London Business School Alumni Sailing Club

Updated Calendar for the rest of 2011

2011-09-11T07:47:00.000-07:00

September
22- 25 Bocconi Regatta 2011
Organiser: Peter Keresztes

October

Sat8- Sun 9
(Sunsail Autumn Series)
Organiser: Brendan Laing

Fri14- Sun 15
Alumni Challenge
Organiser: Rob

November

(Sun 6)
(Sunsail Series Final)
(Orgainser tbc.)

Wed 23
Annual Dinner at RORC
Organiser: Rob

London Business School Retain the ABC trophy

2011-07-03T07:56:00.000-07:00

London Business School raced hard on the final day to retain the Alumni Business Cup Trophy, held in the waters off Venice Lido last week. The Alumni Business Cup, hosted this year by MIP Politecnico Di Milano is one of the premier events in the MBA Sailing league calendar, with the focus very much on the racing: up to 12 races over three days in a fleet of identical Salona 37 yachts.

The participants were: Insead (with three boats), Athens, Chicago Booth, fresh from their victory at the Global MBA Trophy in Rhodes, Columbia, a joint HEC – Insead boat, a joint IE- Rotterdam boat, IMD, LBS, MIP and WU, Vienna.

Thursday, day one of racing saw no one crew dominant. Insead 1 came first in two of the races, but also got a 3 and a 5. Columbia and IMD won the other two races of the day, pulled in a second place each, but also scored low on the other two races, while LBS was consistent, bringing in three thirds and a second. At the end of play, just 4 points separated these four: Insead on 10, LBS and Columbia on 11 and IMD on 13. Races were windward- leeward, twice around on a very short course because of the lack of wind.

That evening was the “onshore game” – unique to this regatta – where crews compete in a different contest to mix up the scores a bit and give the less strong racers a chance to shine. This year’s game involved cooking a “finger food” meal in 45 minutes and giving a presentation on a theme of travel & exploration. This shook up the rankings, with IMD scoring first place, with a presentation involving an elephant and a princess, LBS coming third, dressed up as astronauts, while Insead 1could only manage 6^th and Columbia were relegated down the field with 12^th. Points from the game count towards the regatta result and cannot be discarded.

Friday was incredibly frustrating: The race committee had only just started the fifth race, when they were informed of an upcoming storm by the coastguard. This led to the race being shortened to just the one lap, and then racing being abandoned. Frustratingly, the storm passed over the mainland and the sailing area was pretty much unaffected, leaving many disgruntled crews.

Mixing up the results somewhat, Insead 2 won the race, with IMD in second and Columbia in third. IMD finished the day with a lead of 4 points on 10, with LBS on 14, Insead 1 on 16 and Columbia on 22, and Insead 2 on 24.

Saturday’s racing was much more exciting, with a decent wind at last for races 2- 4. LBS were first to the top mark in the last three races, crossing the line in second place in the first three of the day, and then romping home minutes ahead of the next boat in the final race. Columbia had crossed the finish line ahead in race 3, but were disqualified for being over the start line before the start, which gave LBS another first place. The other two races were won by Insead 1 and the hosts, MIP, while IMD had a bad day, bringing home an 8,3,4,3.

As a result, and after discarding 2 results, LBS won the regatta with 17 points, 3 ahead of IMD on 20 and 5 ahead of Insead 1 on 22. Columbia could not come back from their disastrous onshore performance, and scored 32. Counting sailing results only, LBS also won with 14, followed by Insead 1 with 16, IMD with 19 and Columbia with 20.

Chicago Booth, without their winning skipper, could not repeat their strong form from the Rhodes regatta, coming in last in eight of the races, to win the very fine “wooden spoon” trophy for last place overall.

London Business School are 2010 MBA Sailing League Champions.

2011-05-08T09:46:00.000-07:00

LBS Alumni skipper, Ben Grossman, accepted the MBA Sailing League Trophy on behalf of London Business School's Sailing and Alumni Sailing Clubs at the Global MBA Trophy regatta prizegiving on 30th April.

The trophy will be on display at the Business School until April 2012.

The MBA Sailing League is a season of four international regattas between teams of business school students and/or alumni from across the world, held at four European venues each summer.

The MBA Sailing League rankings are calculated by adding together a team’s scores in each of the four MBA sailing regattas that make up the season. Following the 2011 Global MBA Trophy in Rhodes, this comprises the ABC 2010 in La Ciotat, the Cranfield Regatta 2010 in the Solent, the Rolex MBA’s Cup 2010 in Santa Margharita Ligure, and the GMT 2011.

Here's the story from mbasailing.com:

Cranfield, Bocconi rise, Rotterdam fall down the rankings.

An all British podium:

1 London Business School

2. Warwick Business School

3. Cranfield Business School

Despite their very poor showing at the Bocconi regatta, London Business School had enough in the bag to be able to weather their 18th place and still end 2010 as MBA SAiling League champions.

Bocconi’s first place improved on their 2009 result of 10th, and means that they rise six places into the top 10, lying 8th overall. Cranfield’s second, along with their 5th in the Cranfield regatta means that they rise five places to take a spot on the end of year podium.

Warwick’s steady performances through the year, and their 5th place in Sta Margharita earn them second overall.

On the downside, Rotterdam give up their second place, and drop to 4th as their 19th place in Italy wrecks their chances.

London Business School won the inaugural MBA Sailing League trophy by winning the ABC regatta, coming second in the Cranfield regatta, and by being one of only two schools who attended all four of the season’s regattas in Athens, La Ciotat (France), The Solent (England) and Santa Margharita Ligure (Italy).

Newcomers to the rankings, MIT Sloan, come straight in at number 21. IESE come in at 25th, while Duke drop out of the rankings altogether. Other climbers include IMD, who attended the Bocconi regatta for the first time, while the other big losers include Oxford Said, dropping 5 to 23rd, losing their points for attending in 2009.

School	LBS GMT Athens	ABC La Ciotat	Cran-field Solent	Bocconi Sta Margh-arita	Total	Position	Change
LBS	4	1	2	18	25	1	=
Warwick	15	8	7	5	35	2	1
Cranfield	21	13	5	2	41	3	5
Rotterdam	3	13	8	19	43	4	-2
Manchester	21	13	4	11	49	5	2
Insead	1	5	37	9	52	6	-2
Exeter	21	13	1	21	56	7	-2
Bocconi	5	13	37	1	56	8	6
Smurfit	21	13	3	21	58	9	-3
Kellogg/WHU	10	10	37	4	61	10	=
MIP Milano	2	2	37	21	62	11	-2
Henley	21	13	12	21	67	12	-1
Bath	21	13	13	21	68	13	-1
Portsmouth	21	13	14	21	69	14	-1
Imperial	21	13	18	21	73	15	1
IMD	21	4	37	11	73	16	6
Sauder	21	13	37	3	74	17	=
Columbia	18	13	37	7	75	18	3
WHU	21	13	37	5	76	19	4
HEC	21	6	37	13	77	20	-6
MIT Sloan	21	13	37	7	78	21	10
IE	20	13	37	9	79	22	-3
Said	19	12	28	21	80	23	-5
WU	21	3	37	21	82	24	-4
Aberdeen	21	13	29	21	84	25=	-2
IESE	21	13	37	13	84	25=	6
Chicago	21	13	37	15	86	27=	-2
Wharton	21	13	37	15	86	27=	=
Harvard	21	11	37	17	86	29	-2
Leeds	21	13	32	21	87	30	-4
Ashridge	21	13	36	21	91	31	-2

6th again in Sunsail Series 3

2011-04-25T06:16:00.000-07:00

London Business School repeated their 6th place in the third regatta of the Sunsail series on April 3rd/4th. This was despite managing to mess up the spinnaker flying in as many ways as we could imagine.

