Day 2 showing completely different circumstances

October 20, 2014

Sunday morning, the wind went home. No wind at all in the early morning, so we drifted without sailing resp, without any progress. Frustrating hours. It became a hot day, probably over 30 degrees Celcius. Inside the boat it was too hot to stay too long. Outside the Italian sun tried to fry us. The fact that there was no wind made things even more difficult.

In the first 24 hours of this race we made only 136 Nm so immediately Reima was teased by asking him when his flight via Frankfurt to Helsinki would take off. Of course we all know that is Friday. Early enough to be concerned at least.

It appeared extremely difficult to make a good approach into the mouth of the Street of Messina. A large group of boats who were at a considerable distance from us, came close by and passed us even. Such as DUFFY BY MARINA DI POLICORO (whatever this may mean) and SEAWOLF ACR 2X.

Once into the Street of Messina, the wind picked up and we kept pace with the boats around us. When studying the two pieces of information we had on the tidal streams, we learned that the documents from Nick were hopelessly wrong. Thanks anyhow Nick. So we went to the App 2014 Messina Street Tidal Streams and though the figures of the tides were inflated, we could at least work with these data.

Then we discovered DUFFY and SEAWOLF at the West side of the Street so we believed they had chosen for that side and either had to cross the Traffic Separation Scheme [TSS] in an angle of 90 degrees, or stay outside it entirely. Nothing like that since DUFFY infringed the rules set by the organisers the Royal Malta Yacht Club [RMYC] and did at a later stage at least seven other boats. Extremely unfair and surprising since the RMYC had warned all Skippers during the Crew Briefing to stick the the instructions. The International Jury may impose any penalty it deems fit. No matter the outcome of this, we consider this way of racing unfair. DUFFY gained at least 3,5 Nm on us (and probably on other competitors) as a result of this.

Fortunately we also observed 4 boats crossing the TSS in the proper way, so our belief if fairness of mankind got at least a boost.

Back to the race itself: after we left the TSS from the North lane in Northerly direction, since we could not make a 90 degrees crossing without coming very close to an incoming passenger vessel, we could see right away that boats in front us had no wind, at a moment when we had still 13-14 knots of wind, running on Spinnaker I.

We decided to steer to SB hoping there would be more wind. We succeeded for 50% and came very close to DUFFY who was 6 Nm ahead of us when we left the TSS.

MALTESE FALCON II was braver and diverted a long long way and indeed they kept wind, looking at their speed of 7 knots. However this was not for free to them, since the deviation was so big that they more or less lost in deviation what the gained in speed. Anyhow brave guys on board (two only) and we admired their courage. They must also have thought “who never takes risks, never drink Champagne”.

Now on Monday morning we are negotiating the rounding of Strombolicchio, a substantial rock NNE of of the Stromboli and we enjoy the view of the Vulcano.

It looks like a new race is starting after we succeeded to round this rock. We have some 30 boats around us doing the same.

Will be back to you.