I just finished a busy month of racing in March with three regattas. First up was the Farr 40 Miami Invitational in mid-March where I sailed as tactician onboard STRUNTJE LIGHT. We sailed along the coast, directly in front of South Beach. Conditions were rough and windy the first few days, and then very light for the final day. Very challenging conditions, where you had to trust your instincts. We started off on a blinder, scoring 1-2-1-2, and leading the regatta after the first day of racing. We managed to continue leading the four-day regatta right through to the final day, and finished one point ahead of PLENTY to take the win. Great result for our team as we prepare for the Farr 40 Worlds in August in Newport, RI.

Next up for me was the Loro Piana Super Yacht Regatta in Virgin Gorda, BVI where I sail as helmsman on P2, the Briand 125. This is our fifth season sailing together and we have a full schedule planned for the year, starting with three events in the Caribbean, and then moving over to do four in the Med. The Virgin Gorda event was a great one, with 20 yachts, light to moderate winds, and close racing around all the islands and rocks in the BVI. The setting in North Sound and the 5 star quality of the new Yacht Club Costa Smeralda make this event really special. Hopefully they will keep it this way and not allow their success to grow it too big. The racing was close and we went into the final day with a chance to win, but ended up tied for 3rd with the J Class HANUMAN.

The final event for me was the St. Barths Bucket at the end of March, also on P2. This is the biggest Super Yacht event in the world, with 36 yachts competing. The entries included 5 J Class yachts racing in their own class, the first time since the 1930’s that this many of the classic America’s Cup designs have sailed together. Racing was great, with moderate winds on the first day, followed by solid 20 knot trade winds on the final two days to test the crew and equipment on these huge boats. We went into the final day in a three way tie for first, and ended up tied for first on points with UNFURLED, but finishing second after the tie break system was applied. Tough to be so close and not win it, but we sailed a great regatta and did all we could to pull off a victory.

All good,
peter

I’ve just returned from the 2013 Cape Fling regatta in Cape Town. Sailed the new Cape Fling, a Kerr 46 recently built at McConaghy Boats in China. Great boat, well built and finished, nice deck layout and controls, good balance, good upwind performance, and some exciting speeds off wind.

The weather in Cape Town is wild, with some incredibly strong winds. In the week that I was there, it blew between 20-40kts each day! And sailing in Table Bay can be quite tricky, with the wind often fighting between the Southeasterly and Southwesterly, on either side of Table Mountain, and sometimes with a void in between the two winds.

Race one was 20-30 kts and an 8 leg zig zag around Table Bay. Our closest competition was the GP 42 Puma, so we used them as our benchmark. We were able to put our time plus some on them upwind, and just hold on them downwind, and won by 3 minutes. Race two was a lottery, with the two winds fighting each other, and a void in the middle moving around. We sailed a good race, worked out a nice lead, only to have the wind shuffle the fleet on the final leg, giving us a 4th. The final race was a 2 mile windward/leeward, 4 laps, started in the lee of Table Mountain where the RC could anchor, and then a solid 25-35 kts on the race course. We had a great start, hit the wind line, and took off downwind. After 2 laps and building a good lead, we had a crew error and lost our spinnaker over the side, and had to cut everything away to avoid damaging the boat and rig. We deemed it unwise to continue racing with the new boat partially damaged in these extreme conditions, so retired from the race. This dropped us to 4th in the overall standings, but not bad considering. It was a great lesson for a new team and the boat showed it has potential. The team will need to work on some boat handling issues and learn how to drop spinnakers in the extreme high winds they often get. But they have a great boat to challenge them, and reward them with some great rides once they have it tamed.

After traveling for over 2 days to get there, I decided to spend a few extra days exploring and enjoying the country. Wild is the one word I have for the place. Wild weather, scenery, hikes, and animal life were the moments and images I came away with. And I loved it.

Happy New Year! I have a busy and exciting year ahead, so I’m hoping for a great 2013, and wish the same to everyone. I’ve updated my schedule here online and will report as the events unfold.

