anderswallin.net

Three full races (E-D-C-B-A) and two heats (4E and 4D) sailed today at the Worlds. I’ve forgotten just how much waiting these big championships consist of… for fun I wrote down some times on paper:

0900: Yep, my prediction from yesterday is correct. There’s no wind and the AP-flag is up.

1042: The E-heat of the seeding race is done in a gust of wind. However the wind dies out and changes direction, so more waiting.

1131: D-heat of the seeding race. I make an OKish start, but approach the first mark on port with a row of starboard tackers in front of me. Also a collision at the leeward mark, so I’ll race in 2E…

1156: B-heat of seeding race

1233: The A-heat of the seeding race finishes.

1322: The AP-flag is again up while results are calculated.

1340: Race 2, heat E is finished. Again my start is OK but finding a way around the crowded first mark proves challenging. More collisions and more penalties. I’m stuck in E for race 3 too…

1351: 2D starts.

1423: 2B starts. The leading boat finishes at 1428 for a heat-time of ca 5 minutes.

1438: 2A starts. Leading boat finishes 1445, heat time ca 7 minutes.

1507: A protest hearing (probably related to the A-heat?)

1535: more boats called into the protest room.

1555: 3E is started but abandoned

1604: 3E starts. I’m sixth, so can take advantage of the new HMS system where the six first go up into the next heat.

(3D also goes OK for me, I’m fifth so I move up to C)

1703: 3C finishes. I didn’t sail great, but I stay in the heat and start in 4C tomorrow.

1723: 3A starts and the first boat finishes by 1729

1739: again there is a protest hearing after the A-heat

1818: 4E is started but results in a general recall (there were many of those today, probably due to the skewed starting-line which made the starboard end highly favoured in most heats)

1820: 4E starts and finishes by 1828

1847: 4D, the last heat for the day starts.

This then is roughly the daily schedule that we shall follow for the next four full racing days, with Wednesday as a lay-day in between, and then there’s Saturday, the last day, when racing is only from 0900 to 1300.

Full results here. 

It’s the first day of the 2007 IOM Worlds organized by YCPR in Marseille France. The first day is spent on measuring all the boats, and some practice sailing + an opening ceremony in the evening. The pool is apparently for washing the boats from the salty Mediterranean water.

Online results and pictures from the 7-day event will hopefully appear here.

Team Finland was on site at 9 when measurement started, and all three of us got through the process a little after 10. Soon after a longer queue formed.

Michael Scharmer’s old boat in the measurement tank.

Not much wind around 9-10 o’clock in the morning. Tomorrow racing starts at 9, so we’ll see if there’s a delay or not.

More pictures here: iomwc1.free.fr

The first set of results had the wrong number of discards, the second set of results correctly had two discards but apparently still had some strange placings, so now there’s a third (final?) version. Coincidentally (?) the re-count “fixes” the disrupted placings that the three-discards mistake created… (my placing in two races has been pushed down one place).

It’s interesting to note what would have happened if the Sailing Instructions and HMS2002 would have been followed at a recent regatta:

I guess the message is that both Mr. Kaupang and yours truly will have to learn a more kamikaze-style of racing where you ‘go for gold’ and don’t worry about the DSQ’s and collisions too much since they can always be discarded in the end anyway…

(photo by J Wikman)

SRSS hosted this year’s IOM Nordic Championships in Saltsjöbaden, Stockholm. A new record was set when 37 skippers (19 SWE, 10 NOR, 4 DEN, 4 FIN) showed up! A good thing, since the nordic events are now growing to be even more relevant practice for large championships like Euros and Worlds.

