Brandsma sails along at the top

Angela Brandsma, skipper in the Clipper Round the World Race, finished fifth with her team during the leg from Uruguay to Cape Town. A look back, and a look ahead to the next one.

“The fastest crossing for ten years,” Brandsma recalls her finishing debut in Cape Town. At the last minute, she and her team had a very tough time: “All at once you are very close to shore and suddenly a forty-knot gale roars down from Table Mountain. The crew is naturally out of focus, while the sails still have to go down and all sorts of things still have to be done. That was pretty stressful. No fun, but it all went well.”

Wind gap

Those last two days to the finish were incredibly exciting. Brandsma chose a more southerly course than the rest of the fleet: “That was really super. We had a lot of wind and came very close to numbers two and three at once. In 24 hours we had made up 80 miles on the top two, so then we were only eight miles behind them. Then we had to head inwards (north towards Cape Town) and suddenly that wind forecast had changed. As a result, we ended up in the wind gap a little longer than the others. So in one night we were 60 miles behind again. […] But because we won the scoring gate, we take an extra three points. That plus six points for our fifth place makes our score for second place.”

Tactical choice

At the start of the leg, Team Power of Seattle Sports was leading when Brandsma decided to go for the scoring gate. “That was a tactical choice. I knew that would result in a loss. We were already slightly above the rhumb line (the arc that crosses all longitudes at the same angle), so for us it was about 100 miles extra. We were leading and would therefore be the first to go through the scoring gate and then you have three points in the pocket. It was another 3,000 miles after that, in which a lot can still happen. The teams that took the scoring gate all finished behind us. So in the end, it was more advantageous not to take it.” Power of Seattle Sports’ loss was limited to fourth position and therefore fourth place in the Ocean Sprint, the measured time between two preset longitudes.

No sprint

“A lot of decisions you make also have to do with how the crew feels. It was very turbulent. We had already sailed under spinnaker for three nights. They found it difficult to steer, so it took a lot of energy. Everyone was tired. Then one evening we decided to take the spi down. If we hadn’t done that, we might have been able to take another point from the Ocean Sprint. But I am happy with the points for second place. In the overall classification, nothing changes at all in the top five. We are only getting a little closer, because we are fourth at only one point behind the number three. We are just competing in the top. If we sail consistently in the top five, then the podium will be in sight. It’s a marathon, not a sprint.”

Risk management

Unlike many of the competitors, the team kept the sail wardrobe intact. This is important, as each team only gets one set of sails for the whole race. Brandsma: “At certain times, we sail conservatively. You have to finish with the sails you have, otherwise you get penalties after the finish. Each team has a credit of five hundred pounds for sail repair. On top of that, you get a penalty point for every five hundred pounds, which is limited to five points. Quite a few boats are already on that. The end of the race from Seattle to Panama and from Panama across the Atlantic is all spinnaker work. Then it does come down to who still has decent spinnakers.”

Battlefield

On the eve of the start in Portsmouth, Brandsma predicted that seasickness would be a major factor and it proved to be so. “The first leg was a real battlefield. I had eighteen crew. On one watch I had only two people on deck, on the other watch three people. The rest were all sick. Below deck, it was just a battlefield. The people who go all around the world are doing better now, though. Of the new crew members coming on board, some were out of action for four or five days. But anyway, the legs are long enough, so they will work themselves out.”

Next leg

In Cape Town, four crew members leave Team Power of Seattle Sports and eight new ones come on board. “Of course it’s difficult, but it’s part of the race,” said Brandsma, who will spend a day training with the new crew this week. “There are also nine people who have been on board since the first stage, so there are more coaches now. They can also help coach the new crew. Although you have to be careful that that is not always the same people doing that job. I have therefore instructed the permanent core to make a plan on how they will approach coaching. The intention is that they will soon run the boat themselves. If they run into problems, I will of course be there for them.”

Spicy

On 16 November, the next leg starts from Cape Town to the west coast of Australia. A spirited race of 4,800 nautical miles past the Cape of Good Hope and through the infamous Roaring Forties. Asked how she prepares her crew for these 25 days of hardcore sailing, the Frisian skipper replies, “You can’t really. The people who are new have never sailed on the ocean before. Let alone four weeks in a row. It takes eight to 10 days before they really get into their rhythm and understand how it works operationally on board. That also made that first leg so tough. At that time, all eighteen crew members were new. We immediately came across 50 knots of wind in the Bay of Biscay. It was full speed right away. Towards Cape Town we also had 51 knots, but that was fine for those who had been on board longer and the wind angle was okay. In the Bay of Biscay, you have the whole washer of waves and a head wind. Now we had a sort of broad wind and that is more relaxed. This coming leg, it will be a lot of broad wind too. Although you never know. The weather is getting more and more unpredictable. You just really have those storm clouds. So I have a rule on board. The moment something like that comes towards us, the spinnaker goes down. If we don’t have a reef yet, it goes in. We assume that every threatening cloud contains 60 knots of wind. With that, we have already saved ourselves a few times. I am very conservative in that.”

Source and image: Diana Bogaards on Watersport-tv.