London Business School win the ABC Regatta!

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