Following is a welcome letter I recently did as the new president of the Caribbean Sailing Association. Again, best wishes for 2013!
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Welcome to a new year, and a new slate of officers to the CSA. I write to you as the new president, but also as one who has been involved with the CSA for a long time. I was born in the Virgin Islands, and grew up racing in the “old days” of the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s under the CSA rule. I have also served as a Vice President of CSA for many years, both in the 90’s, and then again these past few years. From this I hope to bring a knowledge and respect for our past at CSA, along with new energy and progress for our future.

Our CSA has evolved into a fantastic organization. My immediate predecessor Cary Byerly and her team of officers did an incredible job these past few years in growing and marketing the CSA into what it is today. She initiated an annual Regatta Organizers conference, where the real stakeholders of the CSA rule get together to share challenges, ideas, and strategies. I know of no other region in the world where this cooperation takes place.

I believe the Caribbean has the potential to become one of the premiere sailing regions of the world, for everything from dinghy sailing to grand prix racing. The CSA is the one organization that unifies us all and can help us reach this potential. Alongside a great team of officers from all the various islands of the region, we look forward to achieving great things for our CSA in the year ahead.

Peter Holmberg

Finally home from six back-to-back events, covering a full eight weeks on the road.  Longer than I like to be away at one time, and probably more racing than is good for me in a short period.   There were definitely some periods where my performance was inconsistent, which may have been a sign of burn-out.  In the future I will make sure i schedule in enough breaks between events to recharge my battery.

Having said all that, each of the events were quite special.  Starting with a Melges 32 training session with just 12 other boats in Newport in August to help us all prepare for the Worlds.  It is really smart for teams to combine resources and share information in cases like this where we are not sailing full time.  Lots of good information, everyone gains, and us being one of the newer/younger teams, we probably benefited the most.

Next up for me was the Newport Bucket on the Briand 125′ P2.  We are in our third year campaigning this large boat and it is amazing how we continue to modify and improve every time we race.  It was a light air event, so it tested us in conditions we had not had in a while.  We learned heaps, and sailed better each day, eventually finishing 2nd to INDIO, a higher performance Wally 100.

Next up was the Rolex Maxi Worlds in Sardina on the RP 82 Highland Fling.  There is a separate report below on this event, but basically we finished tied for 1st, and had a super time as usual.

Following this event was the Farr 40 Worlds in Chicago, where I did tactics on a German boat named Struntje Light.  It was a great regatta, with everything from 0-30 knot winds, huge steep seas, and really good racing.  In the tough and very talented 20 boat fleet, we had a score line of 18,1,1,21,2,1,2,12,4.  Most events allow one or two discards, but this one didn’t.  Needless to say, we would have done pretty darn good IF we could have thrown out our deep results.  I should also say that we should have tried harder to avoid having pbad results, meaning take less risk at times.  The boat that won the worlds, never won an actual race, but also never had a score worse than 7th!  Pretty interesting lessons learned from this event.

Two hours after the last race I was on a plane to Newport for the Melges 32 worlds.   Arguably the hottest class around these days, with professional teams and all the best talent in the game.  I was sailing as tactician on INTAC, for an owner from the BVI.  Our team have been together for about eight months leading up to the Worlds, so still on the learning curve and realistic about our chances, but hoping to sail well and get a descent result.  The conditions turned out to be extremely challenging, both light and shifty, and strong wind and waves.  On the light days you really needed to have speed and manage the shifts and fleet.  And on the windy days, boat handling became king.  But bottom line, in a tough fleet like this, if i could have one thing, it would be speed.  If you had speed,  your options opened up, and you could choose where to go.  But if you were average or slower than others, you got dictated to.  We were often wanting for more speed, so this hurt us, but I also could have adjusted my strategy and done a better job positioning us given this fact.  But in the end our team felt good, that we sailed hard, learned a lot, and had a good time together.  Our final result was 17th, so more to shoot for in the coming year.

My final event of this tour was the Campbell Cup in Long Beach, CA.  I was calling tactics on the Santa Cruz 70 HOLUA.  We had 5 nearly identical boats in our class, so some really fun close racing.  I raced the 1984 Olympics in these same waters and it really is one of the best places to sail, with a building breeze each day starting at noon, giving you a range of wind speeds over the course of the afternoon.  Our team did a great job and we managed to win the event by 3 points, so a nice final result to my eight week tour!

