FOR once, the sun shone upon the righteous. For the past two years, the Fairplay Cup has angered the gods, who have visited upon it rain, wind and all manner of pestilences, even including successive wins by the Denholm Group. But, just as all good things come to an end, so does everything else, and this was the year that the sun shone. Perhaps, hoped many, it would also be the year that a new champion emerged to hold aloft the glass bowl that is the Fairplay Cup.
A change in weather was not the only difference from previous years for this, the fifth Fairplay Cup. There were more teams than ever before – 17. And we sailed a different class of boat, Sunfast 36, chartered from Sunsail, in Portsmouth, which has enough yachts to ensure a one-class race. Or rather, races: an innovation this year was to split the event into two short races, rather than the single long one of previous years. And there was a new venue for the pre-race briefing on the evening before the race: Sunsail’s smart bar, which overlooks the marina and, perhaps most importantly, where the drinks were on the house.
And there was another change this year. Some teams had elected to skipper their boats themselves, rather than use the charter company’s professional skippers, which meant that boats were allocated to terms beforehand so that these teams could take over responsibility from the evening before the race.
One of these teams was Totem Plus, from Israel, who took a scrubbing brush to the hull and cleaned off a mass of weed: a secret weapon that Fairplay’s editor was sworn not to mention to anyone before the race got underway.
There may not have been the lucky draw of previous years to allocate boats, but there were still ships’ papers to distribute, and team representatives elbowed their ways through the crowd to collect their folders. For reasons that were unclear, a Denholm’s Alan Armstrong was greeted by some ribald booing as he stepped up to receive his paperwork.
But some things don’t change and, as Tor-Christian Mathiesen stood up to give his now customary briefing on the course, it felt more like old times. He confirmed that the weather forecast said what we could all see through the windows: "One thing we will miss is the wind."
But he also made an important ruling, which was to become crucial the following day. With two races, but only one cup, how would the winner be chosen. Simple: Add together each boat’s placings for the two races and the one with the lowest total wins. "But what if there’s a tie," cried a lone voice from the back of the room. Amid scenes of confusion, T-C and Fairplay’s race manager Alec Lamont had an answer for that possibility: If two boats had the same number of points, the one that had done better in the first race would be judged the winner. The rule had the benefit of simplicity and transparency, the fact that normal racing rules would have made the second race the decider caused some clamour but T-C was unmoved; the rule stood.
Nice, too nice
A slight rustle awoke Fairplay’s editor the next morning. His hotel had helpfully
pushed a slip of paper under the door bearing the day’s weather forecast:
Sunny spells; Max temp: 22 degrees. No mention of any wind, and no sign of
any out of the window either.
"The weather’s nice, too nice," said one boat’s manager over breakfast, like the hero in an old movie. The bacon rolls, Danish pastries and coffee were served back at the yacht club, providing little privacy for last minute team talks. But DNV’s crew were seen to be huddled round a table away from the rest, presumably talking of tacks and tactics.
Others were more laid back. "Suncream Number One" was one guest’s response to queries about tactics, although that was clearly a deliberately misleading underestimate. "Cool beers," was what another felt was the best strategy for the day. "It will be a lottery," predicted another crew manager, who was sure that the winning positions would depend on "where you are when the wind fills in."
Ah yes, the wind. Some had checked the forecast on their televisions’ Teletext that morning and were discussing when the SW1-2 was going to veer to NW3-4, always assuming that the SW1-2 turned up in the first place. "The problem is," pointed out one of those in the debate, "is that we are in the middle of a high pressure system." And he was right; any wind that might come would be a straightforward sea breeze. Henderson Boyd Jackson’s crew seemed to have the right approach in the circumstances. "Our tactics are to just go out and win," said one of its members, who confided that he had his protest flags stuffed into his back pocket, just in case he wanted them in a hurry.
They would not be needed. "We don’t have any protests," said Sunsail’s race manager Clive Vaughan at the skipper’s briefing. "Just take your penalty and get on with the race." Not everyone heeded the advice, according to one crew. In a note to Fairplay later, they were adamant that they "did not resort to the forbidden protest flag, which was seen on the rig of one northern contingent’s boat with far too much regularity."
Clive also had some advice for any die-hard sailors present. We were to keep to the small boat channel out of Portsmouth Harbour; "ferries have right of way, whatever you might think." And he explained how the course would be decided only once we were all on the water, so we were to listen to the radio and check the letters he would hang over the side of the committee boat. "Hopefully they will be the same as the one given over the radio."
