Rolig ORC-racer 33-35 fot?
Veckans läsarfråga:
Hej!
Vi är ett gäng som idag seglar en 80-talsbåt och trivs bra med det. Men vi har börjat snegla uppåt. Vi vill kunna vara med i Marstrand Big Boat, Gotland Runt och liknande race, och då räcker inte riktigt den båt vi har.
Eftersom MBBR numera seglas under ORC behöver båten fungera hyfsat i regeln. Men det viktigare att det är en båt vi kan lära oss något av. Vi vill utvecklas som seglare, så det vore kul om det gick att köra gennaker även om det kanske inte är ett krav.
Vi vill också prova på offshore, och då blir transporterna till och från racen en stor del. Alltså måste man kunna bo i den, inte bara överleva ett par nätter.
Så vad säger Blurs läsare?
Vilka alternativ finns det för ett gäng i vår situation?
Äntligen undanvind!
Efter en säsong som präglats av mycket kryss (och en del sträckbogar) fick vi en ordentlig undanvindsrepa från Limhamn till Långedrag. 132 distans på 14 timmar.
Från Kullen hade vi 22-28 knops vind med en bra vinkel, även om sjön var lite för kort.
Vi visste att det skulle öka över dagen, och mycket riktigt tog det slut när vi fick en by på 34 knop (17 m/s) och körde in i vågen framför så ordentligt så att rodret lyfte ur vattnet. En klassisk “nosedive”. Nu vet vi var gränsen går. Bara att ta ner.
Kanske var det inte så här spektakulärt. Men vår pitch-data säger att vi lutade 17 grader framåt och då är hela rodret i luften 🤣
Också ett bra tillfälle att få lite mer data. Nu är det tydligt att vi skall köra den stora S2 upp till 22 knop.
Här är samma tabell för vår transport till Finland 1/8 då vi körde S2.
Och bägge i samma. Baserat på detta skulle jag säga att S2 skall vara uppe till 22 knops vind, och att man då tidigare kan komma i semiplaning eller fånga vågor. Från 22-24 knop är S5 snabb och betydligt lättare att hantera. Med bra vågor och kanske ett rev i storen borde S5 funka i +30 knop?
Dags för Öckerö Shorthanded 19-20/9
Vi, Mrs Freckles, Lady Godiva och Vindrus efter starten förra året.
Lite färre båtar anmälda i år, men det brukar vara en fantastisk helg och bra middag på lördagen. Anmälan här.
ORC answers: six questions about scoring
This summer’s scoring debate has been the most engaged discussion on this blog in years.
After Færder, the DH Worlds, Sandhamn Open, and the Bermuda report, I wrote down six questions and sent them to ORC.
To their credit, they answered.
Thomas Nilsson and Andy Claughton, chairman of ORC’s International Technical Committee, prepared the response below, and I publish it in full, unedited. Whatever you think about WRS, this is how a governing body should meet criticism.
Read their answers first.
My comments come after.
Questions from Peter Gustafsson, with ORC’s Responses
These answers have been prepared jointly by Thomas Nilsson and Andy Claughton, Chairman of the ORC International Technical Committee (ITC).
Hi Peter, thank you for taking the time to crystallise your observations about Weather Routing Scoring into a concise set of questions for us to answer. We have tried to keep our answers to the point, but as you can see we have a lot to get off our chests.
In short:
WRS delivers in the 21st century what the IMS pioneers sought to do in the 1980s: polar-curve-based handicapping for offshore races. We commend it to race organisers as our best offering — they can choose to use it or not. It is transparent, in the same way as the VPP is transparent through its documentation. It offers TCFs before the race start and therefore quick post-race scoring; delays may arise from human error, not systemic problems. We are building training tools to bring WRS to race organisers, and we have a support team in place.
Background
The IMS and subsequent ORC handicap systems grew from a desire to provide handicaps that were sensitive to wind speed (TWS) and point of sailing (TWA). The certificate has always had a tabulated polar speed curve and pre-calculated handicaps for a windward-leeward course in 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16 and 20 knots of wind.
