Sydney Hobart Recap & What's Next!

What a start to 2012 it's been! As always, I'm amazed by how quickly time flies when you're having fun! It feels like only yesterday that I flew out to Australia at the start of October to begin my training for the Rolex Sydney Hobart yacht race with Team Another Challenge.

After three full months of training we crossed the start line with high ambitions to do well and prove the 'old boys' that we could compete at the highest level sailing and be pretty darn competitive. I'm not sure what the general public consensus was of our crew, but I'm pretty sure that not many people were taking us too seriously. After all, we did have a pink boat. - Oh boy we proved them wrong!

We had a great start off the line and were continually crossing tacks with Deloitte as One, our coaches Sydney 38 which he had chartered to race against us. Out of the harbour we went, virtually neck and neck with them, and then we each chose our strategy. I was navigating on board our boat Ella Bache and I followed my game plan to be to the East of them throughout pretty much the whole race.

On the first night, a fairly impressive front rolled through with a nice punchy rolling cloud on the edge of it. In the space of 5 minutes we went from sailing downwind with our masthead kit to beating upwind in 35 knots. That wasn't fun. Both us and Deloitte as One were trading 1st place in class as we jostled for position and played out every shift that came our way.

However, our time at the top of the leader board was fairly short-lived, as by the time the sun rose the following day, the Sydney 38's even more East of us had gained a better lay line into the coast and had overtaken us by 5 miles. That hurt – but it gave us a rather large motivation to catch them.

Sailing down the coast to just before the latitude of Green Cape was a rather tough slog upwind with not many game changing options amongst the fleet. Until we arrived at the Latitude of Gabo Island that is. I saw an opportunity in the routing to take an unfavourable tack out about 10miles to the East which would then set us up for a better tack into the Tasmanian coast. It was a long term strategy and a bit of a gamble but we had to make us the miles of the Sydney 38's in front of us that had etched out a lead of around 8 miles.

The reasoning for this strategy was two fold -  it would set us up for a better lay line into the coast and we'd also have more favourable current. The ultra long term strategy was also to be the most eastern boat so that when a forecasted high pressure cell moved over Tasmania on our last night of sailing, we'd be best positioned to negotiate it. I was a bit surprised and also a bit nervous when after an hour, no one else in the fleet had done the same thing by heading east. But then, Deloitte as One also tacked out to almost an identical longitude and just a mile behind us. 

In the end, after another day and a half's sailing it paid off big time. We had reduced the top boats lead by 15 miles down to a mere 4

5 miles and we were in a close neck and neck race with four other Sydney 38's all within a mile of each other. We were still the most eastern boat and I hoped this would pay off in the final stages of the race.

Sailing the final miles across Storm Bay and up the Derwent river were some of the most exciting miles I've ever sailed. We were holding onto second place and we were defending our position against 3rd placed The Goat. We crossed the line after 4 days, 2 hours, 43 minutes and 49 seconds of fantastic close racing – Just four minutes ahead of 3rd placed The Goat. After three months of serious training, we had done it, we had shown the sailing community, and the public, that a team of youngsters could compete against the top guys! It was such a good feeling and the whole crew was on a huge high for a number of days.

After the race, I sailed our coached boat Deloitte as One back up to Sydney and then after a couple of days rest, flew up North to the Sunshine Coast for a bit of relaxing in the sun. I had a great time up there and also learnt how to wake board on a surf board which was a novel experience!

I've now flown back to the UK to catch up on a bit of paperwork, but most importantly, for the start of my Schools Tour which begins next Monday. I'm throughly excited about this as I love talking to school pupils of all ages about my experiences as hopefully through doing that, it will inspire them to put a foot out and try and live some of their dreams. If you have any interest in booking a talk for your school or organisation, please don't hesitate contacting me through the 'Contact' section of my website www.challengemike.com.

