Once again, we participated to Robline Skagen Race. Check out the reports from previous years with us (2020, 2021, 2022)
In the past years, it had come to represent a relatively important event for the double-handed community in the area. However this year, DH attendance faltered and at one point, I considered to join the full crew class, with only myself and co-skipper as crew. Wasn’t double-handed sailing becoming a trend, globally?
Race 1 Gothenburg – Skagen:
A straightforward gennaker start. Being over the line early costs 5% of the sailed time as penalty. It sounded sensible to be a few boat lengths late. Not really a big deal on a 40NM race.
Strategy: we expected the usual current South-to-North on the Danish side of the course, North-westerly winds, backing to the West only late in the evening. We decided to sail low to punch through the waves, South of the rumbline and exploit the current later on. Hopefully we’d be at the pub in Denmark, by the time the wind moved to the West.
Execution: We sailed well, we think. Yet, when almost almost the entire fleet, sailed the rumbline, we decided to edge our bets and stay somewhere in between.
It didn’t pay.
Larger heavier yachts could sail higher and still slice through the choppy seas. We could not. Furthermore, as we did not sail as South as planned, we never experienced the Northerly current and sailed instead against it all the way to the finish line. Turns out, just 500 meters South of us, that very current was there and helping some competitors.
Results: 5th place, not happy. In fact, we were quite depressed. We know a J/80 DH is not the right tool for the job, nevertheless, there’s “no excuse to lose”. It is not the first time that we struggle in these conditions and we know what our autumn training will focus on.
Race 2 Skagen – Gothenburg
The start was a bit messy. The committee decided to run a “rabbit start” procedure. Then it thought to make a variation of it, where the rabbit boat stops and needs to be rounded. Not many of us understood it right and, as expected, it turned out a mess. Fun to try something new.
Strategy: with expected 14 to 20kts from the North West, sail fast the rumbline. Plane when possible, but do not take risks sailing to far North or South.
Execution: The wind had more West than North in it. We could never really plane for long stretches and quickly decided to soak all the time instead. Surfing over 10kts and safely on the rumbline, required a lot of focus and real physical work. In fact we kept changing roles every 30 mins.
For the first half race we knew we were winning. After that, the field dispersed and it was unclear how some were doing. This time we stuck to our strategy.
Approaching Sweden, the wind dropped to 12kts and backed entirely to the West, making difficult to sail deep in the sloppy seas. Jesper, with its well sailed XP33, was just in front of us and we knew we were doing well and sailing deeper at the same speed.
The last inshore stretch was a reach, where we could barely carry the kite. In flat water, we could keep a steady 9kts boat speed throught he finish line.
Results: we won the race, in spite of being on paper the slowest boat.
In the end we succeeded with a total 2nd place in our class. Happy with the result.
Thanks Framnäs for organising yet again Robline Skagen Race with “relaxing” day off at Skagen!
Lessons learnt: you have not lost, until you have lost. Think positive (thanks Jesper for the advice). We know what to focus on next.
Shorthanded class at Robline Skagen Race 2023
1st X3M X33 Bertil Rohlen 0.995
2nd Veloce J80 Federico Garofalo 0.947
3rd Långben Wasa 55 Staffan Cederlöf 1.038
4th Kaida Salona 33 Johan Wetterlundh 1.008
5th Gustbuster11MOD Jonas Gabrielsson 1.071
6th Catleya Dehler 39 Dennis Olsson 1.048
7th Aero MUMM Fredrik Bonde 1.078
Complete results here