The persistent problem has been working out what wind the fleet actually experienced during the race. For inshore races, performance curve scoring and, more recently, the “constructed course” method based on observed wind have been used. For offshore racing, APH was used — based on a wind distribution with a little bit of everything, 6–20 knots TWS, 0–180 TWA. No offshore race has ever experienced this precise distribution of conditions; that is no surprise, since it is essentially a weather forecast made in 1980 and applied for the last 40 years.
The WRS initiative offers the opportunity to create handicaps using a better estimate of the wind conditions actually seen by the fleet, with TCFs published before the race start — a scoring process identical to using APH.
1. Have we gotten worse, despite better technology?
No — this is not a real problem. Approximately 180 races have been run using WRS this season; of these, 5 required post-race recalculation of the results. This season’s delays were not a single isolated failure: they stemmed from a combination of a flawed constructed-course calculation method and insufficient pre-race quality control. ORC recognises this as a systemic gap in the process, not an inherent flaw in the WRS concept, and is implementing pre-race validation procedures using new checking tools developed this season specifically to close it.
2. Are the scoring models too complex for their own good?
This question — “why did a boat win” — exposes the fundamental limitation of using a single, immutable TCF to score an offshore race. In a one-design championship the answer is easy: the best-sailed boat won. In a handicap race the answer is always coloured by the handicap. In a windy race a Class 40 will beat a Farr 40, but in light airs it’s the reverse. No amount of skill can bridge the failure of a single number to fairly handicap boats across light and strong winds — everyone has seen this story and can understand it.
With WRS, Class 40s now find themselves in the top places even in light-air races, because the full power of the polar table has been brought to bear on the problem. The complexity lies in how the TCF is generated, not in how corrected time is calculated: Elapsed Time × TCF is the same principle used by IRC, ORC, ORC Club, SRS and PHRF. WRS gives every boat its own TWS/TWA matrix based on the forecast wind conditions.
For each WRS race, the pecking order under the TCFs is different from APH, and the “muscle memory” of who should win in given conditions no longer applies. With APH it’s easy to anticipate who should win; with WRS it’s much harder — that’s the whole idea. Every handicap on an ORC certificate is related to a forecast wind distribution: the APH forecast was made in 1980, the WRS forecast the night before the race.
We are comfortable with complex systems elsewhere in our lives (maps, streaming, social media) provided they can be used with a few clicks; that is the aim for WRS as well.
3. Why is the final result still a black box?
The WRS process is not a black box: scoring polars are on the certificate, and the predicted tracks and the wind speed and direction used to calculate the Predicted Elapsed Time are published. New analysis tools in RaceFlow, used correctly and communicated well, should eliminate the “black box” perception. The routing itself is run by a third party (PredictWind) using algorithms they maintain for commercial customers; this method is documented on the PredictWind website. But remember, the routing is a means to an end — the deliverable is the wind distribution used by the VPP to calculate the TCF.
4. Can the results be reproduced?
Yes — given the same certificate, course, weather model and settings, the same inputs will produce the same result. Can a competitor check their own score without access to proprietary systems? No — at present there is no published, independent way for a competitor to verify their own WRS TCF outside RaceFlow. The validity of the published TCFs can only be judged by scrutinising the WRS pre-race output.
The situation is analogous to the VPP. The accuracy of the VPP is the best we can do given our resources and the constraint that it should run in two or three minutes per boat. An independent researcher could find more accurate methods to calculate boat speeds, but that does not undermine the fundamental value of the VPP as a tool for handicapping race yachts.
A more useful question might be: can the TCF calculation be assessed before the race? Yes — the WRS output is shared: the forecast used and its timing, the course coordinates, the track data, the time histories of TWS and TWA, current strength and direction, and of course the TCFs. Is this information “correct”? If there are no mistakes, yes. Would another router with different tools get a different answer? Yes — but so what? Our aim is to avoid a boat’s TCF being based on 6–20 knots when the race will actually be sailed in 6–10 knots. The forecast can never be perfect; by focusing too much on the nuances of process, forecast type or routing engine, we risk making the perfect the enemy of the good.
