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| Echappée classique à Quiberon 9 - 10 June 2001 |
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Zwerver 2nd in Grande Echappée Classique à Quiberon
Congenial atmosphere. Joyous wheather. Beautiful water. Nice, nice, nice people. Wonderful food. Parties till five o'clock. And, o yes, incidently Zwerver finished with line honours and second on handicap. That about sums up our entry in this classical boatrace, June 9 and 10, 2001.
Who says the French are stiff and formal? Not we, after this weekend! Given the shared love of a classical yacht and the willingness to admire the boats of the other contestants, you are halfway there. The wheather did the rest.
And classical yachts there were. What about both Pen Duick IV and Pen Duick V of Tabarly's fame? Or Bernhard Moitessier's Joshua? Sailed by crews who visibly love the history of their boats. Then there were the less famous, but beautifull classics, some as small as dinghies, others larger then Zwerver.
Frans had planned Friday as a training day, but one way or another, very few people showed up to train. Just as well: it was pouring with rain. Not much of a wheather forecast for the weekend as well. So, the first surprise was the wheather on Saturday: sunny, not overmuch wind, and a crystal clear day.
What race is it where the start is delayed because not all ships are ready yet? Exactly: a happy race. Unfortunately, we had missed the better part of the skipper's briefing, and so we completely ignored the disengagement buoy after the start. One of the other large vessels, l'Oiseau de Feu, made the same mistake, so from then on it was a race a deux. We won, I think. But as it was decided late that night, after the wine, none of us are really sure. Oh well, we did have a wonderful day of sailing.
The wind died to a mere nothing and the race was cancelled after around half of the contestants had finished. Lucky us: not disqualified but just cancelled! With what remained of the wind we now started training. Sailing figures of eight is hilariating enough in its own right with a ship the size of Zwerver. Doing it right in front of the harbour makes it doubly so! We, showing off? No, no, we were just trying to get our mixed franco-dutch crew (with a dab of Irish thrown in for good measure) to work together. Don't talk too much of your own language in this company: you will be accused of talking barbarian.
That night we were
invited for dinner at the École Nationale de Voile. Do they know how to
cook! I am sure that every kind of shellfish that can be found in the Baye
de Quiberon was there, and then some. And then those wonderfule éclairs.
And fruit. And cheese. And laughs, lots of laughs. The atmosphere was quite
easygoing.
It is reported that afterwards there was dancing till five in the morning,
but from a certain point onwards I just can't seem to remember…
The next day we had
more of the same glorious wheather. A touch more wind, just good for
Zwerver. Everyone was present at nine: not completely wide-eyed, but waken
enough to sail. We have an awful start, but this time at least we do not
miss the first mark. On to la Teigneuse. Do we need the UPS? We hoist it,
get it down immediately: too close to the wind. Quick as a jiffy we change
sails. We're getting good at these things!
Pride will have a fall. The next beat we do not get the spi up in time and,
what is worse, we do not get it down in time. We loose precious minutes
running with the wind where we should be beating against it.
Nevertheless, Zwerver has line honours! The compettion is near, both from l'Oiseau de Feu, that has a worse rating than Zwerver, and from Mercator II, that has a better rating. There was another short race planned, but the wind freshens and it is cancelled.
The price-giving ceremony is really the pinnacle of the weekend. Everybody is in high spirits - not least because of the Jerobeam of champagne that the winners share with the numbers two through to fourteen. Champaign everywhere. Enormous cups: our second price could easily be mistaken for yet another European football competition grand first. Anyway, it does not stain when you pour champaign in it - haven't we just tried! Mercator has the first price, and rightly so, they did a grand race. One of the smallest boats is third: the rating at work.
This was really a
great weekend. My advise: if Frans decides to run the Grande Échappée
Classique à Quiberon next year, make sure that you are there!
