London Business School's Alumni "White" team won the Division A title at the annual Global MBA Trophy sailing regatta in Athens at the weekend, and tied on points with the Regatta's overall winners and Division B champions, Insead 1.
17 teams from 11 business schools from Europe and the USA lined up on the startline in the Saronic Gulf, just off the headland on which sits the Yacht Club of Greece's imposing club house. The regatta, now in it's fourth year is organised jointly by London Business School's Alumni Sailing Club, It's Greek Alumni Association and the Yacht Club of Greece.
London Business School had entered four crews: two from the LBS Sailing Club, including the now legendary all- women's crew, and two from the Alumni Sailing Club. The Alumni Club's "team white" entry was their strongest yet, having finally persuaded one of our top helmsmen, Howard Farbrother to join what was a very experienced crew. The "team Red" Alumni crew was skippered by Dylan Browne,while the second student crew was skippered by Ingrid Van Wees, who we're gradually turning into an LBS-er, despite her Insead roots. Miranda Linsay-Finn, as ever, skippered the all- women crew, who made up for their disadvantages on what were incredibly physical boats to sail by their fearsome reputation in the bars and clubs aferwards.
The fleet were divided into two divisions: Division A, sailing 43ft Jeanneau Sun Odysseys was composed of the home team (LBS Team White), the defending champions (Tuck) and the "A" teams of the first five schools to enter the regatta. Division A were sailing a mixture of Bavaria 38s and 39s and a Dufour 395 and competing under handicap. Both divisions started and finished on the same lines, and were also scored overall on handicap. All boats had cruising Gennekers as downwind sails.
Courses were "One Triangle and a Sausage" for those of you who know or care what that means. BAsically we had two beats, a reaching leg with a forced gybe and a run, which gave three passing lanes assuming the wind stayed steady.
As out- and- out cruising boats, they took a lot of muscle to sail fast: Team White's Jeanneau 43 took five big men to tack the Genoa around the multiple stays on the foredeck, and two or three men to pull the mainsail traveller up, and centre the main during the Gybe, so as to not have to be continually changing lines on the winches.
Team White had a poor start on Race 1, making third place at the top mark behind Warwick and Tuck, and being unable to take enough out of them on the second beat or the run to close the gap. We finished third, with Insead's Bavaria just behind us. Team Red led in the rest of the Bavarias
Race 2 found us our first bullet: We were again late off the blocks, and arrived at the top mark, on the starboard lay-line with Warwick 5-6 boat lengths ahead. Tuck tacked in front of them, and then the two boats' rigs collided. As they tried to disentangle themselves, we sailed over the top, popped the Spinnaker and sailed the remaining three legs on our own. Dylan from Team Red fondly remembers the same incident a few minutes later: "I guess my favourite moment was overtaking Warwick when their asym was underwater ... something that we thankfully avoided. Team Red came in second in division 2 in that race.
Race 3, and a second bullet. This time, we finally had a decent start, and were lead boat by the time we'd reached the top mark for the second time, despite spending the whole of the first reaching leg with an hourglassed kite, following a messed up hoist. What followed was a wonderful demonstration of the independent-mindedness of the fleet: After the second upwind mark, we headed for a large inflatable buoy, thinking it was the downwind mark, only to find out that this was part of a Dinghy race course and that our mark was half a mile away to the left. To our astonishment the whole fleet followed us around the wrong mark, and onto the finish, with no -one spotting the error, cutting the corner and taking our result away from us. Team Red were second to cross the line and take the bullet in Division B, in a race where Tuck were still disabled from their crash in race 2.
Day one ended with London Business School Alums Team White leading Division A and the overall standings, while Team Red led Division B. Insead were poised dangerously in second place overall. A frightening place to be as the first night's party began. Warwick were disqualified from race 2 after a protest hearing.
Day two dawned, and Insead sailed an excellent race 4: a great start, and then pointing their Bavaria higher than all the Jeanneaus, and matching the longer boats for speed. LBS White came in second, taking our third bullet in Division A.
In LBS "Red", Dylan remembers "In general there weren't too many starboard calls as the fleet tended to spread out on the upwind legs, but we did have a nice luffing match with Warwick and MIP on the cross wind leg."
Race 5 was our comeuppance: It started badly: we were late at the pin end, sailing too slowly and bearing down onto team "Red". Dylan and crew gallantly took one for the team, bearing away, rather than holding their line and forcing us to tack with no boat speed. We proceeded to make their sacrifice worth nothing. We were covered on Starboard by Warwick, having to tack near the corner. Coming in on port towards the top mark, we tacked inside a boat who thought he was on the ley- line, and then bloody- mindedly carried on believing he wqas, despite all evidence to the contrary. Unable to tack, we were eventually forced to gybe around, dodging Team Red again as they approached, and come back in at the end of the train of boats at the mark, losing 4- 5 places in the process. This wasn't the end of our troubles, however, as the Instituto De Empresa crew decided to come in on the port ley-line and try to tack in between us and the mark into a space that wasn't there and to which they had no rights. I saw the anchor on their bows coming towards me, connect with the bimini support, and raise the bow of their boat to hit us on the aft port quarter.
"Protest" yelled, we managed to sail away, and pull back a place or two,to finish a very disappointing eighth. Meanwhile, Dylan remembers "... of course how could we forget IE towing away the windward mark with MIP, Columbia and ourselves chasing an elusive buoy - this happened after my three attempts to rejoin the traffic flow after I gibed out on the mark to let LBS 1 go through"
Also in that fifth race, Warwick finished a disasterous regatta for them by hitting the committee boat with their boom as they cme into the finish, to be disqualified from their second race of the regatta.
Race 6 was an exercise in light and shifting winds. We were 4th- 5th at the top mark, unable to hoist on the first reach, and then forced to hoist and then gybe at the gybe mark, unable to catch up on those who decided to stay with just white sails. On the final run in, Howard took a bit of a flyer, deciding to stay high and fast as the breeze died, and then try to come in on a relatively fast reach to the finish, as Warwick were slowly closing in on a run. In the end, with Richard up on the bow trying to work out who crossed the line first, we beat them by a mere 3 seconds.
Team Red faced a moment on the cross wind leg when a fisherman lost the plot .. there were three boats bearing down on him and he couldn't move as his nets were out, the middle boat was undertaking LBS (furthest upwind) and on collision for him .. I guess we passed him with a few meters to spare on either side. Nobody understood what he was shouting but he was very red in the face. Finally there was that wind shift approaching the top mark: five boats were on the lay line tacking up to the windward mark and then all of a sudden we were 15 degrees off it, in the ensuing frustration we all stalled (vainly attempting to hold the original heading) and sat there bunched up a few boat lengths down wind of the mark, unable to tack as MIP was coming through on a higher heading.
Team White finished with three firsts and two seconds, leading division A by 6 points from Bocconi and WHU Kellogg, with Warwick and Tuck never quite recovering their form from race 1. Team Red's second day could not match the glory of the first and they ended up fourth in division B, behind Insead with three bullets a second and a third, Rotterdam and Columbia/Oxford.
In the overall, LBS White were tied on points with Insead, who won in the end by only having a 6th place to discard, compared to our 8th.
Miranda and Ingrid brought their crews in in 7th and 8th respectively in division B.
Final Results:
Overall:
Division A: http://www.robcotterill.com/Athens-Results/mba09_ovr.htm
Division B: http://www.robcotterill.com/Athens-Results/mba09_div_b
The event website: http://www.globalmbatrophy.com/gmt/
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