5. What is a reasonable time-to-results?
The speed of delivering results is fundamentally a matter of data-entry efficiency rather than system processing. Under the WRS framework, much like any other handicap method, the TCFs are pre-loaded before the first signal, so the model itself introduces no additional latency. The time between finishing and the final standings is purely a function of how quickly arrival times are recorded and entered into the software.
6. How much complexity is the sport willing to accept?
The issue is transparency, not sophistication. Sailors do not need to understand every line of code, but they should understand where the TCF comes from, why a particular scoring method was chosen, and why it was appropriate for that race. Every ORC TCF is fundamentally based on wind strength and direction because ORC is a VPP-based system; APH, Triple Number, PCS and WRS all come from the same VPP and differ only in the wind distribution used. If a sailor understands the All Purpose Handicap, they should be able to understand WRS just as well, since both are built on the same principle — they only differ in which wind distribution is used to generate the TCF. What we actually need to get better at is explaining, in simple terms, what an ORC TCF really is.
The early proponents of polar-table handicapping would see WRS as the “Holy Grail”: if the weather forecast is perfect, the race is perfectly handicapped.
A common misunderstanding is that a single-number PHRF or IRC rating is equivalent to the ORC APH. Single-number ratings have no mechanism to adjust to different race conditions — they are based on the boat’s physical characteristics, not its predicted performance.
There is an irony to the inherent mistrust of WRS. Every competitor knows that by using APH they have a handicap that is not necessarily appropriate to the wind range they actually encountered during the race. This “horses for courses” situation is acknowledged, and even embraced, as part of the rough and tumble of offshore racing.
Bonus. Where should scoring competence live?
To date, most WRS races have been handled by the ORC team, but the number of races seeking to use WRS has outgrown this capacity — hence the development of the RaceFlow app to widen the pool of competent users.
This has not been without hiccups, but it’s a learning process, and the quality controls are improving. Mistakes will still occur, servers will crash, forecasts will be delayed. It is crucial that the Notice of Race specifies a clear alternative to be used in case of force majeure failures.
If the PRO is satisfied that the WRS process has been completed without error, according to the operating procedure, and that it offers a more appropriate handicap table than the available pre-calculated ones, they can proceed with the full support of ORC. If confidence in the forecast is low, clear fallback procedures should apply — ORC has already introduced these in the Standard Sailing Instructions for major championships, including the upcoming ORC European Championship.
A few things I can’t let go of
First, credit where it’s due. ORC engaged with every question, and their historical framing is strong: APH is, as they put it, a weather forecast made in 1980 that we’ve used for forty years. Nobody defends that with a straight face. The logic behind WRS, handicapping the race that will actually be sailed, is sound.
But four things stand out.
The “No” in question 4. Can a competitor check their own score without access to proprietary systems? ORC answers with one word: no. I appreciate the honesty, but think about what it means. In a sport where sailors do their own penalty turns, the one thing you can’t verify yourself is the number that decides whether you beat the other boat. Published tracks and wind histories let you inspect the output. They don’t let you reproduce it.
“But so what?” Would another routing engine give a different answer? “Yes – but so what?” is the actual quote. I get the point: forecasts are estimates; this is not about perfection. But after a season where a routing discrepancy decided a world championship podium, that’s a lot of weight for a shrug to carry. Sailors aren’t chasing decimals. They want to know if the number that beat them was an artifact of a vendor choice. And that might explain why the most skeptical voices belong to experienced navigators – the people who know exactly how much weather models, grid resolution, and routing settings can move a result.
The question they skipped. I ended by asking what matters most: that the result is correct, understandable, verifiable, or trusted. ORC answered many things, but not that. Maybe because the honest answer is uncomfortable: the four pull in different directions, and WRS optimizes hard for the first one. It’s still the most important question in this debate, and it’s still open.
Whose problem is this solving? Scoring was never the burning issue in offshore racing. We’ve always complained about ratings, but nobody stood on the dock demanding forecast-based correction factors. This has been driven from the top, with real conviction. Fine, most progress starts that way. But when a governing body pushes this hard on a problem the fleet wasn’t loudly complaining about, it’s fair to ask what’s driving the timeline.
One number in passing: 5 races out of 180 needed recalculation this season. ORC offers this as evidence the system works. I’d say no other sport would accept this!?
