Having spent far too long drooling over the thought of high performance multihull sailing, I at last got round to doing something about it and competed in my first catamaran event, the Round Texel race. This is the biggest catamaran race in the world, attracting some 350 entries this year and comprising a 50 mile clockwise circumnavigation of Texel island, north Holland.

Sailing with Kristian Hajnsek, an ex-Mini Transat sailor like myself, we raced in the rapidly growing Formula 18 class, the biggest and most competitive class at the event which seemed to be packed full of ex-Olympic medallists and pretty much every big name in cat-sailing just to make our lives far from easy.

Texel Sailing Week comprises short course racing in the three days leading up to the famous round-the-island event, and using these races as a warm up for the round-the-island event we were fairly encouraged to finish consistently in the top half of the 90 boat fleet. When stepping into a new class of boat you never really know where you stand so it was somewhat of a relief to know we were somewhere up there and not wallowing miserably around at the back, despite the whole concept of sailing on two hulls still being far from natural to me yet.  A slight blow to our overall result for the week was on the last day of the short course racing, when we couldn’t even get through the beach surf to get to the start.  As soon as we started to make any headway away from the beach a wave would throw us back to the shore, and all we did was progress a few hundred metres along it rather than away from it! Before we broke something terminal on the boat we succumbed to making a decision to sit out the day, like a lot of other sailors had, and prepare the boat for the Round Texel.

We arrived down to the beach early the next morning of the big day in practically no wind, but the start went ahead as planned and we paddled hard to get through the surf and to the startline in time amongst the feeble breeze. Having made the decision to start at the offshore end of the line, we gybed offshore at the start to get cleaner air and more favourably tide. Eventually, however, we realised this was a bad call as the boats inshore picked up speed with the breeze filling close to the beach.  After about 1 hour of racing we approached the shore to find nearly the whole fleet had passed ahead of us!  Even 20 year-old Hobie Cats with no spinnakers had somehow squeezed ahead and we now had our work properly cut out in order to avoid disappointment.  

Soon we found a good setup with the boat and were rounding the northern point of Texel, sailing ridiculously close to the beach with the daggerboards right up, and making good advances on the leading pack.  In filling breeze it was then upwind along the East coast and with so many shallows around we chose our moments to tack based on the boats ahead of us running aground, sometimes stopping dead from 10kts in just a few metres. This was usually followed by both crew jumping around the boat trying to wrench their now-not-so-new daggerboards up.  The latest Hobie F18, the Wild Cat, draws 15cm more than our Nacra F18 so if you were behind one of these you felt safe!   

After some 5 hrs of racing we approached the southern tip of the island which greeted us with a short steep swell, making a fairly lively reach with the spinnaker as the hulls pierced through most of these waves rather than over them, water violently crashing over us and the boat.  It was then gybing downwind to the finish with boats absolutely everywhere so tactically it was down to how far inshore you went, whilst trying not to hit anyone.  Sometimes we found it paid to sail very close to the breakers and surf on the swell, which could build you a surprising amount of extra speed and apparent wind, before realising you were nearly on the beach and rapidly gybing off.  

Following an endless number of gybes we crossed the finishing line after 6 hrs 12 minutes of racing in 34th place out of 136 in the Gold Fleet of the race, with us and the 5 boats behind all finishing within the same minute.  The closest racing I’ve seen considering the 50 mile long course. Based on this being our first race in a cat and after just one week of training I can definitely say I’m pleased with the result. To be up there tussling with some professional cat-sailors is very encouraging for us at this early stage and we hope to get closer to the front of the F18 circuit by our next big race in August. As with entering any new class it’s really now down to putting in the hours on the water, as well of course learning how to ride through the beach surf and get onto the water in the first place!