TROOP TRANSPORT
The Fairplay Cup uses Sunfast 37 yachts chartered from Sunsail in Port Solent, near Portsmouth on the UK’s south coast. With 40 of these French-built Jeanneau yachts, Sunsail claims to have the largest identical fleet in the world.
The yacht is described as having a very fast hull matched with a large sail area, giving a lightweight racing feel when under sail.
SUNFAST 37 SPEC
Length, oa: 11.40m
Length, waterline: 10.95m
Beam, max: 3.70m
Draught: 2.07m
Displacement: 6,300kg
Lead keel weight: 2040kg
Mainsail: 36.4m²
Genoa: 40m²
Spinnaker: 88m²
Berths: 5/7
ARE YOU UP FOR THE CUP?
The Fairplay Cup was conceived in discussions at Posidonia in 1994 as a way of getting representatives of the different sectors of the shipping industry together in a friendly but mildly competitive environment.
It is held in mid-June each year in the Solent, on the UK’s south coast, using a fleet of identical chartered yachts. The event consists of an evening reception followed the next day by a breakfast, a pre-race briefing and a shakedown sail.
A first race is followed by a running lunch and the day continues with a second race and refreshments ashore. An informal evening reception is followed by the prize presentations and dinner in a historic venue.
The number of participants is limited, but if you would like details of how you can enter a team of your staff or guests, visit www.fairplaycup.co.uk and fill in the online form or contact Debbie Winchester at Fairplay on +44 (0)1737 379128 or email deborah.winchester@lrfairplay.com.
No sailing experience is needed: just a sense of humour.
THE LONGEST DAY
It was the evening before D-Day and Fairplay Cup candidates again assembled in the bar of the Portsmouth Harbour Yacht Club in Port Solent, near Portsmouth. With aircraft carriers just a few miles away, a couple of navy bigwigs among its guests and a boat taking the SAS motto “Who Dares Wins” as its name, Fairplay and its two partner boats seemed to have taken an aggressive approach to retaining its own trophy following its triumph last year.
Others had other ideas. Wärtsilä, for example, had gone to the trouble of buying their own spinnaker. It had been made by the same sailmaker as all the other boats’ sails, but new sails are always preferable to old.
Trinity House had put in a day’s practice, prompting one rival to wonder whether they had been out moving all the buoys to confuse the enemy. They were fifth last year and had set their sights on a good position again this time.
But an army marches on its stomach and there is never any shortage of food before the Fairplay Cup. The pre-race briefing is always well catered and that is before the crews slip away to their various bunkers to discuss tactics, strategy and the à la carte menu.
One restaurant does particularly well; it is a fish restaurant and this year hosted the crews from at least four boats. One, Dorchester Atlantic, were making inroads into the fresh fish display long before their skipper arrived to find “18 to 20 hungry diners” in front of him, “leaving little fresh fish to eat”, the team’s reporter notes. “By a bizarre coincidence, our skipper also arrived late at the start line for the first race the following morning,” the notes go on, “which allowed a fleet of 18 to 20 hungry crews to start the race well before us, leaving us little wind to exploit.”
There would normally have been more cup crews at the restaurant, but V.Ships were kept away from the evening’s festivities by various travel commitments.
An alternative explanation to their absence is that they wanted to maintain an element of surprise. In the past, V.Ships has been a formidable competitor, always doing well and setting a competitive standard for others to match. But this year’s crew were all new recruits who had never sailed before and some had never met each other; they knew they had a lot to live up to.
They were not the only new arrivals in the trenches. Gray Page had come “for a good time”, one of their number claimed, before admitting that the crew included four yachtmasters, although “I’m not a practising one,” he added.
At the evening reception and the morning breakfast, newcomers mingled with old hands. ABB, disappointed with its 13th place last time, was here to win and wondered why there is no prize for the most improved team from one year to the next. Invited to offer such a prize, a bent turbine blade was suggested as the trophy. We look forward to seeing it.
Lloyd’s Register was out in force, entering four boats compared with last year’s two. Each crew member sported matching shirts; it reflects, said one of their number, “the LR Way – to look professional.” But looking professional and being professional are not always synonymous.
But the battle plan for this, the longest day of the year, fell apart from the start. The troop transporters failed to turn up on time at the various barracks at the appointed time, resulting in staff cars and taxis being commandeered into use. And one bus that did make its rendezvous appeared to have had its gearbox sabotaged.