The debate isn’t only happening on blogs and docks. Several national authorities are sending submissions to ORC’s annual meeting on exactly these questions. The formal machinery of ORC is being asked to reconsider how scoring is chosen, run and communicated. This isn’t a governing body versus a few loud critics. The conversation is happening inside the organization too.
So where does this land?
Better than I expected. ORC admits a systemic gap in quality control, is building validation tools, and is communicating.
The direction is right.
But the finish line hasn’t moved: a scoring system earns trust when a sailor who lost can see why and check it themselves. Until then, every “trust us” rests on the goodwill ORC builds. And conversations like this are how goodwill gets built. So thanks to Thomas and Andy for engaging.
The conversation continues, and judging by this season, it needs to.
Snabbt, billigt och enkelt
Veckans debattinläggen från Christian Haeger på FarEast 28R Kwanza.
Håller med till 100% – väldigt ofta är mindre och enklare också roligare.
Efter att ha sålt vår X-41a Kwanza så var vi väldigt nöjda med att få vara med på satsningen på den nya Club Swan 43an Vargen. Vi hade själva närt en dröm om att kappsegla i Medelhavet men insåg att vi aldrig skulle ha vare sig tid eller pengar till att genomföra det. Men nu får vi vara med ändå och uppskattar utmaningen med att vara med och få utveckla en ny klass. Men efter att ha varit i St Tropez i höstas så saknade vi seglingen på hemmaplan. På flygplatsen gjordes planen upp bland oss fyra blivande delägare att det var dags för något nytt och enkelt på hemmaplan 2026. Men vad?
Kravlistan var rätt enkel. Trailerbar, begränsad besättning, snabb, enkel, modern, gennaker och att kunna vara med på MBBR. Efter lite utvärderingar stod det mellan Farr 30, Fareast 28r och Melges 24a. Med en snittålder på över 60 år så kändes Melges för sportig och Farr 30 något för gammal och känslig, dessutom väldig hög på trailer. Så i vintras blev det en Fareast 28r, nya Kwanza.
I lördags var det Tjörn Runt i vilken ordning vet vi inte. Vårt första Tjörn Runt vad med en Vindö 40a 1973 och kampen var att slå övriga Vindö-båtar. Sedan har vi haft Comfort 34a, Maxi Racer (Cats & Soffi), J24a (Lotus 123), X-95a, Farr 38 (Hägring), First 40,7 (Drake), First 35, X-41 och nu Fareast 28r (samtliga Kwanza) och seglat Tjörn Runt ett antal gånger med samtliga båtar. Vi har vunnit startgruppen ett par gånger men aldrig totalt. Men vad är egentligen viktigast?
Vi har kommit fram till att vår måttstock som vi hade med pappas Vindö 40 räcker fullständigt för att njuta av och få spänning av kappsegling. Alla kan vi skapa vår egen måttstock och bestämma vilka konkurrenter vi vill slå och hur vi ska förbättra oss.
Nu har vi hunnit med tre regattor under sommaren och vi har hittat en båt som givit oss det roligaste Tjörn Runt som vi någonsin seglat. Inte för att resultatet var det bästa, vi kom 5a i stora kölbåtsklassen och 51a totalt. Men det var definitivt bättre än förväntat med potential till bättre resultat i framtiden. Men undanvindarna var fullständigt magiska och ger en helt ny dimension till seglingen.
Under MBBR började vi lära oss båten, men med begränsad tid för träning så gjordes flertalet misstag och även under Hermanö trålade vi gennakern och fick sedan ett fall som fastnade vid nedtagningen vid sista rundningen. Så skedde även under Tjörn Runt där de flesta säkert sett vår vurpa under kraftledningarna där vi broachar svårt. Men vi tycker om att segla hyfsat offensivt och har alltid haft bra hantering av båten även i hårdare vind. Vi gjorde ytterligare säkert 3-4 broachar då vi hade vår största gennaker. Men däremellan seglade vi i 18 knop och flög förbi allt och alla. Tidsangivelserna visar att endast en Melges 24a var snabbare från Vasholmarna in till mål. Den känslan var det häftigaste vi varit med om. Vi gjorde surfar i över 18 knop med X-41:an, men nu flög båten fram i en konstant fart på 18 knop.
