Appr. 13:00, 27. of May. Jan has won the Race "Brassfahrt 2023".
Jan Hansen:
"I have recently sailed 2 singlehanded races in The Beast. The races were in very different wind conditions. Brassfahrt Regatta in 0-15 knots and Copenhagen One Star in 15-27 knots. In addition, there was a slightly windy transport sail from Klintholm to Travemünde with winds up to 32 knots. It was great to test the boat in such different wind conditions.
Brassfahrt Regatta:
Originally a course length of 100 nm, which was shortened to just 80 nm due to the light wind conditions. There is no handicap rule, the boats are divided into 5 foot classes as we know it from e.g. Silverrudder.
From the starting line we had a short leg of a few nm to a rounding mark inside the harbour. At the rounding I was actually the first boat, but my big gennaker blocked the view to the leeward side, so I suffered the torture of getting the mark on the wrong side and had to go around myself (very embarrassing). This slowed down the progress somewhat, so a J-88 and Dehler 30 OD got a little head start.
From there we headed north on an upwind in 10-12 knots of wind. The Dehler 30, Sexy Beast, found a really nice track, had good speed in the boat and pulled away. So much so that after 3-4 hours of sailing they were barely 2 nm ahead. The J-88 was a little easier to keep up with.
In the late afternoon, the wind dropped to 2-8 knots. In the light conditions, the Beast shines, with plenty of sail area and with the weight trimmed forward in the boat for a greatly reduced wetted surface.This combined with the fact that I also got the boat right on the course in the far west, closest to land, seemed to give me more pressure than the other boats. I rounded the mark at Fehmarn around 10pm, half an hour before boat no. 2 "Whipeout", an AKILARIA 950 skilfully sailed by Hasso Hoffmeister and Sven Winterberg.
But as the boat speed was only 2-3 knots, the lead in nm was not that big.
Most of the night was on a upwind course towards the eastern Wismar buoy. The NKE autopilot was steering on AWA most of the time, it does a great job even in very light wind conditions. Just remember to set the reaction time way down so that it doesn't work the rudder too much.
In the early dawn, the wind built up from the west, bringing the field a little closer together.
I rounded the Wismar buoy, 8:03, just under 8 minutes before #2, who was still Whipeout. For the first few miles the wind was suitable for Jib 0, but it built up more and more from behind and became more downwind. The flying sails started popping up astern and I could see on the AIS that Sexy Beast was getting closer. Up with the blue A2 the last 15-16 nm towards the finish line and BS at 6-8 knots. I kept a fairly good distance to the closest pursuers, but the boats furthest aft benefited from the increasing wind.
Travemünde: The Beast finishing the race. Photo: Magdalena Hufnagel, oh-i-sea.de >>
The finish line was about 1000 metres up the river and it took a couple of gybes for The Beast to cross the finish line as the first boat after 23:07 hours.
I was very happy with the result, especially considering I was sailing singlehanded and all the neighbouring boats were sailing doublehanded. When the boat speed is on the good end compared to the competition, it's a bit easier to get lucky and position the boat correctly on the course. There is still more potential in the boat. For example, I sailed the entire race with the engine leg/folding propeller down and probably had 50 kg too much gear on board." The danish original article: https://jbhsailing.com/2023/06/13/brassfahrt-regatta/
Magdalena Hufnagel (https://oh-i-sea.de/uber-uns/) has made further super nice shots:
After the start Jan Hansen took over soon the lead during a long upwind course. In the night the wind calmed down to almost nothing.
Start Groups: <25 ft <30 ft (AEOLOS P30) <35 ft <40 ft >40 ft & Multihull
7:00 in the morning fresh winds pushed the slower boat first, but Jan managed to keep in front until he finished.
The AEOLOS P30 finished in front of - A31 and 35 - Akilaria 950 - Dehler 45, 38, and 30 OD - Figaro 2 - JPK 38 FC - Luffe 43 and 45 - Pogo 12.5 and 30 - Winner 12.2 - X 482, 43 and 35 and far more, 71 boats have started.
Results single handed: It was a kind of kangaroo start in groups. First ship home wins.
Results double handed: 7 boats had a better time, a X482, Luffe 34/45, Dehler 38SQ/45 and the Akilaria 950, all double handed, all bigger than the AEOLOS P30.
https://www.aeoloscomposites.com/aeolos-p30-racer Here are Jan´s contact details: https://www.aeoloscomposites.com/denmark