Recently, it was also great to see Laura Dekker return from her around the world trip. I'm a big fan of the way she has embraced adventuring and hopefully through her promotion of this, we'll see more teenagers making the most of their lives! It was such a shame to see the struggle that she went through with the courts and I'm chuffed for her to have proved them wrong! Good on ya girl!

Mike

Christmas is coming

It is now only 4 days till race day and I can’t believe how quickly the time has flown since coming out here. Infact, looking back over the year, it only seems like yesterday when I started to learn to fly.

Right now we are in the final preparation stages for the Rolex Sydney to Hobart yacht race commencing on boxing day. Our boat, Ella Bache can be tracked http://rolexsydneyhobart.com/yacht_tracker.asp My main role on the boat will be navigator and video producer.

To find out what we have been up to during our training; please visit our web site www.anotherchallenge.com

Next year, is already looking pretty interesting; January either still here in Australia or in the Caribbean and in February, I have lots of school talks booked in.

I hope you have a very merry Christmas and happy New Year and BIG thanks for all the blog comments.

Mike

Month of Chilling

I was just asking myself what have I been up to this last month.. I got out my calendar and had a good look at what I've been up to since the Fastnet finished at the end of August. I was surprised to see that I've spent almost no time on the water this month.  I suppose that I'd call these last few weeks a bit of a 'holiday' from my sailing commitments.

During this holiday time I travelled off to Malta for a short family holiday which was great as I was also able to catch up with one of my good uni mates who lives there. That certainly was a great laugh! I also spent a long weekend away on the south coast just catching some fresh air which has been lovely.

One of the recent highlights for me was travelling down to Plymouth to watch the Americas Cup unfold there. I drove down for the second weekend and I was taken away by the sheer number of spectators that were crowding Plymouth Hoe. Its so brilliant to see the general public taking such a large interest in this 'round the cans' racing format.  I have to admit, I was never entirely convinced by the move to multihull's and I'm still not 100% convinced. However, if these new radical boats continue to draw in such phenomenal interest from the general public, then I believe that it was a good move.

A couple of weeks ago I submitted my application to try out for the Artemis Offshore Academy (http://www.artemisoffshoreacademy.com/academy/) and I'm pleased to be able to say that I've been invited to the selection trials which are to be held at the Weymouth and Portland National Sailing Academy. I'm attending the second set of trials which begin this Thursday and I'm really excited!

Almost directly after the trials I'm jumping on a plane to fly out to Australia to join Team Another Challenge to begin our training regime for the Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race. We've got a great training programme worked out which I'm pretty excited about and I'm looking forward to learning from our coaches.

Yesterday was a big day for offshore racing as two major races started. The Mini Transat (http://www.charentemaritime-bahia.transat650.net/en/) began in typically spectacular form with almost 80 boats crossing the start line. The Global Ocean Race (http://globaloceanrace.com/) also kicked off from Mallorca. I'll be following both of these races quite avidly and I wish the best of luck to every competitor!

Mike

Ramsgate, Cowes and Fastnet

This last month I feel like I've pretty much been living on boats. I've been
racing continually and have only had 2 days off the water this whole month!
I can't really complain though as I've learnt so much from spending time with some great sailors.

This month started with Ramsgate Week Regatta over on the east coast. I was
invited to sail on a First 35 called Stiletto as navigator on board.  The
navigator’s job is effectively to get the boat around the course and give the
helm and tactician as much info as possible about distances, wind angles and
also what the next leg will hold. There is a lot of thinking required for
this position on board and I relished it. The week went fantastically and
I'm very pleased to be able to say that we finished 2nd overall which is a
terrific result. On my last day there, the organisers of the regatta very
kindly donated £200 to the Tall Ships Youth Trust who I support. Thanks a load for that guys!

Immediately after the last days sailing at Ramsgate I drove along the
South Coast with Pete and Leigh who were also sailing on board and we jumped
on the First 40, Carpe Diem to race in the RORC Channel Race. This year’s
course was from Cowes, around the Isle of Wight, then off to a marker by
Brighton and then back to a finish in the Solent. The race was never going
to be a long one but as the wind shut down by the needles it proved very
hard to inch out any lead over our competition. Those who got the wind first
took off and had a huge advantage over us who were still stuck in the wind
hole! We eventually got away form the Needles in a fairly good position
which we were pleased with and then it was a race around the island and then
a close kite run to the marker off Brighton before turning back towards the
finish.

