All Go at Sailing Logic

Manches Cup Victory for Sailing Logic Boat

For the third consecutive year the Manches Cup provided all the competitors with testing conditions in over thirty knots of wind. Ras Turner was hosting Shearman & Sterling Solicitors aboard Lion, one of our Reflex 38s.

Lion had a great first race finishing 2nd followed by a fantastic 1st place in the 2nd race. This secured victory for Shearman and Sterling in class 2b of the Manches Cup.

The legendary Manches Cup party took place on Saturday night in the Cowes Yacht Haven. Some of our racing skippers and mates were spotted out and photographs will be posted here later in the week.

A Successful Weekend!!

As the first of the Fastnet Crews trickled in to Ocean Village on Friday evening, the Sailing Logic team were hard still hard at work- indeed Brian pointed out, from his vantage point in the RSYC bar, that we were scurrying around like, ‘demented ants’ on the pontoon!! It was definitely worth it though as the seven boats looked very impressive lined up in front of the yacht club with their Sailing Logic flags flying proudly.

Saturday morning began with an introduction to all the Sailing Logic Fastnet Teams by Philippe and Allie and a briefing of what to expect over the coming few months. The skippers and mates met their crews over a fantastic breakfast of bacon rolls and coffee, supplied by the yacht club, before heading down to their boats, for group photos in our new jackets.

It was a pretty breezy morning, even in the marina, but the sunshine was doing its best to break through, and after a full safety brief and run through of the sails and lines a lot of confused looking crews headed out for an afternoon’s training on the water!! It turned out to be a brilliant day on the water and all those confused looking faces were replaced with big grins by the end of the day, despite a baptism of fire into the training weekend, with 30knots of wind blowing through the Solent! One of the Reflex’s even managed to put a kite up and could be seen storming back from the Western Solent towards Southampton water. It also proved to be a great opportunity for most of the boats to get out their bright orange storm sails, which are used when it gets very windy!

Unfortunately for Puma Logic, their throttle cable broke, just as they were leaving the marina and with nothing they could do about it, ended up driving into a pontoon. Fortunately, they managed to miss all surrounding boats but this meant their weekend’s training was cut short as they headed back to Shamrock Quay to survey the damage.

This did nothing to stop the other crews renaming Puma, ‘Crash Logic’ for the evening and Allie even bought Philippe a copy of the RYA Day Skipper notes, so he could read up on his boat handling!!

By seven in the evening, all the crews had gathered in the Royal Southampton Yacht Club for dinner, awaiting the guest speaker: Allie then introduced Mike Golding, who certainly impressed us all (except Craig, who didn’t know who he was!!) It was great to be inspired by such a world class sailor, and reminded us all that the success of our campaigns will depend on putting in 100%, but that the sense of achievement at the end will be worth it!!

The Southampton Yacht Club did an amazing job of looking after us over the weekend and the meal on Saturday was delicious- a huge thank you to them.

Inevitably, with 73 people together, the evening spiralled towards the Frog and Frigate and about forty Sailing Logic crew (and one Sailing Logic Race Director) were allegedly dancing on tables until the early hours.

Needless to say there were a few sore heads on Sunday morning, but nothing that 25knots of wind and heavy rain out on the water wouldn’t sort out and the teams headed out early to make the most of our second day!!

We hope that everyone had a great weekend that met or exceeded your expectations. (Most of) the Sailing Logic skippers and mates had a fantastic weekend and are now thoroughly looking forward to the first race, to Eddystone Lighthouse and back, in three weeks time. We hope there will be some close racing between the Sailing Logic fleet and good results all round.

Lastly, we would also like to say thank you very much to Mike Golding for taking time out of his busy schedule and coming to say a few words for us.

First Fastnet Training Weekend

Its been flat out all week, here at Sailing Logic, as we have been working hard to get the fleet ready for the first Fastnet training weekend- we certainly can’t believe its that time already!

The yachts are polished and sparkling and we are going to be spending the afternoon moving them round to Ocean Village. The new Sailing Logic flags will be flying from the forestays too so they should be easy to spot!

There looks set to be some good breeze for the weekend and we might even see some sunny spells!

Dinner for 75 people is booked at the Royal Southampton Yacht Club on Saturday evening and a world famous yachtsman is the guest speaker for the evening.

The Sailing Logic Team are really excited about this weekend are really looking forward to meeting all the crew tomorrow morning.

BRING IT ON!!!!!

Cervantes Trophy Race- Podium Finish for Puma!!

The first RORC race of the season across the Channel to Le Havre started on Saturday morning in a light NE breeze, with a fully rested, raring to go, crew aboard Puma Logic. Even Philippe was quite excited as he unveiled two brand new sails!

Unfortunately, the strong easterly going tide was building and just pushed us over the line at the start, which meant we had to turn around and start again, five minutes late: 117 miles to go and an entire fleet ahead of us certainly concentrated our efforts to race to the best of our ability!

We steadily crawled our way back through some of the fleet and by the afternoon the sun had come out, we had negotiated a calm patch, rounded Rustington Outfall Light Buoy and were making our way south in a consistent 10knots of North West.

By nightfall, we had pulled ahead of all the boats nearby, proving that it pays to focus all the time. Of course, perfect conditions for our asymmetric and later the brand new jib top, definitely helped.

Eventually, the breeze filled in a bit from the NW, squeezing the fleet together and we crossed the finish line at 0505 to take 3rd place, only a minute behind 2nd on corrected.

All in all, a great start to the offshore racing season!