In race 1, the crew managed to hoist the spinnaker sideways (clew attached to halyard), which didn't help the speed or control of the boat much, nor did it make for an easy gybe. In race 2, the boat was up with the leaders when the spinnaker was dropped.....and dropped all the way into the sea, where it effectively stopped the boat dead and allowed 3 boats past.

In race 3, there were no spinnaker problems, and the crew finished a strong third. A position that would have been possible n race 4 also, had we not launched the spinnaker between the lifelines, entailing a 5 minute re- rigging operation which lost us places. Later that race, the spinnaker halyard sprang free as we were dropping it.

So all in all, good practice and plenty of mistakes that won't be made again, but not our finest performance on the water.

Joel and his crew came in a creditable 14th, even getting the spinnaker up a couple of times.

Results posted below.

Skipper	Race 1	Race 2	Race 3	Race 4	Total	Position
Tom Taylor	1	5	1	1	3	1st
Benedict East	3	1	6	3	7	2nd
Liam Gardiner	2	3	2	4	7	3rd
Chris Brouard	4	4	4	2	10	4th
Edward Harrison	6	2	5	5	12	5th
Klaus Rasmussen	8	7	3	7	17	6th
Kevin Richardson	5	6	7	8	18	7th
Stuart Harding	7	11	8	6	21	8th
Alexandre Chagoubatov	11	10	10	10	30	9th
Iskander Rakhimov	9	8	18	14	31	10th
Neil Pritchard Meaker	16	13	9	9	31	11th
Kevin Toon	10	12	11	12	33	12th
Vadim Volkovoye	12	9	13	13	34	13th
Joel Shinners	13	17	15	11	39	14th
Paul Robinson	15	14	14	20	43	15th
Vladimir Phillips	17	15	12	17	44	16th
Jim Dunn	14	22	16	15	45	17th
Alexey Tyurin	19	22	17	16	52	18th
Ivan Starostin	20	16	19	18	53	19th
Vladimir Chumak	18	22	20	22	60	20th
Gleb Borukhov	22	22	21	19	62	21st

LBS sixth in Sunsail Racing Series 1

2011-03-25T04:59:00.000-07:00

The LBS team at the first Sunsail racing series regatta of 2011 in the new Benneteau F40s came a very creditable sixth, despite being becalmed and unable to finish the only race on Sunday.

The full results are here.

http://www.sunsail.co.uk/yacht-racing/sunsail-racing-series/results?CID=racing_enews_mar

The picture is of Sunsail 4020 - us - winning a really good pin- end start in the second race.

Alumni Sailing Club Programme 2011

2011-03-05T10:28:00.001-08:00

Alumni Sailing Club : 2011 Calendar

Note: Events in Brackets are tentative and will only take place if organiser and skippers can be found. Any volunteers?

March

19-20
Sunsail Spring Series
Organiser : Rob

April

2-3
Sunsail Spring Series
Organiser : Rob

(17-18)
(Solent Quest)
(Organiser: tbc)

Thu 28th - Sun 1st May
The Global MBA Trophy - Rhodes, Greece.
Event Organiser: Michalia,
Team organisation: Mark/ Ben

May

date tbc.
Summer BBQ

June

Wed 15 - Sun 19 June
Alumni Business Cup
Venice
Organiser: Rob

Fri 24 - Sat 25 June
(Sunsail Scorcher Day)
(Organiser TBC)

July

Fri 15- Sun 17
(Sunsail Summer Series)
(Organiser: tbc)

Fri 22- Sun24
Cranfield Regatta, Solent
Organiser: Klaus

August

Fri 19- Sun 21
(Sunsail Summer Series)
(Organiser: tbc)

? 26- 28?
RSM Regatta 2011
Organiser: tbc

September

? 22- 25?
Bocconni Regatta 2011
Organiser: tbc

October

Sat 2 -Sun 2
(Solent Quest)
Organiser: Tbc

Sat8- Sun 9
(Sunsail Autumn Series)
Organiser: Tbc

Fri14- Sun 1
Alumni Challenge
Organiser: tbc

November

(Sun 6)
(Sunsail Series Final)
(Orgainser tbc.)

? Thu 17?? Annual Dinner at RORC
Organiser: Tbc

LBS wins the 2010 MBA Sailing League title

2011-03-05T10:27:00.000-08:00

More coming later!

London Business School Stay top of the MBA Sailing League!

2010-07-23T06:43:00.000-07:00

After our results at Cranfield and at the ABC, we're 18 points clear at the top of the league with only the Bocconni regatta to come... We'd need to be 24 places behind RSM there to lose our slot. Hopefully there won't be 24 boats in the "A" fleet!

More details at the MBASailing.com site:

The MBA Sailing league combines business school's results at the four MBA regattas which take place every summer: At the Alumni regattas in Athens and the ABC in France as well as the Student regatta in Italy and the open Cranfield regatta.

School	Bocconi Sta Margh- arita ‘09	LBS GMT Athens	ABC La Ciotat	Cran- field Solent	Total	No of Reg- attas	Posi tion	Chg
LBS	11	4	1	2	18	4	1	=
Rotterdam	12	3	13	8	36	3	2	+7
Warwick	6	15	8	7	36	4	3	=
Insead	4	1	5	37	47	3	4	-2
Exeter	15	21	13	1	50	1	5	+18
Smurfit	15	21	13	3	52	1	6	+1
Manchester	15	21	13	4	53	1	7	+22
Cranfield	15	21	13	5	54	1	8	-2
MIP Milano	15	2	2	37	56	2	9	-5
Kellogg/WHU	2	10	10	37	59	3	10	-5

Second Place in the Cranfield Regatta 2010

2010-07-18T00:31:00.001-07:00

The Alumni Crew could not defend their title from 2009, coming in second behind a crew from Exeter University Business School.LBS's student crews came in 17th and 26th.

Cranfield Regatta site: http://www.som.cranfield.ac.uk/som/mba/regatta
This was the 19th annual Cranfield regatta, held on the Solent in Sunsail's fleet of identical Jeanneau Sunfast 37s.

Business Schools from all over the UK took part, along with teams from Rotterdam School of Management, and Smurfitt, Dublin. In all, there were a record 36 boats participating, 17 from Cranfield and 19 from other schools.