I now have a few weeks to rest and recover, and then my next events will be a series of Match Races here in the Caribbean.  This will be good fun, getting to do some of my favorite style of sailing with my local crew, in my home waters.

All good,
Peter

Just finished racing in the Rolex Maxi Regatta in Sardinia Italy on the RP 82 Highland Fling.  Sardinia offered up the usual mix of conditions with winds between 0 and 18 knots.  It also provided some beautiful sailing amongst the hundreds of rocks and islands around the Porto Cervo area where the racing is based out of.

All the boats are divided into four different divisions and we were in the Maxi Racing class.  Our toughest competitors were Esmit Europa, a RP 100 with a canting  keel, and the 135 foot J boat Valsheda.  Comparing our boat to these, we are a very wide bodied hull which has great stability and does best in 20+ knot winds.  Esmit Europa is narrow with a very tall rig and excells in under 12, while Valsheda loves the 10-20 knot wind range.  

So with the 0-18 winds that we had all week, it tended to favor either one of our competitors, but never us.  Each day one of them would win, we would come second, and the other third.  Our score line at the end of the regatta was 2,2,2,2.  Theirs was 1,3,1,3 and 3,1,3,1.  And the final result was a three way tie for first, each of us with eight points.  Unfortunately for us the tie break system went their way, so Esmit Europa wins, Valsheda second, and us third.  Bugger!  But personally, I score us as tied for first!

A couple highlights of the week was race one when we were 3 minutes from the finish and hit an unmarked rock at full speed, taking us from 13 knots to 0, sending crew flying, losing one wheel and all hydraulics, and taking a huge chunk of lead out of our keel.  We limped across the line at half speed, and still beat Esmit by 14 seconds.  Luckily racing was canceled the next day for high winds and sea and we were able to lift the boat out by crane in the main port of Olbia and work through the night repairing the keel in time for race two.

Our second highlight of the week was catching a tow in the wake of the 200+ foot Hetarios as they passed near us in race 3.  We were reaching along at a good clip and as they passed below us we turned down to surf their wake.  Our boat did beautifully, accelerating quickly and jumping to 20knots as  we scooted along behind this bigger and faster moving yacht, tucked in and surfing in and out of their wake, spray flying, doing their faster speed for about five minutes.  

The final highlight was just after this tow as we set the A4 spinnaker for a fast ride downwind.  Everyone was just getting sorted when the jammer holding the forward corner of the sail failed and the sail went sideways, rather than in front of us.  The boat was immediately thrown on it’s side, sails in the water, until the wind went from the sails and  the lead keel brings the boat back upright.  Nobody hurt or lost overboard, so sheet back on and take off again at full pace.  A media helicopter just happened to be following us at the time, so this pretty spectacular wipe out was plastered everywhere by that evening.

So another great week of racing in Sardina which is one of the most beautiful and challenging places to sail in the world.  Add in the great food we enjoyed all week and the friendly Italian people, and it’s easy to see why it’s so popular.

I am now in route directly to my next event, the Farr 40 Worlds in Chicago.  I have five events in a row on this trip and it will be eight weeks before I return home, so as much as I love what I do for a living, I will be ready for a little break when it’s over.

Ciao, from 30,000 feet.

Just returned from two great events in July, Copa del Rey in Palma Majorca, Spain and the Melges 32 Nationals in Newport, RI. Copa was great, sailing the RP82 Highland Fling against the hot mini-maxi class of 72 footers. We went there knowing the custom racers were going to beat us on handicap, but we were going to learn a lot, and it panned out exactly that way. We had excellent close racing, learned heaps on sailing our boat better, got immediate performance feedback, and improved tremendously as a team. This was great training for our next event which is the Maxi Worlds in Sardinia in September.

My next event was the Melges 32 regatta in Newport. Our Worlds are there the end of September, so we are trying to get in all the racing we can in the area. The fleet was pretty tough, with 26 boats, and everyone gearing up for the Worlds. We won the last race, and finished 10th for the event, so an OK result for our new team and owner.