Men även kryss och halvvind är en ren glädje och på MBBR kunde vi matcha X-35orna på kryssen. Att vi ännu inte seglar upp till vårt mätetal är inte lika viktigt. Båten är fantastisk att segla och vi fortsätter att lära oss hela tiden. Vi har testat med sex man på MBBR och Hermanö, vilket funkar bäst och var något lätta på Tjörn Runt där vi var fem man. Sittbrunnen är stor och lättarbetad, två winchar i sittbrunnen, många cleats och en winch på det asymmetriska rufftaket räcker gott och väl. Enkla avlastare på det korta däcket mellan mast och nedgångsluckan gör jobbet enkelt och avsaknaden av förpikslucka förenklar ytterligare. Alla får plats.
Eftersom vi inte kommer hinna med några fler regattor i år så lyfte vi båten direkt efter Tjörn Runt. En timme för att rigga av och sedan lyfta upp på trailern och vips så är båten klar för vinterförvaring.
Vi är efter denna första säsong otroligt nöjda med Fareast 28an, det blir säkert ingen stor entypsklass igen så vi ger oss själva stor frihet att förbättra båten. Bland annat har vi haft problem med att storen fastnat i akterstaget vid slag och gippar, så det kommer åtgärdas.
Det finns ett antal till salu och vi hoppas nu att fler ska upptäcka denna fantastiska konstruktion med hög fart och enkel segling. Både på Hermanö och Tjörn Runt hade vi sällskap av andra Fareast 28or. Under alla omständigheter kommer vi köra många säsonger med fokus på Västkusten och det vore kul att få några fler båtar att utvecklas med. Det blir inte bättre; Snabbt, Billigt och Enkelt
Hälsningar
Christian Haeger, Fareast 28r, Kwanza
RORC Baltic Sea Race 2026
After a great season so far, it was time for what would probably be the biggest challenge of the year: the 635 nm RORC Baltic Sea Race. It was our first properly long race as a double-handed crew, but we felt comfortable with the boat, our new sail inventory, and with each other.
Gotland Runt had been a real statement against a lot of good boats, and to be honest the Baltic Sea Race entry list looked a bit thin by comparison. The race was scheduled on the same dates as the ORCi Europeans in Klaipėda, and many of the Baltic boats had gone there instead. Our impression was also that RORC and the local organizers weren’t quite pulling in the same direction when it came to promoting the event. Anyhow. In the end 21 boats started in IRC, seven of them double-handed.
Still, there were boats we very much wanted to beat. J/121 Jolene above all, since they’ve been a benchmark for several seasons now. And a couple of the boats from Gotland Runt, JPK 10.30 Spirit and the Figaro 2 Amazigh, were probably keen on a rematch…
The delivery from Stockholm/Bullandö to Helsinki went well, with stops at Örö, Barösund and NJK before we ended up in downtown Helsinki.
The theme, of course, was saunas, and we now have the beginnings of a Blur ranking. The Finnish archipelago also left us wanting more, and we’ll happily come back with a boat better suited to archipelago cruising (separate blog post on that coming shortly).
We also used the delivery to compare the weather models in the area. We’ve been hacking on some AI-based tools over the summer, and the first version ran during Gotland Runt. Now it was time for an updated one. In general, the models did well, and we alternated between FMI Harmonie, ICON-EU, MET Nordic, and ECMWF. In light and medium wind, they all agreed, but every one of them also tended to underestimate the wind once it came above 20 knots. We expected FMI to excel, but ICON was closest to reality.
During the week, several forecasts had shown 35+ knots, but by the skippers’ briefing things had settled around 20-25 knots for the beat across to Sweden, and then 25-35 knots and up to 2.4 m significant wave height NW of Hiiumaa on the way back after rounding Gotland.
We also planned on eating well.
The start
The start area west of Suomenlinna offered perfect conditions: sun and 14 knots from 218 (SW). We nailed the start at the windward end, and then the race committee called it off… WTF! Apparently someone had lost track of the countdown.
