Portsmouth based Victory class set sail to Gibraltar
by Andrew Thomas 4 Dec 2005 15:05 GMT
Portsmouth Based Victory Class set Sail to Gibraltar in the first international event for the Victory as part of the Trafalgar Celebrations.
Last month saw a team from the Portsmouth based Victory Class set out to beat the Gibraltarians in their own fleet of Victory’s. For those unaware, there are some 15 Victory Class yachts in Gib, all with pretty well the original configuration. This includes no backstay but instead runners, longer boom, bigger main, smaller jib, bigger kites, higher spreaders, 3-d control of jib cars and no kicker! So the hulls are the same but almost everything that controls sails and sail shaper is different.
The format for the event was Team Racing with 4 boats per team, boats being rotated every 3 races or so. Although the Portsmouth team were given 3 boats to practise with on the Friday afternoon, it sadly didn't do them much good as the Portsmouth team lost the first 5 races on Saturday morning 5-0. Sunday was a different story with the Pompey crews winning both races quite comfortably (apparently the lesson taken from this was don't try to race without a hang-over!!). On Sunday afternoon there was a Fleet Race - this is the normal format for racing with every boat out for itself. Oddly, this race saw all 4 Portsmouth boats smack on the line at the start for the first time all weekend.
Despite the 5-2 results the Portsmouth based team had an absolutely fantastic weekend with exceptional hospitality from the Royal Gibraltar Yacht Club. As a result plans are afoot to hold a rematch in the UK. In addition there has been a keen interest shown by a number of the Gibraltar team to compete in the Victory Class during next years Cowes Week.