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Four Kiwis will return to New Zealand a bit bruised and battered but plenty proud of their efforts at the 2024 Offshore Double Handed World Championships in France.
The two teams braved rough seas and high winds and ultimately bowed out of the event after failing to advance from their respective elimination races over the weekend.
Anna Merchant and Aaron Hume-Merry finished ninth in the Département du Morbihan Race, before Andrew Hall and Sandra Bees managed seventh place in the Région Bretagne.
Only the first five boats advanced to the 48-hour final.
Below are reports of both teams' races - in their own words.
'Go big or go home!: Aaron Hume-Merry and Anna Merchant
Aaron Hume-Merry and Anna Merchant led off the start in elimination race one. Photos / Anne Beaugé
Well, that’s a wrap for our OSDHWC bid for 2024! A super tough pill to swallow for us, not making the final, but on reflection, there were still a lot of positives to take away from the experience.
That’s just yachting, and a result can never tell the full story.
We know we had more to give, and didn’t come here to take it easy so we can still be proud of what we’ve achieved!
In hindsight, yeah, we probably should have eased off the gas and consolidated our position in 6th which we had just clawed our way back to, but you know it’s just one of those things. You want to throw everything at it and sometimes just send it. But ultimately, that decision sent us packing.
With the two and a half days of training we had in the boats being under 8 knots, we really were working it out as we went. The forecast for the night ahead was mid-20s-30s - which was fine when it came to the race tactics, the start, the boat set up and speed, however, sail selections and nuances of rudder performance in the breezier stuff were a bit of an unknown for us when we ripped the helm away for the last leg in 27 knots and a growing sea state.
It was breeze on to kick things off with the majority of the fleet opting for a tuck in the main. We won the start which was an epic stamp of authority on a star-studded fleet including MACIF skipper-programme athletes, top Figaro sailors and professional yachties.
We led the fleet with the top 3 boats out past the island and the offset mark. Working up the island and shaking the reef out early, we settled into a good rhythm. Several models were forecasting a drop to 5-10 knots into the evening before a build from the left.
Factoring in the activity we were witnessing offshore with storm cells moving down the coast bringing localised pressure, we decided to stay further out, hunting the new breeze earlier.
A full breeze shutdown however took us from one of the leading boats to the back of the fleet and we had to wait patiently as we watched most of the fleet scoot through inshore relatively unscathed.
We worked really hard to claw back positions on a long reach, pushing the boat hard to round the top (turn) mark back in seventh place. We pulled away from the group behind and passed another boat putting us into sixth place as we approached the last mark of the course before the 25-mile downwind run to the finish.
Knowing the top five boats would be pushing it, and would be hard to catch, we made the decision to get on the step and send it and hoist the A4, in 25-30 knots and a pretty messy sea state.
Go big or go home!
Having never seen the A4 up, yep, we probably could have just been content with a safe jib ride home along with the rest of the fleet as none of the other boats around us opted to hoist.
You just want to give it a crack and we came here to test ourselves so not hoisting would have been against our nature a bit!
We had full faith in one another and our abilities, but no one’s exempt from a wipeout every now and then, and unfortunately, ours just came at a bad time.
Hume-Merry and Merchant finished ninth overall after two wipeouts. Photo / Anne Beaugé
Having not experienced the performance of the small stern hung rudders on the step, the A4 didn’t last long up in the air. After a pretty big wipeout, we were on our side for a long time before we finally managed to pull it away and get back downwind.
We went to trim back on, only to find the clew was torn and the sheets had disconnected, giving us a kite in the air and a hard drop with no way of getting it down easily.
We were eventually able to get hold of the tack and pull it to windward to start dropping the sail on the bow, however with the angle of the waves making it difficult to keep things under control, we lost steerage again and ended up on our side a second time, this time with the kite hitting the water and getting sucked under the boat.
A scramble and all (four) hands on the bow later, we finally managed to haul the remaining pieces of the sail back into the boat.
So the sendy downwind we were looking forward to became a cruisy jib sail home to finish in ninth.