That belt-and-braces approach may seem unnecessary, but not to Totem Plus of Israel. As the race start approached later in the day, "all capable hands onboard were trying to decipher the cryptic VHF messages, which to our foreign ears were almost meaningless," recalled its crew manager later. For them, the committee boat’s letters were essential viewing.
For now, however, the next task is to get afloat. There is an encouraging hint of a zephyr as we file down to the pontoons, and it is not just the apparent wind from walking along. Flags are stirring, anemometers atop masts are turning lazily and the first cracks are showing in the mirrored water.
Amid the chaos of 17 crews stowing provisions, shaking out sail bags and clambering across boats moored side by side came a video cameraman and a stills photographer, commissioned by Eversheds to shoot some scenes for a corporate video. Whether the resulting images are intended to convey an image of calm confidence, or of expertise in crisis management, was not clear.
Fashion shows
Sailing and fashion often go together on the UK’s south coast, and the Fairplay
Cup this year was no exception. Cool Carriers’ crew, for example, all wore
matching caps and shirts, but not matching shorts. Perhaps the blue and khaki
trousers denoted some mysterious hierarchy within the crew. Neither was it
properly explained why some of those on Litton Marine Systems’ boat continued
Cool Carriers theme, nor why Inchcape and Eversheds were hardly distinguishable
from one another in their dark blue tops. Once again, the shorts seemed to
be the delineating factor. Henderson Boyd Jackson felt they looked "hot to
trot (well, hot anyway)" in their black and white kit.
The Baltic Exchange Sailing Club were all turned out in their club tops bearing the Baltic’s coat of arms, a similar approach to that taken on Michael Else’s boat, where their company logo would help identify anyone who fell overboard. Shell’s two boats also felt a corporate logo was appropriate. The key difference here, though, was the choice of corporation: Ferrari. And do you think you will you be going at Ferrari speeds? "Absolutely."
Not out of Portsmouth Harbour, they weren’t. Along with the uniformed teams came the other eight boats and, as they passed Fairplay’s snapper in his inflatable, the team photographs were taken. Stentex; click. DNV; click. Totem Plus; click. The Denholm Group; click. BP Marine; click. Castrol Marine; click. Crescent Shipping; click. Sinclair Roche & Temperley; click click & click.
What? no Fairplay boats racing this year? It seemed a good idea at the time, but Fairplay decided to entertain its own guests on one huge sixty-footer of a boat and watch the racing from the sidelines. That’s a shame, said one disappointed guest. "If you’d had your usual two boats, at least that would have been places 18 and 19 taken up." Thanks a lot. Next year Fairplay will be back in strength.
Another innovation this year was the absence of a lunch stop. Fortunately, that did not mean the absence of lunch, although some diners were perplexed by some of the fare. One German crewmember, on encountering a grated cheese sandwich for the first time in his life, was heard to enquire "what do you call that sandwich with noodles inside?"
The Eversheds team nearly didn’t make it to lunchtime. As we all know, modern yachting instruments are easy to confuse, so perhaps their helmsman had an excuse. Fortunately he realised that what he thought was the echo sounder was in fact the speed log just in time to avoid the sandbank snapping hungrily at his keel.
For most boats, the morning was spent practising manoeuvres as the breeze slowly appeared. DNV, for example, took a more disciplined approach to the day than last year. T-C had banned all mobile phones, after last year’s debacle when, at a crucial stage in the race, his most experienced spinnaker handler was down below on a conference call fixing a charter. This year, recalled one DNV crewmember, everything was "very disciplined." Most crews used the shakedown cruise to sharpen up their spinnaker handling routines, but not so Totem Plus. "They’re clearly assuming all the legs will be upwind," muttered someone on Fairplay’s gin palace.
Michael Else & Co went one better than most and even practised a real man overboard drill. Perhaps those appointed to judge the day’s safe sailing award were not around to witness the scene, or maybe they noticed an incident later in the day on the same boat when a crew member was hit on the head by a falling jib; hardly a severe blow, perhaps, but something that the crew felt they needed to confess to Fairplay later.
An optimistic start
SRT had been concerned the night before that other crews were old hands who
took the competition more seriously than they did, but their own approach
was hardly amateur. "We assigned ourselves various posts," their own log of
the day notes, and "it was an optimistic crew that positioned itself close
to the start line in readiness for the first start." Crewmember Mark O’Neil
told Fairplay what happened next. "The same optimistic crew remained close
to the start line well after the other 16 boats had crossed it."
