Tjörn Runt 2020 took place last weekend as usual on the 3rd Saturday of August, this year with an important change for us. Th arranging club has introduced a double-handed class, finally!
Interestingly enough, 39 out of 220 competing boats participated in the double-handed class and thus, the largest starting group. This was big news for us as we like the course, but did not have a chance as double-handed against full-crewed yachts in the same class.
As for the Covid-19 adaptations, we feel that the arranging bodies took a chance to simply do less. No markings of shallow waters along the course. No weather brief available. No symbolic gadgets at all. No sponsors on the boats. And most definitely no sense of community.
We appreciated some of the course modifications as they allow for safer sailing for yachts with more draft, like Veloce. Especially when running in heavy weather.
Summer came late this year however. We raced in very light air, lots of sun and very warm air. The doublehanded class started as second group. 10 minutes after multi-hulls and 10 minutes before the faster yachts.
We started with very low speed. Nevertheless it was more than most competitors in our class and with a great position on the starboard side of the start line which allowed us to focus on sailing in the wind, rather than on tactics.
Suddenly the wind shifted about 180 degrees and we enjoyed about 2 hours downwind at very low speed. At this point all classes had started behind us and we fought to keep our position in the class in spite of many of the larger yachts creeping on us from behind and around.
The wind turned to SW and went back to sail close-hauled. Again the strategy was to sail in the wind that appeared to be closest land and exploit thermals. A few interesting fights against J/92 Jalla and a X-332 happened at this point. In fact, we managed to keep on the fight gaining and losing way, in spite of their higher potential speed in light air close-hauled.
The wind kept on turning to W and the NW giving us a tough time tacking 128 times until a few hundred meters from the finish line.
Just before Klädesholmen, SW of Tjörn we noticed Gråå, skippered by Peter “Blur” with its borrowed Dominant Race Special, taking an interesting route, a little longer, but clear of other boats. the approach looked good as we could sail in clear air. Most importantly, Veloce is under-powered in these conditions and relatively heavy, which means that every tack is a battle to regain the lost speed and avoiding too many tacks was key.
Later, sailing through Kyrkesund, we sacrificed the little air on the open sea to exploit the current through the channel. Very difficult navigation and packed with tacking yachts of all dimensions. Here we gained on some of the boats ahead of us. We dared several times gliding on very shallow waters where instruments showed down to 0.9mt, due to seaweed. Many competitors sailed aground and got stuck here.
All in all, it was a good time and yet another race following this year theme of light air.
In summary we are satisfied with how we sailed, how we played tactics and the focus level throughout the entire race.
After Bohusracet 2020 we decided to include a 130% genoa in our sail inventory and registered an old kevlar light air genoa in our handicap certificate which costed us 0.6%. In spite of all the reasoning behind an inventory without genoa (see article here), the conclusion is that the Jeanneau Sun Fast 32i requires overlapping genoa in thi register. In fact, it is designed for such headsail.
The boat got up to target speed most of the time, however we could not keep it there through lulls and veers. Some more work with rig tuning to get a little more power out of our headsail and especially a larger groove is probably the next focus area.
Our sailed time: 10h 03m 04s and corrected time: 09h 30m 30s with a 14th place in the double-handed class at Tjörn Runt 2020
Congratulations to all sailors and especially those who fought to the end to complete the race in spite of the infuriating frustration of these doldrums!
Winners per class
- Start 1 Stefan Eliasson, Seacart 30, SSVE, corrected time 10:17:33
- Start 2 Hans Caspersson, Dehler 33 Cr, SSSÖ corrected time 08:00:40
- Start 3 Magnus Lundgren, Arcona 380, LSSG, corrected time 07:12:08
- Start 4 Jesper Folkesson, XP-33, XSS, corrected time 07:45:16
- Start 5 Anders Kellström, X-99, GKSS, corrected time 07:53:07
- Start 6 Staffan Cederlöf, Starbåt, STSS, corrected time 07:35:35
- Start 7 Dennis Olsson, H-båt, STSS, corrected time 08:00:02
- Start 8 Hans Oskarsson, Accent, STSS corrected time 07:42:10
Complete results here
https://seglingsresultat.se/tjr20/results/144?type=start-groups