We’re gutted that the end result hinged on that one wipeout, especially given we had fought hard to climb back into contention but it wasn’t to be. We are really proud of the things we did get right over some other very professional teams, and huge congrats to the other teams for an epic battle to the line. The French really showed they had another gear on the downwind - it was impressive to see!
To jump on the boat and feel fast, get instantly dialled in and start well were awesome takeaways and we are stoked to have been able to represent NZ at this inaugural event. With the organisers already talking about next year, it’s exciting to see where CAP Regatta can take this programme.
‘No time for smoko. It was game on’: Andrew Hall and Sandra Bees
Sandra Bees and Andrew Hall finished seventh in the second elimination race. Photos / Anne Beaugé
I would have to say that Sandy started to outwardly show she was anxious about the race a day before the start and that in turn had started to put me on edge. But when we left the apartment the morning of the eliminator, I could only think of the job at hand.
I think for Sandy it was just race-day jitters when we had gone through all the red-tape procedures and on the water she seemed fine and if she wasn’t, she was soon going to have no time to think about such issues anyway.
We knew that on the course at times on the downwind, we would see winds in the late 20-knot range with gusts on top of that. With a wind against tide and a sea state that had been hanging around for a few days, It was going to be interesting.
So our strategy was to put on the A2 (asymmetrical spinnaker) with full mainsail and sail deep angles. With only the French and one other team using the A2 and every other team using an A4, this meant they had to sail higher angles and had a further distance to sail to the mark.
With our sailing style and the A2, we managed to sail deeper angles than everyone else, and in the sea state, this was paying off. After the start, we very quickly put a reef in the mainsail as we had started in the lee of Groix Island where the wind and sea state were a little bit tamer. Honestly, once the reef went in, there was no time for smoko. It was game on.
At the gybe point off Belle Island, we had only the French cross in front of our bow. Our gybe could have been executed better, a sheet got caught up and we got a wrap in the A2, but the months of training paid off with the wrap being cleared without too much issue. Unfortunately, in the process of the gybe, we had put a small tear in the head of the A2 but to stay in the race had no choice but to sheet on and go for it.
We were now on the port gybe and the sea state was at a different angle to the stern than we had been sailing on starboard gybe, making us broach. That prompted us to put a second reef in the mainsail (only having sailed these yachts for three days prior, we were learning on the fly).
Bingo, we were off again sailing deep angles and as in control as you were going to be for the conditions, sailing straight at the mark while all our competitors were sailing higher angles and having to gybe to make it.
Even though the broach before putting in the second reef was short-lived, the third boat with an A2 had overtaken us, so we started work at overtaking them and did. We had clawed our way back into second place but now had some focus on the small tear in the head of the sail. There is a saying, “foredeck crew put spinnakers up and god brings them down”. Unfortunately for us, this came to fruition. Somewhere around Hoedic Island we had another broach and ripped the head out of the A2.
We quickly went to work at getting the big blue A2 back on board as the bottom part was trying to turn into a shrimping net even though we were still doing over 11 knots of boat speed.
We got that sorted and put up the A4 only to have both snap shackles on the sheets come undone in the hoist. This had been a common theme for the competitors in the first elimination race so we dropped it, repacked it and put it up again only to find it had gained a tear in the process. So, we pulled it down again, with no other option but to two sail to the bottom mark.
By the time we turned around the bottom mark, we had gone from second to eighth place. Such is the level of competition in this type of racing.
We started our upwind beat to the finish with a J2 and one reef in the mainsail. Very quickly we went to two reefs in the mainsail.
The breeze was very stable and didn’t allow a lot of overtaking lanes so we opted not to short tack under the lee of Griox Island at the top of the beat. This did not give us any advantage as we finished in the same place as we started on the beat home – eighth on the water.
With a protest from the measuring committee upheld, our final placing was seventh, two spots short of sailing the final.
My take home from the race? Breakages and gear failure are costly. At this level, in a one-design, it’s just very difficult to recover.
For full results and final standings, click here.