It was a much more competitive event than for the last couple of years, with strong crews from Manchester and Smurfitt battling it out for second place, and Rotterdam, Warwick, Henly, Portsmouth and a couple of Cranfield boats being there or thereabouts.

The winners, Exeter, were piloted by a hired "Sunsail" skipper, similar to the Bradford team who won in 2008. They won three out of the five races sailed, discarding one of the two other third places.

The LBS Alumni team managed only 3rd, 4th and 3rd on day 1, and a fourth in the first race on day 2, but salvaged some pride with a first place in the final race, after Exeter haad already secured the trophy. The relatively poor showing could well have something to do with taking strategic decisions on day 1 based on tidal data for mid August (more about this later!). Second place was down to consistent starts and upwind sailing, along with some very slick manouevres and good downwind speed.

Crew: Helm: Klaus Rasmussen, Main: Mark Buckle, Trim: Rob Cotterill, Trim - pole: Miranda Hall, Pit: Fiona Cotterill, Nav/grind/dowse: Emily Murphy, Mast: Thomas Von Othegraven, Bow: Veronique Leroy.

Unfortunately, this couldn't be achieved with an undamaged boat, after an incident with Manchester Business School during the second race pre-start.

The LBS Student 1 boat was helmed by Ben Grossman in his first regatta behind the wheel, with Howard Farbrother there as coach, and starting helm. They struggled on Saturday, with a 23rd and a 27th, but brought in a 12th and a 17th on Sunday to add to their one good result from saturday, a 13th.

For those who are interested, here's the regatta as seen from the LBS Alumni crew.

Race 1: The race started near Gilkicker point and we started well, with the tide pushing us over the line. We were stuck on starboard for a while, but managed to tack onto port and head over to our preferred right hand side of the course, where we believed there was slightly more tide helping us, as it had just changed. Unfortunately, with most of the fleet staying out, most of the fleet got the heavier breeze, and we were stuck with lighter airs in to shore. Which meant that when we got to the first mark we were lying sixth, and the supposed tide advantage had not materialised. The Manchester crew in 33 had done an incredibly good beat and were well ahead of the fleet at that point.

On the first downwind leg, the kite went up with a bit of a fumble with the sheet, but we still managed to overtake one of the boats ahead, on the way down to the buoy "Browndown". Rounding Browndown, we stayed out in the deeper water, getting the benefit of the tide which was now running strongly and managed to reach the top mark lying in fifth. Our super- fast spinnaker launch meant we overtook two boats while they were launching theirs, and we sailed well on the Island shore, keeping out of the tide in a steady third place. 33 came up behind us, forcing us into a luffing match so that we had to go up high to keep them out and then gybe, and ended up coming in third, behind Exeter and Smurfitt.

Race 2: From now on, all the racing was based around the Ryde middle bank and Osbourne bay, starting near the East end of the bank. During the pre- start, Manchester's helm decided to hook his nose behind our stern and round up. Unfortunately, he didn't bother giving us any warning, or allowing himself any control, and he ended up shunting our port pushpit with his bow's anchor guide, causing the pushpit leg to shear off and creating a crack in the fibreglass on our stern.

Totally uncharacteristically, we did not make a big fuss about it and enter a five minute long shouting match, but got on with the start. (Not much point in a protest - there were no witnesses, so as upwind boat, we'd probably have lost)

Another good start. This time we tried to get right to get into the tide while the pack were heading over the Ryde middle banks. We had a reasonable beat with reasonable wind, but once - again the left hand side paid, and the boats came screaming in from the left to leave us 7th or 8th around the top mark. A good hoist, and a run down onto the Osbourne bay sands. We stayed shallow by going relatively high and fast and then bore away. In doing so we overtook a lot of the competition. There were a lot of wind changes as we came up to Daks, the Gybe mark. We actually had to drop the spinnaker and go upwind on white sails to reach the mark, after a 45 degree shift.

We re- hoisted at the gybe mark, and with the new wind direction did not have to gybe. We staked in the shallows of Osbourne bay as long as possible before heading across the deeper waters towards the downwind mark. Putting in a gybe took us past a boat and came around the bottom mark, very close to the boat in third. Manchester had lead around the top and the gybe marks,a long way ahead of the following pack. But they headed towards the wrong mark, had to gybe late, and then scream down on a beam reach, to round it only just ahead. The other two boats ahead of us were - again- Smurfitt and Exeter.

On the last upwind, we again headed right, which went reasonably - got a nice header and then were lifted up towards the line. Unfortunately, we were headed just a few boatlengths from the line, and had to tack twice which allowed 6 to pip us to third place in the race. Smurfitt won, Manchester were second

Race 3: The most frustrating of today's three. The start was heavily pin- end favoured with 40 degree wind shifts, and (unfortunately for us) a sudden lull with a minute to go. This meant that our five - knot charge towards the pin end turned into a two- knot drift.. We still got there. We were still there at the right time, though, at least compared to the top boats in the field.

Deciding to go left for once, as our tidal strategies to the right had not paid off yet, we picked our way through the slower boats and made it to the top mark in second place behind Jeremy Renwick's "Cranfield 2" boat, who were having their race of the regatta. Our spinnaker was up and filling as we bore away from the mark, taking first place in the process. It was then a drag race down towards the gybe mark, Daks. Had to gybe at the mark, inside Cranfield 2. There followed a luffing match all the way to the down wind mark, which we came out of on top.

The drag race continued, this time on a fetch towards the buoy "Sunsail" on the Ryde middle bank. Confusingly, the tide which was "supposed" to be slack was reading a good knot and a half against us as we sailed up the bank. Exeter and Smurfitt tacked away to get into deeper water. We held off Cranfield. Smurfitt lost out. Exeter had overstood and fetched the mark really fast to arrive behind us. The line was further upwind from here. We were struggling with our boat speed - possibly because of the pressure of being chased.

We tacked away to put some leverage between us and the following pack. Which did not pay off. We had wind holes and very bad shifts as we reached the line. Exeter overtook. Cranfield overtook just as we were about to cross the line: all very frustrating. Manchester and Smurfitt were equally hurt, coming in 12th and 9th in this race.

The frustration of getting 3- 4- 3 was relieved somewhat when we worked out that Rob had used tide data from 10th August instead of 10th July. Which explained why Left was best in the first race and also why the "slack" expected tide was actually powerfully against us.

At the end of day 1, we were lying second, behind Exeter who had two wins and a third, and ahead of Smurfitt and Manchester who's third race disappointments had pushed them behind us. However, they both had two good results, so we needed to sail very well on Sunday when their discards came into play.

Day 2, Race 4: A bad start: well positioned but slow to head up and speed on. We went South of the bank, using the correct tide data - which proved to be the right option. It took us to the upwind mark in fourth or fifth, and we were unable to claw back more than the one position in the downwind. "Cranfield 5" sneaked across the line ahead of us, with Exeter and "Cranfield 16" ahead of them. Exeter's third bullet meant that they were unbeatable, and we had to concentrate on securing second place. Manchester were jsut behind us, but we could not see Smurfitt.