As a result, the skippers’ briefing started later than scheduled, making the planned 11.30 time for the first wave to go over the top seem a little optimistic. Race officer Mike Steel was known to some of those present: the crew of last year’s winning boat, Fairplay’s Press Gang. His demeanour at the briefing, however, made them wonder whether he was the strangely quiet twin of the exuberant and demanding skipper who pushed them to victory last year.
He made the usual and futile point that sailing is a non-contact sport, announced the day’s weather as southerly Force 4 all day with rain later and sent the infantry off for their yomp to the boats, pausing only to pick up huge quantities of kit in the form of flags, freebies and food.
THE ADVANCE
For one crew, the journey out of Portsmouth Harbour and into the Solent was a voyage of discovery: that Portsmouth’s security patrols were effective and that their mainsail wasn’t.
In these days of heightened security, a police boat keeps a constant watch on the waters off Portsmouth’s naval base, particularly so on the day of the Fairplay Cup, since two of the UK’s three aircraft carriers were alongside, supplemented by other Grey Funnel ships. And MTI Network chose the few hundred yards opposite those ships to hoist their sails.
At least, all the bits were there. Sadly, they were not all joined together. Specifically, the mainsail was not attached to the boom. As they drifted out of the small boat channel while they considered their options, “the arrival of the police launch, which advised us that we could be arrested for coming closer than 50m to one of Her Majesty’s warships, only added to the sense of unease”, its log records.
So they spent the day with a reefed main and as tight an outhaul as they could manage in an attempt to get the main working. It was not enough, especially since a fitting on their spinnaker pole broke later in the day, and they were able to avoid all the risky situations that arose during the day – and, in the process, won the Safe Sailing Trophy.
Meanwhile, others were practising their manoeuvres and sail changes while keeping an eye out for the committee boat and elusive start line outer mark. The mark was there – so Trinity House had not moved it, after all – but the committee boat was not. When it ambled into view, the race officer announced a delayed start over the radio. And radio communications were to prove vital for two boats once the race got under way.
A simple triangular course had been set, to be sailed twice, and the countdown began. Few yachtsmen are ever happy with their start and so it was in the Fairplay Cup. On Safety at Sea International’s boat, added excitement came from the mainsheet man, who had a gloved finger stuck in a jamming cleat, and from the chaos around them.
ACTION STATIONS!
As their log records, “the port watch was yelling ‘Water!’ to all yachts on that side and the starboard watch was yelling ‘Up! Up! Up!’ to a yacht on the other side. This yacht failed to respond to the instruction and, as a consequence, received the full attention of the ramming tactician on the helm who duly shafted the transom of that yacht leaving them the remains of our starboard navigation light as a souvenir.”
There is a prize for the first boat legally across the start line and the two photographers on the press boat were delegated with this task. They were well placed to pick out Wärtsilä as the winners.
Two other boats, however, had beaten them to the line and the race officer called their numbers over the radio. Neither turned back. Ten or so seconds later, the call was repeated. No response. After a second repeat again prompted no restarts, the race officer called the press boat on the field telephone and asked them to deliver a message to the front line.
Like dispatch riders in the field, they fired up their powerful engine and sped over the rough terrain, first to deliver the news to Lloyd’s Register Rail, who promptly turned back, and then to the Baltic Exchange, who didn’t. In the wind, it was not possible to hear the one-word reaction from the helmswoman on receiving the news, but this scribbler’s limited lip-reading skills proved sufficient.
For the first time, it seemed that the Fairplay Cup would see a disqualification although, pointed out the fellow photographer, since this was a two-lap race, the Baltic Exchange crew did legally start their race as they crossed the line for Lap 2, giving them last place. It seemed that neither boat had heard the radioed message.
Distracted by this diversion, some of the finer points of the early moments escaped our reporter’s notebook, but it was clear that some important decisions had to be made: to reef or not to reef and which tack to take from the start.
It was a gusting wind, probably stronger than the forecast, and some of those that elected for full canvas struggled with the extra power. Dorchester’s log, in particular, regrets not taking their Sunsail skipper’s advice to put one or two reefs in, resulting in “serious over-powering”, leading to “a good deal of unintentional zig-zagging, which probably meant we sailed an additional nautical mile or two compared with the rest of the fleet.”
For V.Ships, the problem was not with the main but the genoa or, rather, the genoa sheets. On the first beat, “a lack of crew coordination resulted in a riding turn on the genoa winch during an attempted tack.” Not an uncommon experience, and the crew “tried to release the sheet by tacking back then running down wind then gybing”, all to no avail.
