The BRIO RAID was on last weekend and two sailing canoes participated finishing extremely well outright on handicap – both leading for a substantial part of the races at different times in a fleet of 150 boats.
Both the canoes decided to use their lug rigs for a more variable sail area and simpler rig dropping when going under the numerous low bridges. The lug rigs were made by our Really Simple Sails business.
This Shows that RAID boats can be very simple and light – and that big complex boats may not necessarily be the best choice. Just like the previous weekend when the Viola 14 sailing canoe did the same in another event.
More on the Viola 14
The Viola plywood Sailing Canoe plan has the characteristics of a performance sailing dinghy with the portability of a wooden canoe. More Information on the Viola 14
Light wind event this year
The winds were even lighter than the RAID last weekend where Viola ended up an hour to an hour and a half in front of other competitors at the first camping stop.
The two boats were Joost’s Viola 14 and Koos’ Artemis – both carrying lug sails. They both have conventional laminate square top sails as an option but for a distance event the ability to reef and lower the sail easily is more important than outright speed.
150 Sailboats, 60km. Towing by foot and paddling allowed
Course is 60 km long with plenty of bridges to pass. Only the very last bridge was open and I could sail through. All other bridges we had to take the rig down. So the average pace was just above 6 km/hour.
Only 63 boats out of 150 finished in the 12 hours limit. Fastest boat did it in 8:18.
When I say outright speed … here is Viola in third place moving up to first.
Back home from the Brio sailing marathon. Very tough event this year with only 6-7 knots of wind and very few gusts beyond this.
Here I am in third place going to first place just before the first bridge.
Normally the field is quite close together on this stretch, here it already starts to be pulled into one long line only after 4km or so of sailing. When we went left the second lake after 20 km or so, most of the field still had to go onto the lake.
Joost Continues:
Finished within 9:58 hours. Koos was a bit faster and finished in 9:49. We had to paddle one very long stretch (11 km – tacking upwind did not make much sense on the narrow canal in such low wind) and I could not keep up in the headwind against the Artemis (9 inches narrower – better tracking with the V-shaped bow and skeg – faster paddling cadance with the shorter paddle). Also messed up at the last bridge with the halyard and had to re-rig it. Still very happy with the result!
Koos in his narrower and longer Artemis (in somewhat more wind than this event!
Viola in somewhat more wind than this event.
On handicap Koos came in 11th and I finished in 13th place. On line hours, Koos was 10th (I think) and I finished around the 15th spot. So the canoes did great in the event where most boats are sailed by a crew of 3-4.
Course is 60 km long with plenty of bridges to pass. Only the very last bridge was open and I could sail through. All other bridges we had to take the rig down. So the average pace was just above 6 km/hour.
Light winds gave the bigger boats some advantages – towing means running!
So this year was really a paddling and towing contest. The larger boat do a lot of towing and that speeds up things massively (they are running). We paddled and paddle-sailed a lot.
I paddled in total 13 km. Koos paddled a lot more (appr. 19 km). So that is using a double bladed paddle only (no sailing).
Relative performance of the two sailing canoes
Photo shows Viola a few boats in front of Koos’ Artemis (in this instance)
The Viola is the quicker sailboat, especially upwind (Koos agrees to that). When things get tight, the differences are very noticeable. This is where Koos decided to paddle and where I just tacked up the channels at the same pace he was paddling.
(Michael Storer’s suggestion: I suspect this could be to do with leeboard depth and area on the Artemis – I had similar experience with my BETH sailing canoe and a bit more centreboard depth and the boat came alive sailing upwind)
There was one very long 11 km stretch where sailing was just slower than paddling. The larger faster boats all pulled their boats and we both paddled. This is where the Artemis is better being narrower and longer conceived as a 50/50 boat (narrower and longer). Koos was going full-out and so was I, but he slowly pulled away from me. It was a good and close race where upto the 40km mark we were still together.