Race 5: Time to discard one of those 4th places: This was our most exciting race and also our first bullet. We started reasonably well, halfway down the line, and we chose to go over the bank and into the faster water on the South side. Smurfitt and Exeter both went North. Luckily for us, we got a couple of nice wind shifts, to again get to the top mark in 4th.

We had a terrible hoist: taking ages to get the spinnaker up. Luckily when it filled it was not twisted, and we got it sailing. Despite losing some places while the kite was flapping, we managed to pull them back relatively quickly on that leg. We had a big tussle with Warwick, who were upwind boat but would not keep clear when we wanted to head up. Once they did, we managed to put several boat lengths on them.

At the gybe mark, we put in a very fast, early gybe which gained us 2- 3 places. Exeter, for some reason carried on on the starboard gybe, rather than heading towards the mark. At the mark, we again went South of the bank, taking us to second place at the upwind mark. From here it was a drag race between us and Smurfitt all the way to the finish at Mother Bank: We went high to get past them and then held them off, rolling around, on the edge of being over powered and entering into Chinese gybe territory.

Smurfitt finished second, Exeter third and Manchester 5th after RSM.

Race 6 was postponed with 2 minutes to go as the wind shifted 40+ degrees, and after 10 minutes or so of waiting for the wind to settle, the committee called off the regatta, as they could not set a new upwind leg without moving the fleet, which meant that they ran out of time.

		Race
Position	Team	1	2	3	4	5	Total
1st	Exeter	1	3	1	1	3	6
2nd	LBS Alumni	3	4	3	4	1	11
3rd	Smurfitt	2	1	9	18	2	14
4th	Manchester	4	2	12	5	5	16
5th	Cranfield 16	6	6	5	2	9	19
6th	Cranfield 5	8	14	7	3	7	25
7th	Warwick	7	7	6	9	8	28
8th	RSM	5	18	14	8	4	31
9th	Cranfield 3	11	10	4	7	14	32
10th	Cranfield 2	10	11	2	13	21	36
11th	Alumni 2009	9	5	24	10	12	36
12th	Henley	13	22	10	6	10	39
13th	Bath 1	15	8	15	11	11	45
14th	Portsmouth	12	16	13	17	6	47
15th	Cranfield 11	1	17	17	22	16	51
16th	Cranfield 9	22	15	20	14	13	62
17th	LBS 1	23	13	27	12	17	65
18th	Imperial 1	14	9	19	24	24	66
19th	Bath 2	21	19	18	19	15	71
20th	Cranfield 8	16	29	16	21	19	72
21st	Cranfield 12	20	25	22	15	22	79
22nd	Cranfield 15	37	12	8	23	37	80
23rd	Cranfield 6	17	20	23	25	23	83
24th	Imperial 2	24	24	26	16	20	84
25th	Cranfield 10	19	23	29	27	18	87
26th	LBS 2	25	25	31	20	25	95
27th	Cranfield 14	37	27	11	26	32	96
28th	SAID	18	28	21	37	37	104
29th	Aberdeen	37	21	37	28	27	113
30th	Cranfield 4	37	31	28	31	26	116
31st	Cranfield 1	37	26	25	34	33	118
32nd	Leeds	37	32	30	29	30	121
33rd	Cranfield 7	37	30	32	35	28	125
34th	Cranfield 13	37	33	37	32	29	131
35th	Bath 3	37	34	37	30	37	138
36th	Ashridge	37	37	37	33	31	138

London Business School win the ABC Regatta!

2010-06-27T00:47:00.000-07:00

Full results and the MBA Sailing league table at http://mbasailing.com/
(ABC home site: http://www.alumnibusinesscup.org/abca/Home.html)

On Sunday 20th June, London Business School finally brought home the Alumni Business Cup trophy for the first time since the school started competing in 1993. The London team has frustratingly finished second for the last three years, and managed to take the final step to first overall, thanks to some excellent upwind sailing, extreme crew hiking, slick manoeuvres and a great "onshore" performance, involving the King of Rock and Roll.

The 18th ABC regatta took place in La Ciotat and Cassis, near Marseilles in the South of France. Racing took place over three days in "Grand Surprise" 30- ft day racing yachts. There were five technical windward- leeward races and two coastal races. Twelve teams of MBA Alumni from as many schools competed for the trophy.

The crew see this as their most important event of the summer, because of the quality of the kit: these are pure racing machines, and the quality of the opposition.

The London Business School team consisted of Klaus Rasmussen (helm), Rob Cotterill (trim), Mark Buckle (pole trim/grind), Fiona Cotterill (pit), Biral Raja (main/bow), all of whom have been in the teams that came second in 2007-2009), Ed De Souza (main/bow, in his third ABC) and Paul Armstrong (mast).

The regatta was the most evenly competed for years, with five crews battling it out near the top of the rankings: LBS, last- year's winners IMD, 2007 winners Vienna, 2006 winners Insead and first- time entrants MIP, fresh from their second place in the Global MBA trophy in Athens.

Vienna, for the second time in three years, won the regatta "on the water", but had a poor result with the on- shore games, meaning that we and MIP overtook them in the overall.

Day one was all upwind- downwind technical races in variable to light winds. LBS started the regatta well with a close finish in the practice race, coming second behind Warwick, who got pressure and a nice header on their final leg towards the line. We'd reached the first mark in 4th, and overtook a number of boats with a smart gybe- hoist at the spreader mark. Unfortunately that result didn't count for the rankings.

Race 1, however did count, and was a bullet for us! memories are vague, but a top 3 start, some good shifts and that gybe- hoist again probably sum it up. Vienna, Insead (de Vries) and IMD followed us in.

In Race 2, we had a poor start, clawed our way back through the fleet, and actually got to third place before picking a few shifts badly and ending up in 5th, behind IMD, Insead (de Vries), Warwick and HEC. Vienna and eventually second place MIP also finished badly.

Race 3 was a great start at the pin end, and we were miles ahead at the top mark after a big lift in very light airs. Vienna and MIP caught us up on the downwind, but we still rounded the bottom mark ahead. The race committee shortened the course to finish at the top mark, just as the wind died completely. We struggled with wind holes and boat speed once under- powered. Both Vienna and Insead (deVries) got past us.

At the end of day 1, Martin De Vries' Insead boat was in the lead, with two 2nds and a 3rd. We were second with 1,3,5, while Vienna were looking dangerous with 1, 2, 8. once the discards started to kick in.

That evening proved to be our most important "race": the format of the event has two "onshore" competitions, which together count as one race in the regatta, but cannot be discarded. This year, we firstly had to fly model aeroplanes: Mark did well, throwing it low so it skidded along the ground, avoiding the fate of many whose planes gracefully completed an arc and came a long way back towards the launching point. The second event was to present a sketch or a skit based around the book "Le Petit Prince". We chose to go with making Fiona look ridiculous, with shoes on her hands, and brought on the King of Rock 'n' Roll himself. It made some sort of sense on the night, and won us second place in the onshore games behind MIP's impressively prepared presentation.