Rounding the mark was pretty exciting with loads of boats around us and we
were really fighting for each position and boat length that we could gain on
the water. The crew were pretty shattered as we crossed the finish line in
the early hours of the morning and so the ‘on watch’ put the boat on a buoy
and we all slept soundly until pretty late in the morning. That was one of
the best sleeps ever!! We later went about rigging an emergency rudder in
practice if the main one was to fall off. This was all good training as the crew were all about to compete in the Fastnet on board Carpe Diem.

After this race, Pete, Leigh and I jumped on a train in the evening and made
our way back to Ramsgate as we were to deliver Stiletto along the south
coast to Cowes. We were departing nice and early in the morning. No rest
for the wicked! This delivery gave us a small chance to relax, however as we
were sailing along in one of the busiest stretches of water in the world, we
had to keep our wits about us. We arrived in Cowes 2 days later and I jumped
off to head home for two days of little rest, meetings, and office work! I
also headed home for the most important duty of all…. to get my washing
done!

After arriving back on the Isle of Wight, I was once again straight back into
sailing. I was down in Cowes as I was racing in one of the largest regattas
in the world… Cowes Week! Once again I would be sailing on the First 35
Stiletto as Navigator. Cowes Week is a fantastic event and also a thoroughly
confusing one for navigators as the are so many marks and so many boats
around on the race course. Day 1 started off well for us in the light
conditions as we scored a bullet, however as the wind properly filled in for
the bulk of the rest of the week our results weren’t quite as fantastic. We
still managed to finish 4th in Class by the end of the week which the whole
crew was pretty pleased with. No doubt they'll be back next year!

After Cowes Week it was the Fastnet! This race is one that I have
always wanted to compete in and this was my first big opportunity to do so.
A little while ago I was invited to do the race on a Challenger 72 with the
Tall Ships Youth Trust.  I leapt at the opportunity to sail one of their
charity boats. One of the big attractions was that we would be teaching
novices how to race and this really appealed to me. The Tall Ships Youth
Trust were sailing all their 4 Challenge boats and so it was always looked
upon as a race within a race as we could only ever really compete against
our one design counterparts. I was sailing on board Challenger 2 and the
crew that we had on board were all fantastic. It was very rewarding to see
everyone learning so much during every watch and always giving it everything
that they could.

At the start of the race there was a real buzz amongst all the crews and you
could feel it on the dock. The excitement was electric! We were racing in
IRC 1 and we had a good start and lead all the other Challengers out of the
Solent which was a really nice feeling. I was calling tactics for our start
and the initial beats out of the Solent, so I was pretty chuffed with this. We
later went on to lead the 4 boats almost all the way to Lands End where
frustratingly one of the Challengers sailed just around us as they weren't
pushing as much tide as us. This was the problem with being the lead boat,
as all the others could see where you were getting stuck and they could use
that to their advantage.

I was amazed at how close the racing was and being the navigator, provided an excellent game of trying to outwit the others on the water.
It was a fantastic experience, rounding the rock in the dead of night and
playing the tide for all that it could give us was an excellent feeling.
Right close to the finish we had caught up on the leader substantially and
all four boats were within 2 miles of each other. After 700 miles of racing
a lead of two miles is nothing! Amazingly the boat in last place who had a
deficit of 10miles or so actually saw all of us stuck in a wind hole and
sailed right inshore and took the win! We ended up coming 4th out of the 4
Challenge boats, but I'm still very happy with our result as in the final
bay, it really was anyone’s game.

Looking back at this month I've had such a fantastic time and I've learnt so
much which I will take into further sailing campaigns. I'm now planning on
spending a few days resting and catching up on some sleep!

Mike