Drastic measures were needed: did anyone have a knife? “We all looked at each other. Airport security, travelling light and being fully prepared for sailing appear to be incompatible,” they realised. Eventually a bread knife was used to sever the line, by which time the fleet was sailing away.
Remarkably, they were not the only boat to have this problem. Lloyd’s Register Rail Europe also caught riding turns on their genoa winch at the start of the second race and found the only way to solve the problem was to cut them – with bolt croppers, reported their colleagues on Lloyd’s Register EMEA’s boat; clearly surveyors carry a complete workshop when they go sailing.
There were two surveyors – one from class and one from flag – on Dorchester’s boat and that boat’s log records their reaction when the spinnaker, still in its bag, fell overboard. “Our skipper ordered immediate recovery action from the crew at which point the two senior surveyors jumped smartly to the starboard side and, well, surveyed.”
Lloyd’s Register’s EMEA crew included a couple of non-sailors and they decided to take a cautious approach to the day and crossed the line in the middle of the pack and enjoyed their tack to the first mark, “despite one complaint that a louder ‘ready about’ announcement would be appreciated from the one crew member aboard who was still developing the essential skills required to master a marine toilet.”
Even by the first mark, Holman, Fenwick & Willan had established a lead, but the race was still wide open. Next was the Baltic Exchange, no doubt regretting their error at the start, with Trinity House third and Wärtsilä fourth.
It was a frustrating moment for Wärtsilä. They had actually reached the mark first, but arrived just to leeward of it and had to go round again. “We weren’t sure which was the mark” said one of the crew in the bar later, ruing the error that cost them three places. They maintained their fourth position for the rest of the race, demonstrating consistent sailing that, had they not missed that first mark, would have won them the race and, with their second place in Race 2, the cup itself.
If reefs were an important decision at the start, whether to use the spinnaker was equally vital now. Two teams – Fairplay’s Press Gang and Wärtsilä’s Engine of Industry – had invested their annual profits in bespoke spinnakers, so there was disappointment that neither risked its valuable acquisition.
Only one boat – LOC – hoisted its kite on that downwind leg; in fact, its log notes, “we wondered if we had missed an announcement on a spinnaker ban.”
It was probably fortuitous that the later boats did not go to the trouble of rigging their spinnakers. The two buoys used for the windward and leeward marks were main channel buoys for the shipping channel into Southampton, so when a UECC car carrier came into view well to the right of the racing line it was inevitable that it would cut across the course. With the fleet spread out, avoiding action would be essential.
That set the tone for the rest of the race. The six that were able to pass ahead of the ship formed a leading group, with a long gap between them and the chasing pack, who had diverted round the car carrier’s stern. Among that pack was ABB, one of whose guests was from UECC.
It was a gap that had an effect on strategy later on. As one crew member from the leading group, the Plymouth Nautical Degree Association, explained later, when it came to the downwind run on the second lap, they had four boats in front of them, which they would not be able to catch even if they hoisted the spinnaker, and then a long gap behind them to the sixth-placed boat, who would not catch them unless they made a mistake – such as making a mess of flying their kite. So the decision was easy: no spinnaker.
In fact, so focused had they been on their sailing that, asked how the car carrier had affected them, this crew member was a bit vague. “I hadn’t noticed it, to be honest.” Nor, it seems, had they noticed the windward mark, picking up some of its red paint as they lay alongside it for a few moments. If a penalty was due as a result, the press boat did not picture it being taken.
Safety at Sea International’s team name of Who Dares Wins seemed well chosen in this first race. And, for all its focus on safety, the magazine’s boat has built a reputation in recent years for its incident-strewn wake.
It had already lost a navigation light at the start and, at the windward mark on the second race, it encountered “a competitor who, though also on starboard, decided to tack into our water”, its report recalls. “This presented the ramming tactician with another opportunity and the remnants of our port navigation light were left in his transom.”
The downwind leg on the second lap enticed a few more spinnakers from their bags, with V.Ships crediting their kite with clawing back some of the places they lost when they cut their genoa sheet. They finished that race in 14th place, one behind Dorchester, who later reflected that “the only saving grace for our team in the first race was beating our ship management rivals by a comfortable three seconds.”
At the front of the fleet, however, Holman Fenwick & Willan had maintained their lead to finish first, followed by Trinity House – whose practice had clearly paid dividends – LOC and Wärtsilä, with PYNDA finishing as the best-placed newcomers.