Day two, and Race 4 was a coastal passage race from La Ciotat to a mark halfway along the coast to Cassis. We had a poor start, and struggled for speed in the important few minutes of drag- race after the start, where trimming was difficult due to chop and windshifts. We came back as we exited La Ciotat bay, and then chose to stay out at sea, where we had a good lift and constant pressure, but had to sail away from our main competitors. The finish mark was placed a bit too close to the positions of the two eventual winners MIP and Vienna. We were 3rd, IMD 4th and Insead (de Vries) 5th, having been on the other side of the course when the finish was positioned.

Race 5 was another passage race to Cassis. We had an ok start in big seas. It was an upwind drag - race, with the crew hiking out like demons. We again chose to stay out at sea and sail by ourselves, meaning that we could focus on sailing low and fast through the increasingly choppy waves. We got a bit lucky, with two long lifts in a row. As we joined our competitors at the finish line, we were marginally ahead, but Klaus executed a lee -bow on Vienna, used our low and fast sailing to get "down on our line", and tacked as soon as we could stand the line on starboard. We were first, with the top three boats (2nd Vienna, 3rd IMD) crossing the line within thirty seconds of each other.

Race 6 - by now the wind had got up to the point that the committee banned the use of spinnakers - never popular with our power- hungry crew. We had a poor start, with difficulties keeping up with other boats pointing higher and sailing faster. On the downwind, we gained places by poling out our genoa; we gained more places with fast upwind sailing on the second leg, and were close to gaining the lead. To avoid collision, we let Vienna go around the top mark ahead of us, hoping to gybe behind them at the dog- leg mark. Unfortunately, Vienna slowed down and did not gybe, so we were "stuck" in the outside position resulting in the loss of two places to finish 4th behind IMD, MIP and Vienna.

At the end of day 2, we were just 2 points behind Vienna on the water, with 12 points, discarding a 5, to their 10 points, discarding an 8. IMD were just behind us with 13, discarding 10. We didn't know our onshore games results yet.

Day 3, was the day after the trauma of England's match against Germany in the town of Cassis, and a night- time delivery of the boat back to Cassis for some while the rest of the crew took the local taxi back to the hotel. The wind had really set in hard. The Audi Med Cup professional sailors, down the coast in Marseilles had their racing called off.

Race 7 was held with a sail plan: compulsory reefed main and storm jib! We started OK, at the committee boat end, but with flapping sails as we had to avoid boats luffing us up, as well as boats trying to barge in. After the start, IMD drove up Insead (Le Borgne), who drove us up, and we dropped several places. We were 5th on the first downwind, then gained to 2nd/3rd place on the second beat before hitting a major wind hole (from 30 knots down to something in the high teens), which was particularly painful given the tiny jib. 5th place behind MIP, Insead (LeBorgne), Vienna and Insead (DeVries).

So, on the water, we ended up with 1,(5), 3, 3, 1, 4, 5 = 17. Vienna had 13, discarding 8, MIP's win in the final race put them at 20 (discarding 9) ahead of Insead (De Vries) with 21 (discarding 7) and IMD with 22 (discarding 10)

However, when the onshore points were added in, we won, with 19 points to MIP's 21 and Vienna's 25. Next year, with luck and practice, we'll try to win it on the water!

Team	Skipper	Training	R1	R2	R3	R4	R5	R6	R7
LBS	Klaus Rasmussen	2	1	-5	3	3	1	4	5
MIP	Paolo Sito	3	7	-9	5	1	4	2	1
WU MBA	Stephan Luger	7	2	-8	1	2	2	3	3
IMD	Michael Ring	9	4	1	-10	4	3	1	9
Insead	Marteen de Vries	10	3	2	2	5	5	-7	4
Insead	Marc Leborgne	8	6	-10	9	6	6	5	2
HEC/Insead	Philippe Lerique	11	5	4	4	7	7	-10	8
Warwick	Chis Best	1	10	3	6	-11	11	8	10
Insead	Gilad Lederer	5	8	6	7	8	9	9	DSQ
Kellog/Insead	Ingrid Van Wees	6	-11	11	8	10	8	11	6
Harvard	Christophe Reuter	4	12	7	DSQ	9	12	6	7
Oxford	Daniel Seiderer	12	9	-12	11	12	10	12	11

TEAM	POINTS 8 RACES (1 disc)	POINTS 6 RACES -1	SAILING Ranking (Final)	ONSHORE GAMES	TOTAL POINTS	TOTAL Ranking (Final)
LBS	17	17	2	2	19	1
MIP	20	20	3	1	21	2
WU MBA	13	13	1	12	25	3
IMD	22	22	5	8	30	4
Insead	21	21	4	11	32	5
Insead	34	34	6	5	39	6
HEC/Insead	35	35	7	4	39	6
Warwick	48	48	9	5	53	8
Insead	47	47	8	9	56	9
Kellog/Insead	54	54	11	3	57	10
Harvard	53	53	10	10	63	11
Oxford	65	65	12	7	72	12

The Sunsail "Chiller" Regatta: 27 Feb 2010

2010-03-02T03:35:00.000-08:00

Friday evening, and ten of us have gathered in Cafe Uno for Pizza, Pasta and Primitivo wine. It's going to be a cold February night, and we're sleeping in unheated 37ft yachts..... and we're wondering why the other five of our number decided to sleep in warm beds and come down to meet us in the morning.

Still, apart from the condensation on the outside of the sleeping bags things were not too bad, and Saturday dawned bright, albeit with some very threatening clouds and winds gusting to 30 knots.

The remainder of our crews arrived on time, the bacon butties were claimed from the Yacht Club and the skippers got briefed. We had two LBS boats - a strong crew with Klaus, aiming for honours and a relatively inexperienced crew with Rob aiming to be "not last".

LBS "Red" crew:

Klaus Rasmussen
Lee Bonham
Mark Buckle
Kath O'Sullivan
Fiona Cotterill
Miranda Hall
Julian Fox

LBS "Blue" crew:

Rob Cotterill
Praveen Abraham
Anselm Foxell
Sebastien Rodrigo
Lesley Gavin
Juan Camilo Saldarriaga
Joel Shinners

Major forfaits are due from Ed, who somehow couldn't get himslef out of his warm London bed to make if down to Port Solent.

With a very strong Spring tide a Southerly wind and no racing buoys, the committee boat took a long time finding somewhere to lay a starting line so that we could manage to race. Eventually the race began, and Rob found himself a long way back with 20 seconds to go before the start, and - worse- found Klaus just ahead of him, out of the running.

Klaus and crew tacked away onto Port straight away, and managed to claw their way back through the fleet. Rob and crew arrived at the top mark in ninth (out of 10), pulled back ground poling out the genoa on the down-wind, but not quite getting enough back to be able to overtake, and held that place to the end of the race.

Lesley and Rob shared the helming duties in race 1, and Joel had his first go at the front of the boat. Race two saw Joel on the helm for the start, and it was set to be a good one...too good. Our noses were poked over the line with 10 seconds to go, we had at least four others outside us who were also infringing, but were slapped with individual recalls rather than the general one that we were hoping for. We ducked back across the line and started back in the fleet.