Saturday started out grey with no2 rig, and we got some rain in the middle of the day with everyone changing up to no1 rig for the afternoon. Sunday was dry with a bit of sunshine and no2 rig the whole day. 17 races were completed with five different A-heat winners. I threw away at least one good chance of my own when the jibsheet got stuck on a badly designed mast-ram when I was rounding the last leeward mark with a good lead towards the end of Saturday…

A lot of new boats: Torvald Klem (NOR) sailed a Jeff Byerley Extreme into a comfortable win. Second place Sören Andresen (DEN) has a new wooden boat with modified front sections. I sailed the new Noux Mk2, but was pushed back from my usual third into fourth place by one J Hellberg (SWE), who with the help of two boats and three discards took third. I’m taking comfort in that I had the second lowest throw-outs after Torvald, which in the long run is a Good Thing. Fifth was Gunnar Karslen with a not-so-new TS-2, showing that the ca. 1992 designed TS-2 with original fin and rudder is still a good boat.

I’ve now found a mast position on the Noux which results in good balance upwind, but I seemed to loose on the runs. I’ve done this by moving the mast forward at deck-level, so this also increases aft mast rake. Perhaps I should look for the same balance, but with a more upright mast to balance upwind and downwind speed?

Pictures here, here, and here. Results from SRSS’s site.

View Larger Map

Remi Bres was kind enough to send me some Google earth bookmarks with the IOM Worlds sites I was missing.

2001, Croatia

View Larger Map

1999, Malta:

View Larger Map

1994, France

View Larger Map

Still missing 1997 Wellington, NZL…

I’ve discovered that you can embed a google-map in your blog- great! Just to try out this fun new feature here are the sites of the IOM-worlds for 2003, 2005, and 2007.

2007 Marseilles, France (event to be held 12-21 October 2007)

View Larger Map

2005 Moolooloba, Australia

View Larger Map

2003 Vancouver, Canada

View Larger Map

Can anyone contribute with the ones I am missing (I didn’t compete so I don’t know where the sailing took place):

• 2001, Omisalj, Croatia
• 1999, Malta
• 1997, Wellington, NZL
• 1994, Poitiers, France

13 skippers (8 FIN, 4 SWE, 1 NOR) competed in race 2 of the Scandinavian Cup 2007 (*) organized by TPS in Turku, Finland during the weekend of 1st and 2nd of September 2007.

Saturday started dramatically with a thunderstorm interrupting race 1, and most boats changing down to no2 rig for the rest of the day. A nice wind direction enabled a long course with skippers being able to walk 1/3 to 1/2 of the course up and down along the pier. 12 races were completed. Saturday was completed with an event dinner with our race-officer Harri Korpela as chief chef.

Sunday began with more wind and some risk for rain. Most skippers started out with no2 rig, but some more or less successful trials were made with no1 rig throughout the day. 12 races were completed.

The winner, Torvald Klem from Norway, sailed the most consistently and only let about six heat-wins slip by. He sailed a new Extreme design from Jeff Byerley/Australia. Only the second time in no2-rig conditions for this boat. Second place Olle Martonen sails a home-built wood/glassfiber TripleCrown, while third place Timo Syren used a SailsETC Italiko, also taking home the Finnish Class Champion title.

A few new boats were also seen on the race-course. Anders Wallin and Eero Laurila sailed Noux Mk2 designs with still a bit of room for improvement on the trimming and manouverability side. A swedish prototype of the Peter Norlin designed IOM (onemeterfun.se) also competed in its first international event.

Results here.

(*) for some good reason these races are now called “Scandinavian”, a word that is about double in length, and geographically incorrect, compared to “Nordic”.

Thanks to Jorma Ojama for taking these pictures from the third Finnish IOM ranking event last Saturday.

Olof Ginström was sailing his new FIN-44, the first of three Noux Mk2 designs that will hit the water this summer. The boat worked OK, but the rig still needs some trimming to get up to full speed. I should have my own boat ready in 1-2 weeks.

The 2007 IOM Worlds will be hosted by YCPR in Marseille/France 13-20 October 2007.

Are you going? Please join the discussion and let everyone know! There is a very limited amount of places for this event, so people in the waiting line definitely want to know how many entries there are from each country!