Cowes Week on Pace

Basilica - Happy memories at Cowes Week!

Got back from the Tour on Monday, nice to be a able to unpack my bags!



A few days to sort myself out and then into Cowes Week, in the afterguard of Johnny Vincent's TP52, Pace.

Rio will be the boat on boat competition. The Pace crew have put a fair few regattas in this season which should work in our favour. Pace was class winner at Cork Week, beating several TP52s, so hopefully we can continue the winning streak.

Scratch boat is the Mini-Maxi, Jethou. They should be a fair bit quicker than us on the track but on handicap, who knows?

Sailing on home waters which is always nice, the Solent is a great place to sail and in recent years I haven't had that much opportunity.

I have had some memorable times here, in loads of different boats, this will be the first time I have raced with Johnny Vincent on Pace.

Looking forward to a good week

More soon,

Robert

5th Overall

It's been a tough,hard race. Especially as we have not rotated the crew over the crew over the last month.

Oman Sail Renaissance have done well to come fifth in this high class fleet and hopefully, next year with a new boat and probably with more international teams we can aim for a podium finish. I definitely think that is achievable.

We struggled a bit in the light, a problem we can definitely put right and the Omani sailors now have some really good experience and knowledge which will stand us in good stead for the next event.

People may wonder why I decided to do this event? Well if you have never done the Tour Voile you will not realise what an amazing event it is. It is tough, Farr 30s are difficult boats to sail, next year with the new boats it will be a bit easier on the crew and Oman Sail have confirmed that we will be racing in the Tour Voile 2011 and we hope to really take good account of ourselves by next July.

It ha been a great experience but I am looking forward to some time with Leslie and my fishing rod, once I get back to Hamble.

Best wishes,

Robert.

Into the Med

It's been tough going, to be honest. The Tour is non-stop, we have very little time to reflect on things as we are just full-on into the next stage.At the start we aimed for a top five and that is exactly where we are at the moment but we are re-setting our goal. A podium finish is very much achieveable.

From here on in, we will be sailing in the Mediterranean and we have just arrived in Port Camargue and having a day off before racing starts tomorrow. There is little wind but seabreeze should develop tomorrow, maybe as much as 12 knots.

We are all in good shape and looking forward to the final push to finish the Tour.

Robert

Past half way

L'orient inshore race today - 2nd
Overall placing in the Tour - 6th

'We've now pretty much passed the half way point in this race and its been as competitive and challenging as I expected. We've had some great results, some average ones and only one shocker, so pretty consistent all in all which is the key to doing well in this race. What we need to do now if to convert a few more top results to move back up the leaderboard.

Generally the team is happy with progress to date. To do well in this race you need to keep fresh, ideally rotate team members a bit and keep the energy levels high. The leaders so far have demonstrated a better knowledge of the French coast and seem quicker in the lighter breeze, we have not been able to do any sail development and that shows up in these tricky conditions.

Our strategy going forward is to keep consistent, still aiming for the top results obviously. It all looks pretty light going forward but with less tidal influence which is good. The racing has been ultra close, all very exciting.

The Omani guys on our team have doing fantastically well - from learning to sail earlier this year, to now competing internationally, in a really tough event is a steep learning curve for anyone and they are doing really well and making a great contribution to the team.

Thinking ahead, the new class M34 for 2011 is going to be great for this epic event. Perhaps in the first year there will not be so many boats but it will be good for newcomers like Oman Sail to get a jump on some of the teams that have been doing it in Mumm 30s for 10-15 years. The Oman Sail new boat should be ready soon and we will bring it to the UK and get stuck into training as soon as possible.

But for now, we have the 2nd half of this event to tackle and our focus lies on the racing ahead. Time for a few hours kip now after this morning's race before we dock off at 2000 hrs this evening and head to Talmont St Hilaire for the next stop.

Robert

Rock hopping in the Atlantic

Oman Sail Renaissance back up to 5th in the Tour de Voile á la France 2010.

The first big offshore for the Tour was the 200 mile, Dieppe to Pleneuf-Val-Andre, around the Cherbourg peninsular. Conditions were light to moderate and there was plenty of rock hopping up the shore, to get out of the tide which at times was running at six knots. It was a really difficult race tactically and our overall strategy was to stay in the same water as the boats that are leading overall.

We made one little mistake which cost us dearly; we got caught in a tidal whirlpool and never made up the ground we lost, to come sixteenth which was disappointing. However, we bounced back to score a bullet inshore which has put us back in the hunt and we are currently lying 5th.

Next up, Oman Sail Renaissance have another 200 mile offshore race to L’Orient. Overall, it is looking like it will be a long light-airs race, we should get some sea breeze in the afternoon and perhaps some very light wind at night off the land. It seems that we will have another game of cat and mouse!

Oman Sail Renaissance are in great spirits but we are a bit tired, however this is the last long offshore race of the Tour and we are determined to do better than our last excursion on the Atlantic coast.

A bit tired but still having fun!

Robert

Calais to Dieppe 126 miles

Well I said it would be a great adventure! After damaging the boat on route to Calais we had two very eventful inshore races. Oman Sail-Renaissance has great boat speed and we showed it in the first race, a bullet is a great way to come back and it was really satisfying and filled the team full of confidence.

However, we were soon brought back down to earth, getting disqualified in the second inshore race!

“If you worried about falling off the bike, you’d never get on.” Lance Armstrong.

The Tour is a long race, just like the well-known Tour de France on road bikes; it is a marathon not a sprint.

There is plenty of sailing between now and the finish at the end of July in La Seyne sur Mer.

Still having fun!

Robert

Oman Sail-Renaissance are currently racing offshore from Calais to Dieppe. The second offshore but much longer than the first 126 miles.