It was a similar race to the last one, except the wind was dropping throughout. This time we shook out the reef for the downwind, and probably should have risked a kite on the second downwind leg, except for the inexperience of the crew and the occasional 25kt gusts that hit us.. In the end it was the same story as race 1: 9th, and challenging the two boats in 7th & 8th all the way. Overall we came in 8th equal, as the boats around us did not manage our consistency.

Juan managed to join us on deck for practice and a quick bite to eat before the second race, but made most of his contribution to the result asleep in the port cabin. Apparantly it had been a very good Friday night.

Team "Red" brought in a 4th and a 5th, to be 4th overall with stories of sprung spinnaker shackles, lost spinnaker bags and tacks that weren't tacks during the pre- start.

Still, a great day on the water. Sunshine on the Solent while London endured a downpour.

Looking forward to sailing with the rest of you!

2010 Calendar

2010-01-25T03:56:00.000-08:00

Alumni Sailing Club : 2010 Calendar

Note: Events in Brackets are tentative and will only take place if organiser and skippers can be found. Any volunteers?

February

Sat 28th
Sunsai Chiller Regatta
Organiser: Rob

March

20-21
Sunsail Spring Series
Organiser : tbc.

Sat 20 -Sat 5
Spring Break Trip
Organiser: Student club

April

(17-18)
(Solent Quest)
(Organiser: tbc)

Thu 29th - Sun 2nd May
Event Organisers: Michalia, Mark, Johanna,Nigel, Lesley, Rob
Team organisation: Rob

May

(Thu 6- Sun 9)
(Industry Sailing Challenge)
Organiser: Tbc

date tbc.
Summer BBQ
Organiser: Johanna

June

Date tbc
Alumni Business Cup
nr Marseilles, France
Organiser: Biral

Sat 26
(Sunsail Scorcher Day)
Organiser: Tbc

July

Fri 9- Sun11
Cranfield Regatta, Solent
Organiser: Klaus

Fri 16- Sun 18
(Sunsail Summer Series)
(Organiser: tbc)

August

Fri 20 - Sun 22
Sunsail Summer Series
Organiser: Laura

September

? 23- 26?
Bocconni Regatta 2010
Organiser: Rob/Elena

October

Sat 2 -Sun 2
(Solent Quest)
Organiser: Tbc

Sat9- Sun 10
(Sunsail Autumn Series)
Organiser: Tbc

Fri16- Sun 17
Alumni Challenge
Organiser: Elena

November

(Sat 6)
(Sunsail Series Final)
(Orgainser tbc.)

? Thu 18?? Annual Dinner at RORC
Organiser: Tbc

Bocconi Regatta 2009

2009-12-29T04:17:00.000-08:00

Link to the Event Website

A very late report from what was once again an amazing event. Once again, as much or more from the venue, the food and the parties as from the racing.

The LBS "A" crew saw Rob and Howie back together, hoping to recreate the magic of their winning Athens team. This time, the crew was one of current students: Ben Grosman, Anna Smee, Luc Hardy, Yves Suelze, Joel Shinners and new club president Elena Shinners.

LBS also entered a crew in the "B" - white sails only division, led by our ringer from Insead, Ingrid Van Wees, and comprising Michalia Negri (Left, above, demonstrating the "Human Pole" method for down-wind goose- winging), Vicente Vazquez Bouza, Timur Sulteev, Chris Kempton, Nathaly Carvajal and Phil Poetter.

Racing - wise, the "A" crew got a series of good starts and proceeded to lose serious ground in each beat. As ever, with this regatta, the boats were mis- matched, and our Jeanneau 37's old delivery sails and grubby hull were no match for Benneteau First 36.7s' kevlar racing sails and freshly scrubbed backsides. We did better on the downwind - winning back places with our well- drilled manoeuvres - hoisting, gybing and dropping well - but it became a regatta for working on getting the crew well drilled, and practiced rather than one where we could fight for honours.

Off the race track, we had great fun with a faulty engine: the water pump not working because the belt had become untensioned, and the flow of hot exhaust gases that resulted melting through the exhaust box before we realised and shut the engine off. Rob spent an enjoyable lunch break and post- race trip to Portofino with his head down in the engine compartment getting things as fixed as they could be. And the crew had o brush up on their bailing skills once the engine was working again, but pumping water into the bilges.

The evenings, as ever, were wonderful. Saturday night's event at La Cervara was incredible. The venue was an old monastery converted into incredible gardens overlooking Portofino, and the food was, as ever, close to Italy's finest.

Final Standings:
Hec
Kellogg-Whu
Sauder
Insead
Instituto De Empresa
Warwick
Whu
Columbia Business School
Chicago Booth
Sda Bocconi
London Business School
Rsm Erasmus
Wharton
Duke

The Annual Dinner 2009

2009-11-22T09:33:00.000-08:00

When: Thursday December 10th

Sign-up: Order tickets via Eventbrite:
http://rorc2009.eventbrite.com

THE Social event of the year

Fine Company,Fine Food, Fine Wine

Amazing Historic building in the heart of St James', the home of global Ocean Racing

Sailing people looking smart for a change

At the end of the Season, The Alumni Sailing Club invites its members and the members of the LBS Sailing Club to dinner at the Royal Ocean Racing Club's clubhouse. We talk about sailing, we have a great meal, and we meet up with old friends, and welcome the new students to the family.

Three course dinner, half bottle of wine, prizegiving.

Drinks in the bar from 7pm

Dinner Served at 8pm

Speaker/ prizegiving at 9:30

Dress Code: Jacket & Tie (men), Cocktail Dress(women)

Directions

http://rorc.org/club/index.php

The nearest tube is Green Park.

To walk from there, come out of the South side of Green park station, turn
right along Picadilly, take the second road to your right (St James'
Street, 1 block after the Ritz), walk down St James' Street, and take the
fourth road to the right - St James' Place. This road dog-legs around to
the right, and the club is right at the top of this dog-leg. It looks just
like the picture
http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=SW1A+1NN&ie=UTF8&om=1&z=16&ll=51.506606,-0.140805&spn=0.006224,0.021286

The Sunsail Final 2009

2009-11-22T09:29:00.000-08:00

When: 7th Nov 2009

Where: The Solent, England

The Sunsail final is the culmination of eight weekends of racing through the year: the top three teams in each of the Sunsail regattas in the Spring Summer and Autumn get to race each other at the start of November.

This was only the third time that a London Business School crew have qualified for the final: Bruce Clibborn's victorious student crew did it in 2006, Klaus & Co managed it in 2008 and again in this year's Alumni Challenge regatta.

- hopefully we'll get a report from that weekend soon! (hint hint)

Unfortunately, only Ingrid Van Wees was available of the crew that came in a marvellous third at the Challenge. The rest of the crew, including three racing virgins, were pulled together at the last minute during the week and we were looking at enjoying the race and "not coming last".

