STOP PRESS! Xp33 wins best IRC boat overall trophy

 
The Xp 33 BonExemple continued her her unbeaten track record by winning the highly contested Volvo Din Laoghaire regatta in a fleet of 19 boats.

So far the new Xp33 BonExemple has won every series she competed in under the popular IRC rule.
Tactician Jochem Visser was particular happy with the final race in this series where the match raced their only remaining competitor  down the fleet and then pulled out the afterburners to sail back into the lead to seal a convincing overall win.

1	BON EXEMPLE	Xp 33	9 points
2	NOW OR NEVER	Mat 1010	14 points
3	ROCKABILL	Corby 33	20 points
4	CARMEN II	First 36.7	23 points
5	GRINGO	A35	27 points
6	ANIMAL	Elan 380	30 points
7	FLASHBACK	First 34.7	31 points
8	BLACK VELVET	First 34.7	32 points

Cool Runnings wins Tour Belle Ille in spectacular fashion

The Open 7.50 "Cool Runnings", skippered by Thorkild Juncker and with Jochem Visser on tactics, surprised friend and foe in the predominantly light Tour de belle Ille.
The French equivalent of the Round the Island Race attracts one of te most spectacular fleets ranging from the small, but fast and furious, Open 7.50 to the impressive MOD 70 trimaran’s. The race is held every year in May from the town of La Trinite Sur Mer, a village which has been connected with a long history of sailing.
Cool Runnings managed to make their race winning move when most of the fleet struggled to get through the narrow passage, which leads the Quiberon bay in to more open water. In adverse tide conditions the crew of Cool Runnings took a bolt move to use a rocky island, which forms the base for a lighthouse, to shelter from the strong currents.  Finding a rare back eddy they managed to slingshot themselves around the cardinal mark in 2^nd place on the water, well applauded and cheered on by the spectators,  in the primarily bigger fleet. Leaving all the MOD 70’s and the rest of the fleet behind. The tactics paid off well and propelled the British based team into a comfortable lead to win their class easily.

Xp 33 Bon eXemple wins Warsash Spring Series Championships with 9 point lead

The XP 33 on the hunt on the final run of the last race

The XP 33 won the Warsash Spring Series in IRC class 2 with a convincing lead of 9 points. Skipper Jochem Visser praised his team and crew and explained the final weekend performance:

 "On the Saturday we scored a 2,2,2,3 were we narrowly missed the 1st place by a few seconds. We did well but struggled to keep clear lanes on the 4 very short races which were challenged by short venomous shifts. The bigger 40' feet boats La Response and Premier Flair gained points on us. But on Sunday the XP 33 showed her pedigree and all roundness winning both races." Jochem recalls the last race in particular: “The final race was very short and lasted less than 30 minutes. In those short races the big boats can easily sail you back and put some time on you but……..in this case the rolls were nearly reversed as the XP 33 arrived literally bow to bow with them at the top mark”. On the final run the XP 33 excelled and trailed them close on their stern to secure victory in the last race as well.

When we asked Jochem how the XP 33 compared to his X-99, in which he won 2 World titles in the 90’s, he looked up at us like an exited teenager; “The X-99 has been very special to me as I won my 1^st ever World title in her, but she wasn’t an easy boat to sail and needed a lot of skills and a very dedicated crew to sail her fast. The XP 33 has really impressed me, I love to have a tiller again with finger tip control and I really like her clean simple set up and more importantly she sails and performs at a high level really easy. If I think back about my X-99 days and how much we improved season upon season I’m convinced there is much more my team can do with the XP 33. To put it simply; I've fallen in love with the XP 33 and I think she is a weapon”

Full results on the Warsash Spring series here: http://www.warsashspringseries.org.uk/

Xp 33 takes convincing lead in the Warsash spring series championships.

 With only a few hours on the water before the first start, the British Xp 33 BoneXemple, showed impressive performance with a 4,1,1,1,1 scoreline in the heavily contested IRC 2 class.

 Jochem Visser and his team admitted being slightly nervous and anxious taking her out with so little time on the water in a well establised and compettitive fleet. Jochem commented;" Coming of the start line we quickly realised that we could keep up with most of the substantially bigger boats in this fleet. The boat did not only perform extremely well up wind it did even better on the following run. With winds ranging between 6 and 18 kts over the two days we discovered the Xp 33 has quite an amazing array of "speed tools".

 With her high stability we could pick up speed easily upwind and with the use of the jib in-barber system could then convert this into a very high pointing mode or a fast lower mode. It always feels great if you can either point higher then your opponents or go faster." The new Xp33 is focussed on high stability and allround performance with the rudder more forward underneath the hull to improve efficiency. Jochem said " It feels really comfortable to drive. With some boats you struggle to find a balance between too much heel and the need to sail lower to pick up speed. The Xp33 has so much stability that a simple nudge on the tiller to bearaway instantly translates into more speed. With the rudder deep under the hull it creates very good "grip" and I was amazed that it took me less then a one beat to get to know her. I was very suprised how we quite quickly took it for granted that we were sailing boat for boat with those in the fleet 7 feet bigger!"

All in all he was very happy with the boat and his team's performance. " There is still a lot we can do to improve and I'm convinced there is still more untapped potential. I'm really looking forward to next weekend"

Full results here: http://www.warsashspringseries.org.uk/

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