ON MANOEUVRES
It was a common wartime tactic: taking a zig-zag route to confuse the enemy’s submarines and avoid trouble. But when the course for the second race was announced, its zig-zag route across the Solent seemed designed to create trouble.
It was a series of upwind and downwind legs, concertinaed into a short stretch of water that would inevitably create clashes between leading boats on the run and following crews still tacking to windward.
Was it all too complicated for Lloyd’s Register Rail, who radioed the committee boat to retire just before the race got under way? No, they assured Fairplay’s scribbler later; the main halyard broke just five minutes before the race was due to start.
It was a confused start, with Michael Else & Co calling for water from ABB before hitting its stern and the outer mark. Meanwhile, Wärtsilä were again first across the line, followed by Lloyd’s Register EMEA – the team that had opted for a cautious strategy. Nonetheless, “the afternoon saw all aboard working as one responsive team” and they looked forward to being in the thick of the action. However, “we did of course slip down the pack again but the sun was shining, the conversation engaging and witty and we all had an enjoyable race” – apart from one crew member who slid across the roof and enjoyed a saltwater foot spa.
V.Ships also made a good start and put in a quick tack to lead a breakaway group off on port tack. It seemed to be a good idea and led to a commendable final position in that race. But on later reflection, the crew’s reporter marked it down as one of their questionable tactical decisions, believing that it lost them valuable ground.
It was only at the windward mark that the respective strategies show their worth and, by then, Wärtsilä had lost its lead to Holman Fenwick & Willan.
It was at this mark that the deviousness of the course became apparent. With just a short run to the leeward mark before having to turn again, there was a short period when boats were tacking southwards on two parallel legs of the course while others were running northwards in the narrow space between them.
With the short legs, the press boat could not watch every turn in this race and that included the leeward mark, where the collision took place. But our reporter’s – by now soggy – notebook records a radioed protest about an encounter involving ABB and Charles Taylor & Co. Explaining their actions later, ABB crew members described a confusion of at least four boats approaching the mark.
They collided with one that they described as cutting across the pack. “But in fairness to him, it was the guy in front who caused the mayhem.” Sadly, there is no record which team that was. “Technically, we were in the wrong,” conceded one crew member, “but we had nowhere to go.”
Gray Page’s strategy was that “discretion was the better part of valour” during close encounters with the enemy. They estimated they were fourth at the start and held that position to the first mark, where they were were caught in a crowd. They were calling for water and “could have forced them away”, but “we didn’t want to crash the boat”. Their cautious approach cost them four places.
With a pair of short downwind legs before a final run for the line, opportunities to use a spinnaker were limited. Dorchester described their performance in the second race as lacklustre, citing “ a period of messing about with the kite during which we drifted somewhat tangentially to the rest of the fleet. Several positions were lost during this ill-considered manoeuvre.”
And Lloyd’s Register EMEA found similar frustrations as they failed to get their kite set on the first downwind leg “after numerous attempts”, their report says. Their tacking was equally fraught, not least for their skipper who was working at the mast when the helmsman decided to put in a quick tack. “Moving between the mast and genoa I was horrified to see that the sheets had got wrapped around my legs and were rising fast with the tension coming on and about to threaten my main machinery. I have never screamed an instruction to the cockpit so loudly.”
On the Safety at Sea boat, there was general disappointment that the second race “presented no ramming opportunities”. Perhaps that is why its log keeper reports that the beer that was taken as they finished sixth was allowed “more as a means of consolation than celebration.”
Bringing up the rear on the water – although, on paper, not last in either race – was MTI International. Their record of the day reports a futile search for the other competitors during the first race and, “following a robust lunch of Stella Artois and the smallest glass of red, we were ready to attack the fleet in the second race. Up with the winners at the start and feeling very confident we gradually saw all the boats pull away and again disappear over the horizon.”
At last, in the final downwind leg of the second race, Wärtsilä and Fairplay break out their fancy spinnakers. For Wärtsilä, the decision was pivotal (see ‘Size Matters’, p4). For Fairplay, purely decorative; its red kite was just a dot on the horizon as the press boat snapped the winners across the line and there was no prospect of it troubling those in the running for prizes.
So the leading group of LOC, Wärtsilä, Holman Fenwick & Willan and Trinity House filed across the finish and headed for the showers ashore, leaving PYNDA to lead the chasing pack home.
Reflecting on their win, LOC’s report of the day pays tribute to their “international crew of mixed experience but uniform enthusiasm.” A foredeck pairing with a combined age of over 100 supported “a wily helm and a tireless mainsail trimmer. We look forward to defending the trophy next year.”