‘Playing Around Logic heads round Britain
by Hyde Sails 20 Aug 2010 10:54 BST
23 August 2010
Peter Robson’s Beneteau 40.7 ‘Playing Around’ has joined forces with Sailing Logic for the
forthcoming Sevenstar Round Britain & Ireland Race, which starts on August 23. We found out
about the team’s preparation ahead of the event…
The Sevenstar Round Britain and Ireland Race is one of the most challenging races in the world and for the 2010 edition, the non-stop race has attracted 28 entries from a diverse range of ocean-going yachts.
Among the entries is the Hyde Sails-powered ‘Playing Around Logic’. ‘Playing Around’s owner, Peter Robson, explains how it all came about: “Following a successful Fastnet campaign with Sailing Logic last year, a few of the crew expressed interest in a greater challenge. What could be greater than the iconic Sevenstar Round Britain and Ireland race? Several sailing friends also expressed interest, in particular Graeme Castle (many years ago Mirror World champion, Captain of BUSA, Miracle national champion) and Roger Yeoman (FD Olympics 1984). The seed was sown, and by Christmas the idea had germinated - we were going to do it.
“We decided to work again with Sailing Logic, as their ethos and values matched ours. We wanted to put together a highly competitive team, one that would gel together and work to achieving this goal. Heavily oversubscribed (later Sailing Logic entered ‘Puma’ as well), Allie did a fine job of whittling down the CVs and selecting the seven crew to join Peter, Graeme and Roger. First up was Jon Barnes, an RBI veteran who loved doing the Fastnet on ‘Playing Around’, followed by Ian Randall, Gareth Thomlinson (both having done Fastnet previously with Sailing Logic), then Rebekah Adey, Richard Field, Lousie Scanlon and Elaine Maslin.”
Preparing the boat and crew
Peter explains that when it came to preparing the boat, sails were obviously a key consideration: “We looked at average wind conditions for the time of year, and came to the conclusion that we needed make amendments to our sail wardrobe.
First in was a new Hyde 119sq m A-sail, designed for beam reaching in 5-15 knots, but which could also be used for light wind running when a chop on the water might not allow a symmetric kite to fill properly. This was used to great effect in the RORC Cherbourg race, winning class and third overall. Second was a new Hyde heavy weather sail, a flat yankee-cut #4, in case we get horrendous conditions when sailing so far north. Next up, we replaced our long-lasting Hyde GPL mainsail and heavy #1 with some new Hyde string sails, the new mainsail with Taffeta backing, to reduce stretch and sail weight.
“Finally, we put a watermaker on board, to again reduce the weight of the water we would otherwise have to carry. Some of the crew are commenting that ‘Aqua d’Playing Around’ tastes so much better than the bottled water with some French-sounding names!”
“Our sailing programme centred around the RORC offshore races,” explains Peter, “using them as practice for routines as much as trying to win them. This, with some tight inshore races really honed the crew. A second overall in the Nationals in May, and then just a few weeks before the start, ‘Playing Around’ started to reach peak performance, beating all other top 40.7 crews to First place in Cowes week.
“Aside from being one of the great Yacht Races of the world, the SRBI is also quite unique in that all the rounding points are rocks! There are many headlands, tidal gates to negotiate, and of course the great British weather is there to throw in a few challenges. There are few other long distance races that present such challenges as this one.
You can follow our progress on the RORC website and twice daily updates from Sailing Logic. For more details see www.hydesails.com or contact Paul Austin (T: +44 (0) 7801 907458).