Race report ·
In the white sea off Trieste: Barcolana 57 on a borrowed keel
Thousands of white sails to the horizon and a borrowed deck underfoot: at the 57th Barcolana in the Gulf of Trieste our crew sailed a chartered Trinity 21 to twelfth in class.
Photos from this post
A borrowed boat, familiar teamwork
Normally we know every sheet, every sound and every edge of our two Libera racers, Liberté and Mr. Cello Due, which lie at home on Lake Attersee. For the start in Trieste our own boats stayed behind. Instead it meant packing bags, chartering a boat and getting to grips with a Trinity 21 in record time.
Steering an unfamiliar boat on one of the most crowded starting lines on the planet takes complete trust. Under the assured hand of our helm Tobias Böckl we settled in quickly: adjusting weight trim, rehearsing the gennaker routines and learning the boat’s unfamiliar habits metre by metre.
Nerves among thousands of masts
A golden October and light winds turned the Gulf of Trieste into a tactical chessboard. Anyone racing the Barcolana fights not only wind shifts and holes, but above all for clear air in that sea of sails. Every metre of the first beat demanded full attention — one mistake on the helm in the crowd and the race is over.
We were not the only ones from Lake Attersee out there that day: in the middle of the pack we kept meeting our club mates from the Union-Yacht-Club Attersee around Laura Noack, sailing their Melges 24 (221st overall). Two boats from the same club in a fleet drawn from around the world — that gave the race something of its own for us.
Twelfth in class
The results had us 268th overall out of 1,865 yachts — but the number that really counts for our crew is a different one: twelfth in our own class. In a fleet this size, the class result shows the sailing more clearly than the overall position. Producing a result like that against settled owner crews, on a boat that is not ours, makes us proud.
We take away plenty of experience, some fantastic images of sailing, and the certainty that this team works on any keel. Our thanks go to the UYCAs for their steady backing — and to the whole crew for the focus and these miles. Trieste, we will see you again next autumn.
An earlier version of this report was published by the UYCAs.