Second attempt was less successful: a perfect OCS, three or four seconds before the gun. It’s super important to get away first when you’re about to sail 600-plus miles 🙂
We managed to sail through the fleet fairly quickly anyway. First Pär and Nadine in the slowest boat in the fleet; Albin Nova Team Mobline. They were the first boat to throw in the towel after four hours of beating.
Here we pass the First 35 Bianco, who in the end took the class as the only finisher. The first leg down to Helsinki Lighthouse was upwind with a number of fixed marks. We started with J3.5 since we knew the wind should pick up, and struggled a bit when it dropped to 10-11 knots. But overall, we had good pace.
The perfect boat for this race: Linda Goddard’s Swan 53 Bedouin. After the race, she said:
“The conditions were challenging, and I’m happy to be back on land… The Baltic Sea’s short, sharp waves during the first 24 hours really surprised us. They were unlike anything we’ve experienced on bigger seas, so it was a great learning experience for the whole team.”
Leg 1: Helsinki to Hanko – the first test
Once we got out to sea, the models pointed to the wind ticking right. We tacked immediately and stayed on the right-hand side along with most of the others. Jolene, Spirit, Amazigh and C-Me appeared to be thinking along much the same lines.
We also managed to sail past Spirit after a couple of hours and were now first on the water in IRC 2.
The first boats to fall victim to the TSS was Jolene and Bianco. Jolene cut the corner a bit too tight and sadly decided to retire. Bianco just went through the middle and got the mandatory 3-hour penalty.
The day’s fight, somewhat unexpectedly, was with the Sydney 40 Rush and the Arcona 460 Stora Blå. They sailed past us several times, yet somehow we were still ahead of them at Alma.
Dinner time!
The wind peaked at 21 knots with 26-knot gusts at 16:00, TWD backing 217 to 255 through the afternoon and then swinging back to 214 by 23:00. We were the first boat in our group to tack west after the first TSS, and we think we timed it pretty well. Leaving the fleet is always a risk, but our routing was pretty clear. We ended up a bit too close to the rocks south of Hankö to get full leverage, but still extended on both Spirit and Amazigh.
We were super happy with the first 12 hours, sticking to the big plan, playing the shifts, pushing hard and trusting our boat speed. Being third on the water after Swan 53 Bedouin and First 40 C-Me in a 33-footer wasn’t bad.
Leg 2: The crossing to Almagrundet – the heavy bit
The second morning the wind picked up. From 04:00 the wind built steadily, 17 knots at 06:00, 20-21 knots median from 08:00 to 11:00, peaking at 23.5 kn median and 30-knot gusts around lunch.
Direction 250 backing to 212 over the morning, so the crossing was a long port tack against a building sea. During the afternoon, TWA opened to 42-44 as we could crack off toward the mark.
As many others have said, the big issue was the sea state with short and very steep waves. We were sailing fast under autopilot, and the boat really likes a bit of wind. But we were constantly taking big waves over the deck, and slamming was terrible. I was sure something would break.
We’ve had similar legs in the Rolex Middle Sea Race as well as on several returns from Bermuda, but this felt more relentless.
After tacking west, we decided to take a reef in the main, then when the wind built, we took both a reef in the J3.5 and a deep reef in the main. Still going fast, but easier to cope with the waves.
We even treated ourselves to dinner. Not bad.
Almagrundet – the decision
Somewhere on the crossing, maybe a hundred miles out from Alma, we both started asking ourselves the question every offshore sailor knows: is this worth it, what are we doing out here, and is this even a race anymore? Neither of us said it out loud for a while. When we did, the answer came fast, because we’d been carrying it separately for hours.
Every model told the same story: upwind in a lot of breeze to the north tip of Gotland, a bit more variety round Hoburgen, then a hard NW reach in 20-30 knots with a lot more in the gusts down the last two legs. 430 nm of it. Boat fine, crew fine, nothing broken. Just no good reason to keep going that we could make ourselves believe in.
At 23:15 we pulled the plug.
Was it the right decision?
We dedicated a separate blog post to this and the discussions we’ve had afterward: “Learnings from retiring”.
