Jesper Orth reports about Lancelin 2011

The pricegiving with Jesper, Björn and Chris (Pic: James Torode).

Jesper Orth reported following about the 2011 event:

“First off all, respect to all sailors finishing the 2011 LOC race. It was indeed hard conditions out there. Congrats to Björn winning it. The day of the race started up good, with a solid sea breeze kicking in. The choice of weapons were the RRD Xfire 102 or 112 and KA 2011 Koncept 7.5 or 6.4 with a 30cm Vector Rockit fin. For me the race is a lot about comfort over the distance, so I was pretty sure to use the 102 board with a small 30 fin. 7.5 were the right choice as well!”

Jesper with his marathon racing gear (Pic: Lancelin Ocean Classic 2011).

“For the 2011 Koncept sails we been working hard with the whole team to tweak them up and the result is more acceleration and better performance on tighter reaches for slalom. For speed and deep downwind it has kept its renown performance and rotation, which is just unreal.” Jesper comments on his sails.

I had some time on the 2011 sails, so I was pretty confident that I could achieve a good result, but again anything can happen in this race. The start was not too good, so I was catching sailors on the first leg out. At the first mark I could only see Dan Engdal, who got the best start and then Björn chasing him in front of me. On the second leg I passed Dan and could see Björn was not going as deep as we were, so at the second mark Bjorn was just 10 meters in from of me. He already jibed. From then on he gained some distance and I was sitting in second position for a while. I looked back to insure nobody was catching up from behind, but didn’t right away spot Chris Lockwood, who passed below me. So from then on “our battle began” (like many times before)!

I managed to just pass Chris again after fighting very hard, over one long downwind leg and even gained a little distance. Enough so I thought, ok,  that should secure the second place for me. Straight after I catapulted over a chop and went hard down on the boom and heard this crack noise from the boom head and sure enough I broke the plastic and shredded the boom head line. I thought for sure the race was over for me!

The damaged boom front and rope of Jesper´s racing rig.

But somehow I managed to water start, with the boom now sided all the way down in the boom cut out and only holding itself together with a 2mm shredded line and wobbling like crazy. I still can’t believe it hold together to the end.

Chris passed me, when I was laying in the water. I did manage to get up fairly quick and decide to give it an “all in or nothing” to catch Chris. So on the last leg towards the finish, I first past over the top of him, then we had to point upwind a bit to make it to the gate and my “low setting” boom was just so inefficient pointing and I could hear that Chris would come around me and he did. Think he hit me in the process as I tried to push him high, he he. Pretty stoked to make the podium and in the end very lucky that the boom held up.”

The preparation for the Slalom race (Pic: James Torode).

Next day we had 4 rounds of slalom and I used the Xfire 112 with Koncept 7.5. Great and fun racing and I ended up winning it.

Overall we had another successful year for the Lancelin event, with a complete program of Marathon, wave and slalom. We are already looking forward to the next year.

Jesper with speed just befor the finish (Pic: Lancelin Ocean Classic 2011).

© Jesper Orth, AUS-10