It´s a new nice race organised by Sejlklubben København. If you know the danish sailors, you also know they fight hard on the water and even harder at the party afterwards...
Works upwind above 20 knots, too. (Photo by Erik Genthe, 2022 sea trials) Jan Hansen: "A new singlehanded race starting from Copenhagen organised by Sejlklubben København, around Hveen, east of Saltholm, down to Køge and back home again, about 80 nm.
The race is organised in an informal and relaxed setting with a minimum of helpers on the water. A lot more helpers at dinner on Saturday evening, both in the galley and in the bar.
This race is also without a handicap rule, only in the 5-foot classes.
This is the first time the race is sailed, this time with 15 participants. But the race deserves far more participants. The distance is manageable, there are thousands of competent boats/skippers in the neighbourhood and the dinner on Saturday evening is highly social.
(*** AEOLOS interpretation: It as a f... good party ***)
Up to the start on Friday at 18:00, fine wind conditions were promised, 20-25 knots from easterly directions. The weather forecast held fine all the way round.
Jiib 0 rolled out from the start and Hveen's north-west reef was rounded after 75 minutes. The Beast was the leading boat with a 5-6 minute lead. After the NW reef there was a upwind to hold up towards Saltholm. The wind was stable around 15-20 knots until we reached Malmö. There were some harder gusts up to around 27 knots. I still had a comfortable lead when I dropped off towards the Øresund Bridge at 22:47. (*** At Aeolos we expected the X34 is faster. Good job, Jan!!!***)
I hesitated a little with the spinnaker in the strong winds until I had passed the bridge, as I did not want to risk losing control of the boat between the rocky ground and bridge pillars.
After the small 85 square metre gennaker came up the boat was flying under fine control in the dark evening, the speed was never below 10 knots.
Unfortunately, it flew a little the wrong way, 15-20 degrees too high and too much southwards.
When I pulled the winch out of the cabin, past the chartplotter, the sail had unfortunately planted an extra waypoint just east of Bøgeskoven. I only realised this after an hour or so, because I was busy sailing the boat and enjoying the trip. There was nothing else to do but to get around and head for the red marker buoy at Køge. There I rounded about 20 minutes before boat no. 2, which was either an X 34 or a Seascape 27. The mistake had probably cost 10-20 minutes.
(*** Aeolos: With less electronics you are faster maybe, Jan ;-) **** )
There was a fresh upwind to Dragør ahead, 20-25 knots of wind right in the tip. With a reef in the main and max jib, it went really well. Boat speed around 6.5 knots, in fact so fast that I chose to slow down a little by pointing a little higher. The VMG dropped 0.2-0.3. But it was more gentle on the crew and boat. Despite this, I constantly increased the speed from the other boats. The green broom at Dragør was rounded at 5:06 in the early dawn. From there, it was just a matter of sailing slightly ahead back towards Copenhagen and drifting to the finish on a comfortable downwind without a gennaker. I crossed the finish line at 6:33, just under an hour before the closest pursuers. Considering the navigational errors and the very conservative sailing, this was fine."
(*** Danish mentality. Hey Jan, that was insane !!!! ***)
AEOLOS P30 ... 3h on the water after launching 9/2022
Jan Hansen:
"I was extremely pleased with the good speed on the upwind course in the fresh wind and the slightly uneven sea surface. The boat is also very dry to sail, both on the upwind and under spinnaker. Almost no spray in the cockpit and the bow never sat down hard in the waves."
(*** Good to hear. Hannes and Max done a good job improving Hans design. Many thanks to the international design team !!!! ***)
For uns, Aeolos, was this result a great feedback on our work. We expected or feared a light weakness of the design above 20 knots of wind upwind. The whole AEOLOS team is very happy to hear that feedback and is following on Social Media every movement of Jan. Thank you, Jan.
Aeolos P30 leaving Dubai 8/2022. Results:
By the way: The LM30 is a LM30 Striker. Not the cosy touring version.
Danish feedback from Jan Hansen here: https://jbhsailing.com/2023/06/13/5161/