And we were not alone: Amazigh was already pointing at her home port a few hours before Alma and reported RET at 23:36, Spirit at 00:10, Stora Blå at 02:02. Four boats, same forecast, same decision within three hours.
Results
| Class | Started | Finished | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|
| IRC Overall | 21 | 5 | BEDOUIN (line honours too) |
| IRC Two | 10 | 1 | BIANCO (First 35, with SCP) |
| IRC Two-Handed | 7 | 1 | BIANCO |
| FinRating | 18 | 3 | C-ME |
Huge congrats to everyone who completed the race. Five boats out of 21 finished, and each of them earned it. C-Me is probably the toughest crew we have in Sweden, and Bianco showed what Finnish sisu can do: two-handed, all the way round, in that weather, and a class win despite a penalty. Bedouin sailed a superb race up front, and Schlüssel von Bremen and Rush ground it out to the finish. There is nothing lucky about being on that list.
Thanks to RORC and the Finnish organizers for putting on a proper offshore race in the Baltic. We’re sorry we couldn’t give you a fuller finish list. Next time.
And thanks to Mattias, who is exactly the person you want next to you when hard decisions need to be made.
What we learned – and tips for next time
On the weather models
Very happy with our setup here. FMI Harmonie and ECMWF were the two we trusted initially; MET Nordic as context; then ICON turned out to be the best poast Hankö. The global/AI models (aifs, aigfs, gfs) ranked last the first afternoon and were dropped. Since Gotland Runt, we’ve done even more work on ranking models versus our actual logged data, and this gives us confidence to play offense.
One: we sailed the boat fast
Pretty close to target upwind in 15-23 kn for 36 hours, with some discounts for slamming, and we were the third boat on the water at Alma.
Two: routing every 2-3 hours, and it paid
Seven archived routing sessions in 26 hours, plus more we ran for finer positioning around TSS and did not save. The Alma decision was made on three models that agreed. Whatever else you think of the decision, it was made on good information.
Three: sail inventory in a breeze
First race with the J3.5 and it works ok from 12 knots in flat water. Real crossover between J1.5 and J3.5 is probably 14-16 knots and 12-18 if you’re pushing it. Reef works great even if we need to change the halyard from a halyard lock on the fully hoisted jib to a normal one when it’s reefed. Alternatively, we could make a strop. Also need a better way to collect the foot of the sail, as we had on the J/111: chock-cord strops that are easy to attach in waves.
Reefing the main also worked well. The only issue is managing all the loose sail when going to the deep second reef. Either we fit lazyjacks, or we spend some quality time rolling the bottom half into a tidy package. Not an enviable job to leeward in fruity conditions.
Learnings from retiring
If you’ve sailed Gotland Runt, you know that Almagrundet means you’re nearly done.
Finish, Sandhamn, beer, Värdshusbiff and some well-deserved sleep.
Twenty years of conditioning.
The Baltic Sea Race course put that exact mark a third of the way into the course. With 430 nm of heavy upwind and tight reaching still to go. So when we bore away at Alma after 36 hours of racing, leading IRC Two, two-handed and FinRating, we could practically hear the music from Seglarhotellet.
Homer covered this three thousand years ago.
The sirens’ trick is that they sing your song. Odysseus knew willpower would lose, so he didn’t rely on it: wax in the crew’s ears, himself lashed to the mast, standing orders to ignore the captain when the captain begs. Behavioral economists later named it a Ulysses contract.
We didn’t have one.
But we had our car parked at Bullandö Marina.
We’ve since done a fairly brutal debrief; tracking data, weather archive, and an uncomfortable amount of psychology. Our conclusion: the decision was probably right for this race.
But the decision making process was wrong in ways that would bite much harder in a race that mattered more.
Here’s what we learned:
1. Decide what the race is for. Before the start. Asked separately how we’d actually treated BSR, we both said ~80 % “we’re here to win”. Asked how we wish we’d defined it: 40 % racing, the rest would be experiment and training. When the fleet collapsed and the best shorthanded teams retired, the 80%-frame made retiring rational.
