest Farriers were just a little faster. Up wind the Blind Date sails a little lower, probably because the sails are still quite horrible. Down wind the Farriers put more sails up. Gennakers, Screechers, Code Zero's, it is just not fair!
On sunday we sailed only one short race in a nice 4 Beaufort wind. I guess everybody wanted to sail home in the afternoon.
Unfortunately Maarten was not in the race, so we had to find a new reference boat. We had a perfect start and were immediately in the lead of the second group. At the up wind mark we had a Farrier on our tail. It looked new, fresh and white and it was not sailed really well. Down wind it passed us quite easy when they had their screecher right. It was not far away at the bottom mark and when we sailed upwind to the finish line, we were not more than 20 meters behind.
I do not have the end results of the races, but I know that the fastest trimarans were really much faster than the Blind Date.
If we want to improve the speed of the Blind Date we need to change the rig.
This winter sailmaker De Vries has improved the sails a little, however they are still no better than average keel yacht sails.
I do not expect much of new balestronic sails. I would like it much better to invest in a 20-40 m2 larger schooner rig. With a schooner rig we can control the course with the rudders up, which is a big advantage on the Dutch waters. The average depth of the IJsselmeer is no more than 5 meters!
Before we can do that we must first find a good sponsor.
By the way, I wrote to Nico Boon, the inventor of the Texel Rating (TR) about the speed of the Blind Date. I do not expect (or want) him to immediately change the TR for Visionarry's so we can win races. I think Nico may be interested in realistic values of his formula.
Personally I do not believe in handicap formula's at all, except as a way to influence the design of sailing boats. This influence has a tendency to be very conservative. People always want their own existing boats to win. If a newcomer like the Blind Date would win on handicap, they would certainly change the formula with something like a 'proa penalty', so the new concept could never win.
For sailing as a sport the only fair way is sailing with the same material, with maybe body weight compensation on lighter boats.
If you put different sailing boats in a race it is more interesting as a competition in design than a competition in sailing.
In both cases the line honors tell me more than winning on handicap.
For the time being I think it is good that we have shown multihull sailing Netherlands that the Harryproa concept works. From what I heard other sailors like the simplicity of the Blind Date and the space that sailors have to stand, sit or lay where ever they like.
I do not feel the need or drive to do more races like this.
The next challenge is sailing longer distances and unknown waters. That means we have to change the rudders again.