Report from Valencia: New Holmatro Team meets in 40 knots!
April 12, 2008 by Team Holmatro | 0 comments
Valencia, 7:30 in the morning, time for breakfast where team Holmatro: Andreas Hagara (helmsman), Mischa Heemskerk (maintrim & tactician), Gerd Habermueller (mastman & grinder), Sander Speet (jib & spinnaker trim) meet for the first time. We start walking to the base of BMW-Oracle, we are their guests for the week and training partners. The sun is out and the breeze is starting to build early in the morning.
Valencia, 7:30 in the morning, time for breakfast where team Holmatro: Andreas Hagara (helmsman), Mischa Heemskerk (maintrim & tactician), Gerd Habermueller (mastman & grinder), Sander Speet (jib & spinnaker trim) meet for the first time.
We start walking to the base of BMW-Oracle, we are their guests for the week and training partners. The sun is out and the breeze is starting to build early in the morning.
By the time we hit the water for our first sail the breeze is around 22knots, so it is full on from the start to control the boat. The mix of English, Austrian and Dutch communication flows over the boat together with the salty water of the waves catching us. In common are four huge smiles and pounding hearts sailing this machine makes you excited.
We were supposed to train with three boats but due to a breaking main beam of one of the boats we only sailed with two. We started with a downwind closely watched by the whole Team of BMW-Oracle cause our guest for the day was their Chief Finance, responsible to pay the bills and salaries.
After a long downwind we started sailing upwind were the conditions became rougher and windier. In sight of the harbour we see the sky turn dark and the water white a powerful breeze is about to hit us. 40 knots of breeze hits us, luckily we were prepared and could safely dock after our first day of sailing.
The following days we sailed with two boats on short courses to train maneuvers and starts. Now we were real time training our master plans we made while in the dock. With the four of us sitting on the boat simulating every move over the boat together with responsibilities per person and its timing. Helm you can start turning when the new winch is loaded and you hear the okay, grinder Gerd is pulling the spinnaker sheet across while the spinnaker trimmer is pulling the new winch.
Besides the short course races we did do some long speed tuning runs were we okay on speed. Mischa and Andreas have some more adjustments up there sleeves to give the boat a better top speed by adjusting the settings of the boat.
This is one of the points we will be working on in our next training session in Valencia.
Best Regards,
Mischa Heemskerk for Team Holmatro
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