2. Chart the sirens along with the course. Every course has places where quitting is cheap; a home harbor or a familiar marina near a mark. If the course rounds something your brain files under “finish”, expect the music. The kicker: we had identified this exact mechanism before the race…
3. The conditional pact IS the decision. Somewhere mid-morning we agreed: “if the forecast still looks like this at Alma, we’re done.” That sentence felt like postponing the decision. It was the decision. From that moment, every forecast check asked “do we get to stop?” instead of “should we?”.
4. Classify before you argue: RED, AMBER, GREEN. RED = safety, damage, dangerous fatigue: you stop, no philosophy required. AMBER = the sporting equation genuinely changed: analyse it. GREEN = cold, wet, bored, unmotivated, far from home: not a reason. That’s the sport you entered.
5. Double-handed consensus comes fast. Too fast. Both of you doubting privately, neither wanting to be the weak one. Then one careful “are you thinking what I’m thinking?” And the answer is relief. Two private doubts become one joint decision in minutes, and it feels like truth because you agree. Nobody made the case for continuing.
6. Nobody will hold you accountable. That’s the trap. We posted our RET with a screenshot of the leaderboard. 188 reactions: “wise”, “smart”, “love the honesty”. One single critical comment. Retiring while leading pays out socially like a win, at a fraction of the cost, which quietly teaches your brain to do it again.
7. Sometimes retiring is right. So decide in advance which races deserve the grind. Annie Duke’s research says most people quit too late; walking away at the top is rare and sometimes optimal. The skill isn’t grit – it’s aim. We now carry a one-page decision contract: the frame in percentages, what success looks like without a podium, the sirens marked on the chart, and a protocol for the moment “should we retire?” comes up.
Worth remembering how the story ends: Odysseus got to hear the song and sail past. That’s the actual goal. Not a crew that never retires, but a crew that knows why it continue and why it retires.
Decision contract — template v0.9
Built by the crew of J/99 BLUR after retiring from the RORC Baltic Sea Race 2026 while leading. Not a promise never to retire. A promise to know why we continue or why we retire.
Fill in BEFORE the start, per race. Ten minutes, both crew present.
Before the start
1. Frame (adds up to 100 %, both sign):
RACING ___ %
EXPERIMENT ___ %
TRAINING ___ %
2. Success without a podium. This race was worth doing even if we don’t win, provided: ______
3. What’s at stake. Qualification, season goals, anything else: ______
4. The sirens on this course. Where along the track is quitting cheap? Home waters, a comfortable harbor near a mark, a place our brains has filed under “finish”. Mark them NOW: ______
5. Retirement classes:
- RED = safety or capability: injury, illness, dangerous fatigue, critical gear failure, weather outside our margins. We stop. No discussion needed.
- AMBER = the sporting or strategic value of the race has genuinely changed. May be examined, but only through the protocol below.
- GREEN = cold, wet, bored, unmotivated, a long way to go, missing the shower. Never a reason on its own. This is the sport we entered.
During the race: when “should we retire?” comes up without a RED
a. No conditional pacts. A sentence like “if the forecast still looks like this at X, we retire” IS a retirement decision.
b. No consensus in the first conversation. Separately, in writing, five minutes: my reasons, each classed RED / AMBER / GREEN, plus “if I were deciding alone, my probability of retiring is __ %”.
c. Steelman both directions, out loud. The best possible case for continuing AND for retiring.
d. Goal test: “Does retiring affect what we set out to achieve in points 1–3?”
e. Decide no earlier than one full watch cycle after (b). Until then the plan stands; the default is continue. The burden of proof is on retiring: “What relevant change means this contract no longer applies?” If that question can’t be answered concretely, the answer is GREEN.
After the race
f. One line in the debrief: did the contract hold? Was the question raised, and was the protocol followed? What changes in this template for next time?
v1 — untested.
Further reading: Annie Duke, Quit
I actually listened to her first book, Thinking in Bets, just a few weeks ago when we thought about our decision system around weather models.
Should have read this one instead.
Annie Duke played poker for a living before she started writing about how people make bad decisions. Her main finding is that most people quit far too late, not too early. Leaving feels like admitting the whole thing was a mistake, so we don’t. Grit gets all the credit; knowing when to walk away is the harder skill.