Second Place in the Cranfield Regatta 2010

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