HBJ, who had arrived keen to take the cup back to the east coast of Scotland, also felt that their start did not match their morning training session. This had turned the crew into a "mean, well oiled sailing machine," commented Bruce Virgo, an HBJ solicitor. With their team captain "barking directions at some very close sailing sinners," they made it across the line. After that, however, although "we did our best in the light breeze to maintain our pre-race standard, it was not to be."
The Baltic Exchange Sailing Association also regretted their "dismal start", blaming that for their mid-fleet position for much of the race From the end of the start line, where Fairplay was watching, it seemed a well planned start on all boats.
Sailing close to the line, all turned towards it with seconds to spare, but it was BP who took line honours and won the Cool Carriers trophy for the first boat legally across the start line. And then the fleet split. Some followed Eversheds’ example in immediately tacking onto port tack, while others held their course and continued on starboard out to the left hand side of the course.
Among them was Denholm’s boat, which seemed to have crossed the line almost next to the committee boat. An error of judgement? Had they reached the line early and had to waste time by reaching further along it? Not so, said Denholm’s Alan Armstrong in the bar that evening. They had checked the line before lunch and found that it was not square onto the course. This made the committee boat end significantly closer to the first mark, they calculated. "We were in clear air, and I’m a great believer in clear air," he said.
It was a close fought first leg for the leaders, but BP did not keep its early lead, reaching the first mark in sixth place. "A bad tactical decision, probably," was the team’s analysis of the situation later. Nor did Denholm’s crew reach the first mark ahead, despite their shrewd pre-race analysis. It was DNV, after 18 minutes of sailing, whose transom Denholm had to follow round the buoy.
The breeze eased a little as the fleet passed, which had the effect of splitting the boats into two groups; those that had rounded the mark were well away on the spinnaker leg, while the rest struggled in their wake. Fully ten minutes separated first and last boat, even at this early stage in the race. It was at this moment that the benefit of having two races became clear. It was obvious by now which boats would not be winning, but they at least had the prospect of a second chance later in the afternoon.
Stentex, for example, who were fourth from last at this point, took a philosophical approach to their position. "The first race proved to be something of a shakedown cruise as we learnt to mishandle the boat," said Nick de Spon of Stentex later. "There is a tide in the affairs of men which, when taken at the flood, leads on to glory," he mused. "Unfortunately, on this occasion it was flooding in the wrong direction."
By the second mark, Denholm had made up some lost ground by bringing the wind round onto the quarter and thus gaining some speed. Here, however, was an uncharted obstacle. A small dinghy, with three fishermen on board, was tied to the buoy, their rods and lines extending some distance on either side. Despite shouted advice from those on Fairplay’s inflatable, the fishermen were in no mood to be moved on.
Two minutes later, they had 17 racing boats pirouetting around them, their spinnakers under various degrees of control or none. Litton Marine Systems and Eversheds gave them particularly close shaves, and Eversheds admitted later that their spinnaker drill "in battle conditions" was not as sharp as it might have been. If the fishermen had known that the eager sailors whirling round their ears were on a self-confessed "steep learning curve," they might have regretted their decision not to move out of the way.
Slick work
The next leg was also a spinnaker run, although a shy one, and DNV holds its
lead, which is nearly two minutes at the next mark. A slick piece of sail
handling sees its genoa go up and the spinnaker come down in one movement,
while the tail enders’ run is complicated only by the Isle of Wight hovercraft
scything between them. Yet it does not impede their progress as much as the
decision by four of them to drop their kites well before the turn, losing
some of them vital seconds.
BP was one of them, and they later admitted to having underestimated the distance to the buoy and set their jib too soon. Shell’s No I team was another and they seemed, from Fairplay’s vantage point, to have a fight with the tide as a result. One group of about six boats reached the buoy together, but Totem Plus, nearest the mark, made a tight turn and stole a few places in the process.
By now the wind is blowing a definite Force 2, and the tide is slackening as high water approaches, making the rest of the race a true test of tactics and strategy. And DNV needed that ample cushion of time, as its sail handling seemed to lose its sharpness, allowing Denholm to cut DNV’s lead to just a minute by the final turn, setting up an exciting finish. These two are well clear of the rest of the fleet, and their finishing positions are obvious. At the line, DNV comes home 1 min 37 secs ahead of Denholm, and must surely claim the Fairplay Cup.
