Ostar 2009 | start

3 Comments

1. Leino
   May 25, 2009 @ 18:28

   My kind of poison ;-)
   Kul med ett tufft race utan fet spons. Ska följas noga.

   Reply

2. Peter Gustafsson
   May 26, 2009 @ 15:22

   Vettig tracker: http://www.oceanracetrack.com/raceplayer/raceplayer.aspx?event=32

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3. Peter Gustafsson
   May 26, 2009 @ 15:45

   

   

   Team Oscar Mead (Mead being, at 18 years old, the youngest competitor in the race) reports on the start:

   It was an overcast day, light winds from the NW which meant a tight reach from the line to the western harbour entrance / exit. The easy way to do this was to start under jib and fetch quietly towards the corner. Oscar had rigged a kite, against my advice to go for the small and flat A5 he had put the BIG A2 spinnaker on deck, and of course he didn’t bother with the jib, he just went for the kite about 40 seconds before the gun. Although a bit late crossing the line he had said he wanted the publicity shots of using the chute without risking the penalty for being early across the line. The OSTAR runs a peculiar system for OCS penalties, 30 minutes for every one second you are over the line. As this penalty kicks in at the 10 minute warning signal you could have a 2.5 week penalty at the other end….NOT one to take on board, hence his reluctance to risk it I guess.

   The reach was tighter than he had thought and the A2 was a handful but he held onto it and got lots of pics which I hope to be able to post on here soon.

   As the corner of the harbour entrance approached the wind lightened and he sneaked round the breakwater a few yards ahead of one of this main competitors, Katie Miller, and soon ground down Irishman Barry Hurley who was still without a kite. That put him third ‘regular’ monohull behind Rob Craigie in his J122 and Pip Huley who was sailing really nicely to be second in her Lightwave 395.

   We have grouped the fleet into sections for our purposes. The Tri’s…gone! The Open class yachts (40 footers and 35 footers) with water ballast etc which should blitz the rest, and the regular monohulls which is everything from JOD35’s (2 of) through Figaros (2 of) – both of which have water ballast – and then the J boats, Sigmas and other assorted ‘regular’ monohulls. Oscar’s goal is to be well placed in the regular monohulls and to beat the other young guns out there. There are four under 25 year olds and Oscar would obviously like to win that battle. The rest are, Katie Miller on a Figaro 2 (who is one of Oscar best friends on the circuit as well), Hannah White on a Figaro 2 and Rob Cummings on a Tripp 40. They all give Oscar time on handicap.

   Anyway back to the race course. After the breakwater the wind dropped to nothing for the leading pack and Oscar had to drop his chute and tack over to get into the filling westerly wind. This cost him a lot, and, as we headed back to shore in our RIB he was neck and neck with Katie and Jerry Freeman for 3rd on the water in the “regular monohulls”.

   Over night they have had 25 knots of north westerly breeze. I haven’t heard from Oscar yet but he’s going to file a blog at about 1230 GMT and call in so I will update this site thereafter. He’s on starboard tack with the rest of the fleet heading into the channel doing 6.8 knots at 0400. Its been raining here in Cowes but not sure about where he is. The forecast is lighting winds which will go more westerly, then a building SW which will reach 25 to 30 knots overnight tonight. They will all be tacking at about 7pm tonight is the likely scenario before a long two days on port.

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