Ingrid (Insead Alum!) moved from the foredeck to the helm, and was joined by Bojan Risovic (MBA 2010) on main, Rupe Man (MBA2009), as navigator/downwind grinder, Johannes Tnsobin (IE Alum!) on trim, Brendan Laing (JEMBA2010) as Grinder, Jesus Rodriguez (MBA2003) on Piano, Rob Cotterill(MBA2004), skipper/mast and Mike Clancy(MBA98) as Bow.

The wind started the day at a steady 15 knots and built gradually through the day, so that the last race saw 18-20 kts, gusting 25 - at the top end of spinnaker weather.

We had two great races: Excellent starts, reasonable beats to the top mark and pretty good spinnaker work. We came in 9th in Race 1 ands 12th in Race 2 - losing places with a navigation error, put down to a very dodgy GPS, and my own slow thinking. Race 3 started equally well and we were in a strong position at the Gybe mark, where things went badly wrong: A spectacular wrap of the spinnaker and pole-up line around the forestay. We decided to abandon the race after 10 minutes unsuccessful de- wrapping, and it took us half way back to Portsmouth before the forestay was clear.

A fantastic day's racing. We raced hard despite our scratch crew and came out smiling with not one sense of humour failure, despite the confusion and shouting that come with a wrap like that and the noise of the wind and sails.

See you all on the water in the new year!

Rob

Global MBA Trophy (Athens)

2009-05-19T00:27:00.000-07:00

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:

http://www.robcotterill.com/Athens-Results/mba09_ovr.htm
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/

Global MBA Trophy Regatta (Athens): THE RESULTS!

2009-05-07T08:17:00.000-07:00

Reports etc. to come later, but for now, here are the results:

Division A

Division B

Overall (Both Divisions)

More details about the Regatta can be found at the event website: http://www.globalmbatrophy.com/gmt/

Tenerife- La Gomera 2009

2009-02-18T03:06:00.000-08:00

The first LBS Alumni Sailing Club "Canaries Cruising Weekend" took off from a snowy Gatwick Airport on Wednesday 4th of February. With London cut off from the world on Monday 2nd, it was a miracle we got away at all.

The plan: Charter a 46ft Bavaria in Tenerife, fill it with nine sailors desperate to escape the cold and dark of the British Winter, and to feel a boat under their feet after the long winter break. Arrive Wednesday, Put the boat through it's paces on Thursday, An exhilerating crossing to La Gomera, through the "Wind Acceleration Zone", some gentle cruising and then a return.

The Reality: The weather systems that had dumped inches of snow onto the South of England and made Short's home in Marbella as cold as his his native Britain had also pushed the famous Canaries North- Easterly Trade Winds out of the way and replaced them with a Westerly. A Westerly that was forecast to blow above 50knots - Storm Force 10.

And it blew. And we added lines to the boat to stop it being blown sideways onto the next boat, and backwards onto the dock. And we decided to give it a few hours before we set out. And we welcomed Anna and Cate to the crew at Lunchtime, and we gave it another three hours, and we recorded the gusts - 56knots - Violent storm force 11, and we hoped our lines, and those of the boats to windward of us would not snap. And we read books, talked, checked emails. And we gave it another three hours. And it got dark, and we we welcomed Shamik in time for dinner - a massive platter of locally caught seafood - having not moved an inch from the dockside!

So Friday dawned, with reasonably calm 20 knot winds; With bright sunshine. And the dilemma was whether to brave the crossing to La Gomera or to stick close to Tenerife. The seas were still big and untidy after Thursday's storms, and seemed just as bad up the coast of tenerife, so drugged up on seasickness patches we set out. It was an incredible crossing: 4 metre waves, needing great concentration from those at the helm to avoid the boat slamming down the far side or dousing the crew in seawater. In the end we had five out of the nine crew get sick, with Shamik's long, sad endurance crouched next to the pushpit, and Guillaume's sudden dive to empty his guts the highlights?!

Once behind the mass of La Gomera, the seas calmed and we began to feel human again, sailing all the way to the West-most end of the Island and over- nighting at the small resort of Puerto Valle Gran Rey, and braving the dinghy- trips over to the dockside.

Saturday was as advertised in the brochure: getting up late, steady breeze, steady seas, lunch in a secluded bay and staying the night in our own berth in a modern marina in San Sebastian, from where a certain Mr Columbus set out to see if he could find a route to the Indies in 1492...

Sunday: up early for the return crossing to Tenerife: all sorts of wind, from 40- knot gusts to nothing at all. We finally had a visit from the local Dolphins: seems we had the right sort of bow wave to play in. We reached land near the towering cliffs of Los Gigantes, to be confronted by the towering timeshares of Tenerife's South-West coast - each witha view of the Ocean, meaning that we had to see every one of their painted concrete facades... Lunch in an unsecluded bay, looking at the hoardes of North European bodies sunbathing on the beach, before tieing up on a Fishermen's wharf in Los Christianos to say goodbye to those returning on the Sunday night flight to Gatwick. Those of us who remained continued down the coast to a lovely marina at Las Galletas and celebrated the last night of the trip - probably a bit too hard judging by my head the next morning, as we completed the last couple of miles back to the starting point. Nothing Broken. No water in the diesel.

Wonderful to get back onto the water in warm climes at this time of year. A really lovely crew - see you next year!

The Crew:
Rob Cotterill
Colette Morris
"Short" Allerton
Laura McCracken
Ramsay Frasier
Anna Smee
Cate Arrenberg
Guillaume Gingembre
Shamik Narotam

2009-02-04T13:39:00.000-08:00

Alumni Sailing Club : 2009 Calendar

Note: Events in Brackets are tentative and will only take place if organiser and skippers can be found. Any volunteers?

February

Wed 4- Mon 9
Winter Canary Islands Weekender
Organiser: Rob

March

14-15
Sunsail Spring Series
Organiser : Klaus

Sat 21 -Sat 5
Thailand Trip
Organiser: Student club

April

Sat 4
Sunsail Chiller Day
Organiser: Laura

May

Thu 30- Sun 3
Global MBA Trophy - Athens
Event Organisers: Michalia, Mark, Johanna,Nigel
Team Logistics:student club
Team organisation: Rob

June

Fri 12- Sun 14
(Industry Sailing Challenge)
Organiser: Tbc

Wed 3 - Sun 7
Alumni Business Cup Edouard
Port Camargue, France

Sat 27
(Sunsail Scorcher Day)
Organiser: Tbc

July

Sat 18- Sun19
(Sunsail Summer Series)
Organiser: Tbc

Date: TBC
Cranfield Regatta, Solent
Organiser: Klaus

August

Sat 22 - Sun 23
(Sunsail Summer Series)
Organiser: Tbc

September

Fri 4 - Sun 6
Business Schools Alumni Regatta, Solent
Organiser: Tbc

? 24- 27?
Bocconni Regatta 2009
Organiser: Tbc

Sat26-Sun27
(Sunsail Autumn Series)
Organiser: Tbc

October

Sat 3 - Sun 4
(Solent Quest)
Organiser: Tbc

Sat10- Sun11
(Sunsail Autumn Series)
Organiser: Tbc

Fri24- Sun26
Alumni Challenge
Organiser: Tbc

November

? Tue 24?? Annual Dinner at RORC
Organiser: Tbc

Sunsail Spring Regatta 14-15 March - Sign Up Now

2009-02-02T13:04:00.000-08:00

Attention all Alumni sailors (and students who don't have exams)!

