Soapdish sets forth

Not a whole heap of breeze at the start of this year's Fastnet but at least it was from the right direction.

Wanna play?

Well to be honest we're just working out what to do next. Some of the crew that took her to the Fastnet Rock (Bernie, Alan, Oliver, Brambles, Graham & David) will definitely be continuing and Dan who had to prioritise the European Space programme over Brightwork (I mean honestly) needs consoling with a new offshore challenge. But given how few people in the UK have cottoned on to the fun and games of Open 30's we are on the look out for a couple more to join the core crew.

Here's a few possibilities of what the future may hold - we might try for the Round Britain & Ireland 2006, Bernie's keen on the idea of the AZAB 2007 (with whom?... the rest of the crew ask) and there's always the Channel Triangle to consider. The longer term might include some Cat 1 stuff but there are serious conversations with the boat's builder (Simon Rogers) to be had before we decide on that sort of stuff (Melbourne-Osaka, yes Simon we know you think it's a good idea!). You'll note that there's no cans racing in here and little mention of cross channel hops...not to say we won't do them but they're a means to an ends not an ends in themselves (what with the prevailing SW on the nose for most of the channel stuff and silly upwind stuff all over the place in cans racing).

Brightwork's first Fastnet

Brightwork and her crew finished the Fastnet 18minutes short of 120 hours. The smile on Oliver's face when he forced a VO60 to duck us kept us amused until at least the Lizard. Admittedly the three wind holes on the way out were a bit of a pain as Brightwork prefers a bit of a blow to faffing about in light airs. That said we devised a novel sail configuration - no main, just kite and putting the symetric fractional up on the mast head halyard to raise it up a bit extra (yeah, yeah we could have a more complete sail wardrobe but where would be the ingenuity then).
Top speed of 15.6 kts (Oliver driving again) kept us smiling and busy on the return from the Rock, even David managed to surf once.

How to measure the success attached to two years of preparation, many conversations with Simon Rogers & Gerry White, new sails, much boat maintenance and finding crew who'd rather be on Brightwork than a bigger more luxurious boat? Well we're not a big fan of the IRC handicapping system as we rate so badly but even so 139th on handicap isn't too dismal for the smallest boat in the fleet. However the placing can't be said to match the elation of finishing, Bernie's state of inebriation after 3 drinks or the pleasures of a bath and clean underwear.

Things that do & don't matter

Things we care about:

• going fast downwind
• building a crew of people who actually choose to race dirty thirties like Brightwork
  
• a dead good boat builder (Simon Rogers) http://www.rogersyachtdesign.com/
  
• a great sail maker (White Sails, Warsash)
• successes of thirty footers elsewhere - Cone of Silence, Towtruck and their pals
  

Stuff that doesn't matter:

• displacement boats
  
• winning on handicap
• little luxuries like standing room in the cabin, privacy for the heads, luxury sleeping berths, gas cooking
  
• anything to do with IRC ratings
• sigma 38's
• upwind/downwind cans racing
  
• superstar egos
  

What is all this Open30 lark anyway?

Educate yourself:

http://www.open30.org
http://www.rogersyachtdesign.com/ - look up past projects and scroll down to Sticky Fingers
http://www.sailinganarchy.com/fringe/2003/cone.htm
http://www.hoodaustralia.com.au/INTORACE.html