Next up is a training session again in Newport on the Melges in the middle of August, followed by the Newport Bucket on the Briand 130 P2. Should be fun going from hiking out wet and cold on the 32 foot Melges, to driving a 130 foot Superyacht with 30 crew. Both just as challenging, and some great diversity which I really enjoy, and makes this sport so much fun.

Just wrapped up sailing at the Farr 40 NA’s here in Newport.  Sailed with Stuntje Light from Germany, although most of the crew are Italians.  We had an up and down regatta, wining a couple races, but having a few shockers also.  In the end we finished up 3rd, so not all bad.  They have asked me to sign on for the Worlds in Chicago in September, so hopefully we will take all we learned from this event and improve on our strengths, and just avoid the big dips.  A great team, fun to be back in the Farr 40 class, and looking forward to sailing in Chicago.  Here’s the link to the regatta for pictures and video - http://www.farr40.org/

Ciao, peter

Highland Fling 82 in action in Sardinia

Here is a link to a very nice video of us racing Highland Fling in Sardinia.  Really shows what a great boat she is.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=diao7q7L8yE&feature=relmfu

The international race circuit in the Caribbean wrapped up with Antigua Sailing Week in May.  You would have to rate the overall season as another good one, with solid trade winds at most events, no sailing days lost to weather, a healthy mix of grand prix boats, and very little whining about ratings.  Considering our current world economy, nice to see these events delivering enough quality racing and fun to draw the visiting owners and teams back each year.
 
An issue which is not unique to the Caribbean is the crowding of the race calendar.  New events get created, small regattas grow into big ones, and no events retire, which leaves us with too many events fighting for a place on the race calendar.  Luckily we have the Caribbean Sailing Association (CSA) in the region which does a nice job of uniting us for the many common challenges to small island nations.  I decided to use my VP credentials recently to ask all the major events to consider some adjustments to their dates to better fit within the racing season.  It was a tall ask, to put the good of the overall region above some of their individual regatta interests.  But in true island spirit, all of the events cooperated, some even agreeing to move forward several weeks, which now gives both the local and the visiting sailors the ability to do more events.  The directors have all agreed to meet again in October to look at the long term, perhaps another tweak in 2014 to make the fit even better, and then everyone lock into their week indefinitely.  The CSA website at www.caribbean-sailing.com has the full calendar, with links to each regatta.
 
The Virgin Islands recently teamed up to convince the Melges 32 class to come to the Caribbean for a series of events  in 2013.  A package was put together which allows the boats to ship down right after Key West in January, have an event at the new Costa Smeralda YC in Virgin Gorda, their own class at the Rolex Regatta in St. Thomas, and then back to the BVI for another one or two events before shipping back up in April.  We put together a deal for teams to charter catamarans as their floating base at each event, with room for gear and sails on deck, lots of bunks for crew below, race boats tied along side, and the best way to enjoy a week in the islands.  It’s a nice opportunity for some great racing and we’re hoping many teams from both Europe and the USA take advantage of it.
 
A nice trend recently at all the Caribbean regattas is a shift to more island courses as opposed to the Windward-Leewards which became the international norm over the years.  The challenges of playing the wind, currents, and waves as they are effected by the islands makes all of us better sailors.  This also gives the race committee endless course options to select the balance of windward or reaching for the conditions and the different fleets of boats.  It also allows the sailors to enjoy more of the scenery, half the reason they come down for in the first place.
 
The CSA rating rule seemed to do a nice enough job at determining the correct order of results this past season based on feedback from the sailors.  The big events are fortunate to get enough entries that they can group similar boats, which really helps.  The real test to the rule is when they are forced to put dissimilar boats together.  The simplicity of the CSA rule has worked in our favor over the years, with various factors being used to achieve the desired ratings, but the rule makers need to stay on their game in reviewing if their formula still works to accurately capture the latest performance trends in hull, rig, and sails.  Lots of good discussion is now taking place and hopefully upgrades will happen to keep the rule current.
 
So all in all a good Caribbean season in 2012 and some exciting things to look forward to in 2013.  Now it’s into hurricane season where we all do a bit of praying that nothing blows away before next race season.