The new Season is here!

All-right, the UK is having a bit of snow (all of 20cm I understand) and the country has come to a grinding halt - as if it was a natural disaster.

What better time to think about a bit of sailing? After all, it is a fact that the days are getting longer and soon you could and should be out there getting a bit of race practice.....

The Time: The weekend of the 14-15 March (heading down the friday before)

The Place: The Solent, scene of many an exciting, entertaining LBS racing weekend

The Format: Racing 37ft sunsail boats all day, enjoying the Portsmouth nightlife at night. The regatta is run by sunsail. See their website link below.

The Participants: A combination of experienced old timers, and people who want to find out what this sailing stuff is all about.

The Cost: Around £100-£120.

The Sign-up process: Oldfashion e-mail to me please. Note that we will probably just have one boat, so delaying your response is not a good strategy!

The Website(s):
http://www.sunsail.co.uk/hospitality/regattas_events/events_diary/uk_based

Looking forwards to sailing with you again!

On behalf of the Alumni Sailing Club
Klaus (Temporarily standing in for Rob)

The Alumni Challenge 2008: 7-9 November

2008-10-02T03:08:00.000-07:00

When: 7th-9th November (Optional training on Fri 7th, or come down on Fri evening, 7th November)
Where: The Solent: Sunsail, Port Solent
How Much: £150 (first estimate)

Traditional Autumn Big Boat Event
Meet and Compete against the Students- show them how it should be done!
Keen Sailboat Racer? - Last chance of a good racing weekend in 2008
Used to Cruising? Come and try racing - get the adrenaline pumping
New to Sailing? Come and give it a try! Beginners most welcome.

To sign up, email me or reply to this post, and I'll send you my bank details to pay the £150, or use a credit or debit card at the sign up page

This is the third race of Sunsail's Winter Series sailing - a fleet of 20 or more identical 37 ft Sailing boats crewed by teams of enthusiasts racing four races in the Solent. It's fun, exciting racing, and ideal for occasional sailors like us, as you don't need to either spend a fortune on your boat to do well, nor be racing as a team week- in week - out.

The Alumni have traditionally challenged the current students in one of the races in this series, and met up for a drink or ten at the American Bar on a Saturday night - come and join the tradition!

For the keen racers among you, this is a chance to find out how good the current student crews are, and to re- assert the Alumni's dominance. To see if the 2008 Alumni can continue their amazing record of qualifying for the Sunsail Finals.

For those new to racing, and those new to sailing, this is a great introductory event, as there are roles on any boat which can be carried out by anyone with some enthusiasm! Hopefully you’ll get hooked, as we have.

BASICS ABOUT THE TRIP
The boats
We're sailing Jeanneau Sunfast 37s. These are 37 ft boats with three cabins (sleeping 2 each), one head (bathroom) and with another three berths in the main saloon. On deck , they're raced with a crew of between six and eight, and have a furling Genoa, and spinnaker.

The Teams
We'll be putting in at least two, and probably three teams: two good racing crews led by past winners, Klaus and Bruce, and one or more "fun" crews. We'll allocate people to boats based on experience and when they sign up.

Training on Friday 7th
for a small additional cost, we'll be able to take the boats out for training on the Friday. Klaus's crew will be training and will have one or two extra places if you want to learn. Other crews may be training too - more details later.

How to get down there
We will meet in Port Solent Marina

By train: Train is probably the safest way, considering occasional beers both before and during the trip. Exact joining instructions are included on the Sunsail webpage (see link at the end of the mail).
Trains leave from London Waterloo, app. every 30 mins
The trip to Portsmouth takes about 1.45 mins

Get off at either Havant, or Portsmouth & Southsea
You will need to take a bus or a cab from there to Port Solent
On arriving at Port Solent Marina, follow the main road going straight across the first roundabout. At the next roundabout, bear right (the only way). At the third roundabout, take the second exit. Then drive over two 'sleeping policemen' and take the next right. The Port House building is directly ahead of you. Again, further detail is on the joining instruction.
By car: Does anyone own a car? Let me know if you do and plan to take it down there!
From the west, (Recommended: via M3) motorway access is via the M27 at junction 12. From the east, (A3) take the Hilsea exit off the A27 and follow the signs to Port Solent. From Portsmouth, take the M275 and follow the signs.
Please don't arrive any late - we'll have to start without you. Any "no-shows" (incl. serious latecomers) will be liable to pay the full amount!
Stuff you need to bring
SLEEPING BAGS ***Often Forgotten - makes you miserable if you do***
Wash Kit, Towel (the other two most often forgotten irtems)
Apart from that, our friends at Sunsail suggest the following:
"Sweaters/ fleece(s), Sailing Gloves, Hat, Scarf, Thick socks, Tracksuit, Sailing boots (recommended! Deck shoes or white-soled trainers will do at a push, but expect cold, wet, miserable feet) Neck towel or small towel to stop drips. It is much warmer to wear multiple thin layers than one thick layer. We do not recommend jeans as they become very cold when wet and take a long time to dry. Please note that all personal items are brought at your own risk.

You may also want to bring your own waterproofs or hire some from us. Chest-high trousers and a jacket are available for hire from our reception and can be booked in advance or on arrival. Due to reasons of hygiene, we do not hire out sailing boots."

Money Stuff
The final cost of the weekend will depend on a number of variables, not least how many of us there are to split the costs of the boats between. I'm taking £150 now, and will calculate the actual amount after the event and settle up then. It should come to somewhere around this figure.
The fee includes a £50 non- refundable deposit, to book your place. If you drop out after Wed 5th, we’ll keep the full amount, as it’s virtually impossible to get someone else at that late notice,
The Fee Includes the boat, the team kit, the racing fees, moorings, fuel, breakfast and lunch on Saturday and Sunday, and Saturday night's dinner (2 courses only, no drinks)
The Fee Does not include transport to and from port Solent, drinks and dinner on Friday night, and drinks and extras at dinner on Saturday night, The training day, if your boat chooses to have one.
If you already have the Alumni Club Jacket, then the up front fee is £113 instead.
Damages: If the boats should get damaged, we’re liable for the first £2,000 of damages. This will be shared among the crew of the boat involved. So Don't Damage Anything!!

That should be all. Let me know if there are any questions!
Looking forward to sailing with you
Cheers,

Welcome to the Alumni Sailing Club Website

2008-10-02T02:56:00.000-07:00

Well, it's finally time to kick off the LBS Alumni Sailing Club's own website. We've spent the last four years piggy- backing in a rather unsatisfactory way on the Sailing Club's website: for the last 9 months that's basically involved an out- of date events list on the front page.

Now the Students have created a fabulous new website at http://londonsailingclub.com, and I guess I need to do the same.

I'll be using this site to post event details, a schedule, pictures and reviews and to link to other Business School sailing events