South America Life Style

Just home from my second trip to Brazil in a few weeks.  Again I went to Florianpolis to sail on Pajero, Soto 40 in the 4th and final regatta in the Mitsubishi Sailing Cup.  After a long flight through Sao Paulo and a 45 minute drive we got to our hotel.  Then the hard part started, walking to the boat every day.  It was not too bad.  As a matter of fact I could get used to this.  The little walk way opened to this:

Then it just got better:

Not a bad way to get rid of jet lag.  We did go for a very nice sail and worked on getting the boat faster.  My main job was to come in and see what improvements can be made in the class and on our boat.  There was 9 very evenly matched Soto 40’s sailing by some very good sailors.  It was a long series of 4 different regattas and I can see after doing the last two why it is a lot of fun.  They move the boats on their bottoms to these type of locations.  The New York Times named Florianpolis the best party town of 2009.  It is an island that grows from 400,000 people in the winter to 1.1 million in January and February.   October was maybe early for the season but it was still beautiful. 

We won the last event and moved from 8th to 5th going into this last regatta for all the marbles.  The marbles was not just a pickle dish either, more on that later.  We had an outside chance to win being 12 points behind.  To make things more interesting there was 6 though outs over 22 total races.  But you could not through out any races you did not start in the last series.  This was to get everyone to do every regatta.  A good idea for a new class.  But the 4 boats ahead were well sailed and we would have to have some very good luck to break in to the top end of the fleet.

Back to the job,  We used a few of my ideas to sail the boat in a different way.  String drops and leaving the jib up down wind were the two big speed producers.  The last practice day we spent many hrs on the rig.  Like all other one design swept back rigs, it takes a bit of time to get the sails to match and to increase the range of the setting.  We came away with a new setting that seemed to work.  The next day we started with a 1,2,1 to lead the regatta by 4 points.  This also moved us up in the overall total to 4th and now our outside chance was looking a bit brighter.

There was a lot of talk on the dock of our speed and sailing well.  We took advantage  in the first race by port tacking the fleet at the start.  You have to remember that we were not in it for the overall going into the first day.  So the other boats were watching each other a bit too much..  This gave us a few opportunities.  The next day it was a bit different.

The first race on the second day was good.  4th to the first mark and using our new speed sailed around two boats to take a second.  This gave us a 8 point lead and only 3 points out of first with two races left.  Only problem was our luck.  We had a starboard port with the boat that was leading in the next race, us being on starboard about 1 minute before the mark.  Sailing in Portuguese for me is not too easy and we had a communication error when we tacked.  The on the water umpires gave us a penalty that took us from fourth to last.  We recovered for a 7th but it really killed our come back to win the overall.  We went into the last race with a one point lead in the regatta. 

With us out of the picture there were now only 2 boats that could win the overall series.  That was Mercenario from Argentina and Negra from Uruguay.   These boats were tied on points.  We were in 4th one point behind Troben Grael but neither one of us could pass the other two boats.  Mercenario was in second place for the Floranpolis regatta so we needed to beat them.  Many options…  After waiting for 2 hrs for wind the line was set for a 120 degree course, 5 legs.  Very shifty and puffy.  We wanted to go right but control Torben if possible and make sure we beat Mercenario.  We thought Negre would help us do that. 

We went off to the right, there was a shift and Mercenario cross to take control of Negre on the left.  Torben on Mitsubishi was the furthest right and had the benefit of the 25 degree shift to take the lead.  We were very happy to be in a strong 3rd at the mark and just had to sail a good race to win the series.  Torben sailed this best race to win easily.  We got around Pataonia at the finish for second but we were all watching behind, the big match race.

It is very hard to match race in a Fleet.  Mercenario made a mistake by sailing themselves back into the fleet to cover Negre.  Negre used this to get others involved and on the last leg came from behind to win, the biggest pickle dish I have ever seen:

yes they won the car too, you can fit a lot of marbles in there,  thanks to Mitsubishi Brazil.

1 Negra (URU) - Nicolas Gonzalez - 42
2 Mercenario (ARG) - Luis Eduardo Silva - 42
3 Mitsubishi / Gol (BRA) - Torben Grael - 44
4 Pajero (BRA) - Eduardo de Souza Ramos - 46
5 Celfin Capital (CHI) - Jorge Errazuriz - 53
6 Cusi 5 (ARG) - Jose Estevez - 72
7 Patagonia (ARG) - Norberto Alvarez - 78
8 Ogum (BRA) - Revoredo Zeca - 89
9 Carioca (BRA) - Luiz Roberto Martins – 106

Getting back to the South American life style.  It is Latin.  People want to have fun and they do.  Everyone has a good time and gets along.  Sailing in places like this must help the attitude. For me, I can’t wait to go back…..

Dee