In the following pack, there was a keen battle for third and fourth place, eventually being won by BP over Eversheds and Litton. Yet, two marks out, BP had lain only seventh, rescuing its situation with some efficient sail work in the closing stages. At the last mark, Litton lay third, but had a poor beat home, and Eversheds dumped their kite partly in the water. "As four of our crew battled valiantly to recover it, our professional skipper ended as a soggy mass under a mound of wet spinnaker material," recalled team manager Jonathan Kemp.
Sixth and seventh places also created a tight battle, between Inchcape and Shell’s second boat, which Shell won. "Once we realised we had a client in front, we let them stay ahead," was the excuse that Inchcape offered later. "Like any good agent, we always bow to our principal’s requirements." And what about Shell’s Ferrari ambitions? "We went like a Ferrari that crashed into a wall," was their only comment.
Crescent, in eighth place, bemoaned the presence on its boat of four marine engineers and a fleet director, so "it was always going to be difficult for them to concentrate on racing rather than the boat’s main engine," said Crescent’s Richard Mogg. But he thought it somehow appropriate that, in the race as so often in life, "the third party manager was closely pursued by the lawyers and P&I clubs."
But they had a close battle with Cool Carriers and Michael Else for their eighth place, leaving the other two to pick up ninth and tenth. Henderson Boyd Jackson, in 12th place, were quite sure why they hadn’t won. "Cos we was robbed," Fairplay was assured by one of its team.
Bringing up the rear was SRT, who believed that their spinnaker had a life of its own, not to mention a mainsail that they felt sure would have been more at home on the Cutty Sark. Muttering darkly about sabotage, they rejoined the rest of the fleet in time for the ten-minute gun for the second race. Just beating them at the line was Stentex, who sailed into 16th place "under the bewildered gaze of our appointed skipper."
The second race
WITH little wind, it soon became inevitable that the second race on the card
would be delayed, but four crews were keen to make up for lost time and crossed
the line several seconds early. One was Stentex, keen to improve on its position
in the first race. Instead, they had to turn back "in the teeth, and very
nearly in the rigging, of the opposition," they said afterwards. Another was
Litton, which fell back to 13th as a result, "we never really made any headway
after that," they said later.
The Baltic Exchange team felt that there was more than just the false starts to worry about, and spoke later of "a few members of the fleet who decided not to adhere to normal racing rules at the start."
Once again, DNV and Denholm opened up an early lead, with DNV in the lead at the first mark. BP again made a good start, arriving third at the mark closely chased by the Shell II boat which succeeded in taking BP’s wind. But not for long enough to catch up, and they kept their third and fourth positions to the end. Eversheds and Castrol had what an Eversheds crewman described as a "ding-dong battle" that put them so close to each other at the end that a single finishing hooter was sounded for both of them. But Castrol were judged to have just pipped Eversheds into tenth place. Stentex and SRT again brought up the rear, but Nick de Spon of Stentex is unbowed. "An excellent day out and, while we were not up there with the leaders, so what?" And he offers this promise: "We’ll be back."
With the afternoon ebbing away, the race was shortened, to the disappointment of HBJ, who felt that, with more time, they might have improved on their seventh place. Meanwhile, out in front, the battle between the leaders was becoming tense. Denholm was closing the gap on DNV and in the final few hundred metres pulled off a remarkable win by just a few seconds. "We had a fine fight," said T-C afterwards.
"We psyched out DNV’s skipper," said Alan Armstrong, and a statement issued later by Denholm’s PR agency spoke of DNV having made a ‘tactical error’. Not so, said DNV’s Tom Backelin when Fairplay asked him about the claim. "Denholms were absolutely determined to win," he said, and spoke of an incident late in the race when Denholm’s, on port tack, passed close – extremely close – to DNV’s stern. With cries of "all clear" from the Denholm foredeck crew just inches from T-C’s ears, "I’ve never seen his face so white," said Tom.
So, with one win and one second place apiece, who would win the Fairplay Cup? In the confusion of the evening before, Denholm had not heard the vital ruling about what would happen in the event of a tie and reached for their racing rules. So they came ashore confident of victory and it fell to Fairplay’s Alec Lamont to ease them back to Earth. One boat’s crew even thought that the Denholm boat had been one of those recalled at the start, but had not seen it turn back and so felt a disqualification was called for. The Sunsail race manager, however, who had declared the recall from the committee boat, confirmed that his four early starters did not include the Denholm Group.
They were gracious in defeat, but later issued a private challenge to DNV: A two-boat Americas Cup-style race, to be sailed in teh Clyde in September. Whether DNV will take up the challenge, and who will put up the prize, remains to be seen.