Delft, 23 February, 2010
After a successful participation at the Primo Cup (Monaco) the team is preparing itself for the next big event; Spi Ouest. A training clinic together with the other Dutch Farr30 team DelftChallenge is scheduled for this period.
Last Friday the boat was prepared in Stellendam. Despite the cold weather and the rain Anton, David and Ralph were quite eager to do this job; it would be their first weekend of sailing for this year. The team was already early at the harbour on Saturday morning. Rikst (helms-woman), Ties (main), Anton (genua), Ralph (spinnaker), David (pitt) and Rob (bow) were present. Maarten Wieberdink would be our tactician/trainer for Saturday.
The weather was cold and windy but everyone was quickly accustomed to the team and the boat. In the afternoon there was some sun and the boat handling part went very well. Different spinnaker sets and drops were practised and new tricks were used.
After a while we saw DelftChallenge and did some speed testing. That went very well until our jib track broke and we had to go back to the harbour to fix it. In the afternoon we were on the water again and managed to do some tacking and gybing duels with the other Mumm. In the heat of battle they lost sight of the buoys and were grounded near the dike on the Haringvliet. They managed to sail again after half an hour of struggling while we continued our training session.
After the training we were invited by the parents of Rob to have diner with them, the stew with sausage was delicious and an excellent ending of the day!
Sunday was still cold but also rainy. Again DelftChallenge was present but they were not so eager to sail in our neighbourhood. We had a new tactician/trainer (Nelina Meijboom) and some positions were changed; Ralph was on mainsail, Ties on genua and Anton trimmed the spinnaker. Still the boathandling was good and again different sets and drops were practised. In the afternoon the wind increased and it was decided to return back to the harbour.
The next training will be from Thursday till Sunday, again DelftChallenge should be present to compare boat speed and handling.
Cheers,
MummaDuck
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