International 8 Metre Europeans at Flensburger Segel-Club
by Philip Crebbin 22 Jun 2005 13:19 BST
Spazzo (GER 10) and Hollandia (NED 1) approaching the start line at the 8 Metre Europeans © sealens / Tom Körber
The International 8 Metre European Championship was held at the Flensburger Segel-Club, right on the Danish border north of Kiel. It proved to be an exciting event with 17 entries, including the first outing of the new Doug Peterson and Ian Howlett designed Dutch yacht, Hollandia II.
Hollandia II is owned by Jos Fruytier and Ruud van Hilst, both part of the racing crew. Their first aim in building the boat and calling it Hollandia II was to win the Coppa d’Italia, a famous 100 year-old trophy awarded for the 8m European Championship. The first Hollandia, now being restored by Jos Fruytier, won the trophy in 1927. The second aim is to defend the World Cup successfully, to be held in Toronto in August.
Racing was held in the Flensburg fjord, which provided quite shifty conditions, but generally good breezes in the 12 to 20kts range, occasionally less and occasionally up to 28kts+.
Jos Fruytier’s other boat, Lafayette, was the Hollandia team’s steed in winning the 2004 8m World Championship in Geneva. This was chartered to André Nelis and his Belgian and Dutch crew that had acted as tune-up partner for Hollandia in Medemblik, where Hollandia had been superbly built by Ewoud Akkerman and his team at Vels and Partners.
Lafayette sailed excellently to dominate the first two races of the event, with Hollandia a close second each time. So the battle was really on. The boats coming effectively from the same camp and having NED 1 (Hollandia II) and NED 2 (Lafayette) on their sails only served to increase the rivalry.
At the third start, Britain’s Philip Crebbin, skipper and project coordinator of Hollandia, managed to push Lafayette over the line and steal the best pin end start, staying behind the line (with the I flag flying) by a matter of inches as told by a member of the Jury, and missing the pin mark by a similar margin. Hollandia won this race easily, while Lafayette recovered well to finish third. The boats met again bow to bow in the fourth race, a third of the way up the first leg. Hollandia tacked from starboard to leeward of Lafayette and eventually made the leebow stick (difficult in metre boats from starboard tack, having to be far enough away not to foul when the port boat is starting to dip). Then it was game over with Hollandia pushing Lafayette over half a minute back by the first mark. Hollandia’s good downwind speed took care of the rest of the race.
The fifth race saw the end of Lafayette’s challenge when they tried to dip Wilfried
Beeck’s German entry Spazzo just before the start gun, but misjudged it and destroyed Spazzo’s transom, finishing the regatta for them. Lafayette did a penalty turn and sailed the race, recovering to finish second behind Hollandia, but this was not approved of by the International Jury and they were awarded a DNE, a DSQ that could not be discarded.
The last two races again saw Hollandia and Lafayette dominate over the fleet, with Hollandia leading by a small margin around every mark each time. In the “newly created” battle for second place, Peter Groh’s recently acquired Sarissa, the Dubois sistership to the highly successful Gefion but now fitted with a new Ian Howlett keel like Hollandia’s and Lafayette’s, carefully covered Jean Fabré’s Petterson-designed Yquem, with van Oosanen designed wing keel, to take second overall by two points.
It was a great win for Hollandia II, not only Doug Peterson’s and Ian Howlett’s first venture into modern 8 Metres, but also quite radical in finish. Howlett and Crebbin had gone for a deck-stepped, rocking mast, built by Hall Spars, that took a few adjustments to get right but that worked perfectly at the event after only three weekends test sailing and development. Howlett’s special engineering included a below deck “pre-bend” lever with adjustable wire strops that controls the bend in the mast and a shimmed hydraulic jack to tension the rig, controlling a piston that bears on an Urtalite ball on the main bulkhead. The rig can be rocked from maximum rake to well forward of vertical, or the reverse, in a matter of a couple of seconds.
The construction is wood-cored composite, in aircraft grade Alaskan spruce, not surprising when one of the crew members, 8 Metre class secretary John Lammerts van Bueren, owns a purpose-built sawmill in Alaska! Sails are carbon 3DL by North Sails Canada, finished by North Sails France, with Hugh Beaton over from Canada as part of the team. Winches, including 3 speed self-tailing primary and mainsheet winches, and deck hardware are by Harken, the details of the quite sophisticated control systems being planned out by Robbert Verboon of Harken Benelux with Philip Crebbin. Instruments are by Silva with also a Diverse/B&G forestay loadcell. Other British involvement includes the keel and wings from Henry Irons, with Euan Seel of Brightlingsea building the carbon rudder (one of the few carbon things allowed on the 8s). Kiwi (but semi-British!) Tony Smith did the installation and correct set-up and fairing of the keel, wings and rudder, and also had to come back from Italy in a panic when Hollandia was grounded in Medemblik and nearly ripped one of the wings off (note – a certain designer from America was driving at the time!!), only a week before it was to get put on a truck to go to Flensburg.
There was also great excitement in the Vintage division as the first Japanese 8 Metre, Yutaka Kobayashi’s Aun found its form after the first three races and was first Vintage yacht in all the final four, edging out Class President Fred Meyer in Catina VI into second place. This was a great achievement by the Japanese team at their first event with Aun, a 1940 Johan Anker design newly built by Absolut Restoration in Portugal. Built in vintage style, to 1940 Lloyds ‘R’ scantlings and to the Vintage division rules for the Neptune Trophy (newly awarded to the class by the Royal Northern and Clyde Yacht Club), Aun qualifies for the Vintage division as this was Johan Anker’s final design before he died and it was the first time the boat had been built (also from Alaskan wood supplied by John Lammerts van Bueren). Building a replica of a boat already built would not qualify. Yutaka’s wife Tokiko helmed Aun with Yutaka on the bow!
In the Classic division (vintage yachts with modern rigs and sails), Josef Martin from Germany, another builder and restorer of classic yachts, dominated in Sposa II, from Karl Biller’s Ayana, with Britain’s Peter Wilson third in If. Peter Wilson is in the process of building a new modern 8 Metre, designed by Juliane Hempel of Germany, the designer of Spazzo as well as a number of 6 Metres. There was also a separate division for the first-rule Gaff yachts, won by Andreas Lochbrunner’s Elfe II.
Overall Results: (7 races, 6 to count)
Coppa D’Italia:
1. Hollandia II (The Netherlands) Philip Crebbin 2,2,1,1,1,1,1, 7 pts
2. Sarissa (Switzerland) Peter Groh 3,4,2,4,3,3,3, 18 pts
3. Yquem (Switzerland) Manuel Stern 18,3,4,3,2,4,4, 20 pts
4. Lafayette (Belgium) André Nelis 1,1,3,2,18*,2,2, 26 pts
Classic:
1. Sposa II (Germany) Josef Martin
2. Ayana (Germany) Karl Biller
3. If (Britain) Peter Wilson
Vintage: (Neptune Trophy)
1. Aun (Japan) Tokiko Kobayashi
2. Catina VI (Switzerland) Fred Meyer
3. Germania III (Germany) Gerd Wegener
Gaff:
1. Elfe II (Germany) Andreas Lochbrunner
2. Sposa (Germany) Uwe Marquart
3. Edit (Germany) Ingbert Strasser
* Lafayette’s 18pts was for DNE, disqualification not excludable