Round the Island 2012

The Round the Island Race started with a bit controversy as the committe decided pretty much last minute to abandon the start for the smaller multihulls and the sportboats......a bit of a dumper for the the Open 7.50 Cool Runnings. After the last RTI was surely in more breeze and more challenging conditions many of the Sportboats started anyway and had a great ride around the island.
For Cool Runnings the reach from the Needles to St Catherines ended with overtaking the 164 ft Eleonora, steered by Ben Ainslie, by the "beast" in spectaculair fashion. Captured by David Beaumont, above.
Keen to create some good footage we were equiped with a Gopro Camera on the bowsprit as well as one on the end of the main boom. With the new Gopro remotes we could now switch them on and off on demand to create some good stuff........except that I forgot to put the memory card in the back one! Nevertheless the bowsprit cam came up with some good views of the pocket rocket skipping over the steep waves at St Catherines.

CV & Results

Jochem is one of those rare sailors which have the ability to combine their sailing talents with an array of other skills, such as design, development and an everlasting dedication to improve.

Starting as a One-design sailor in the Netherlands he quickly acquired multiple World, European and National titles as a driver and tactician followed by a win in the Admirals Cup in 1999.

Famous for his skills to make his boats just a bit faster he was quickly nicknamed "The Boatspeed Doctor". His specialities include driving, tactics and navigation. As a navigator he won the rare combination of the offshore classics Fastnet, Sydney-Hobart, Newport-Bermuda and the Middle Sea race.

Fluent in English, Dutch, German and..........Deckman and Expedition tactical software.

Feel free to contact him to turn your boat, team and campaign into a winning concept

JOCHEM'S RACE RESULTS SUMMARY

3x World Champion

6x Top 3 in World Championships

2x European Champion

51x National Champion

5x Winner Kielweek

4x Winner Seascape 18 Nationals

2x Winner Middle Sea Race

2x Winner Cento Miglia

Winner Admirals Cup

Winner Sydney Hobart

Winner Fastnet Race

Winner Newport Bermuda Race

Winner Round Britain & Ireland

Winner Tour Belle Ille

Winner Copa del Rey

Winner GPEN

Cool Runnings wins in the Tour Belle Ile

Cool Runnings was succesfull in the recent Tour Bell Ile (the frensch version of the UK RTI). She kept all the other Open 750 at bay after a light and tricky start she excelled in te final stages with more breeze to take visctory with a substantial lead.

Spi Ouest 2012

Spi Ouest 2012 provided all the action the Open 7.50’s could ask for. With 128 J-80’s on the course, another 60 other One designs, all together on a 1sq. mile area, a gennaker that blinds about 50% of your view and speeds in access of 20kn we had more action than we could have wished for. With the 7.50’s originating from La Trinite the class attracts some of the key French offshore multihull sailors as well as the first Uk team, Cool Runnings.  On the first day with winds in 25-30kn range we quickly discovered that an Open 7.50 kind of eats its crew and spits it out. After 4 short races on the first day, with plenty of drama, Cool Runnings was leading but not without trouble. On one of the kite drops the articulating pole was released slightly ahead of the gennaker tack line and  bowman Jamie Smith, fully set up to do a weather drop, became the first carbon pole propelled human cannonball. He disappeared from the cockpit to the forestay in less than a second…..and perfectly captured by Thiery Martinez. For most of the Open 7.50 crews pain killers where high in demand during breakfast the next day. Day 2 and 3 produced lighter breeze and Safran (Marc Guillemot) took the lead Cool Runnings and Atchoum ( Nicolas Groleau) with some amazing high skilled sailing. The last day brought the breeze back again and with Safran in comfortable lead it was between Atchoum and Cool Runnings to battle for 2^nd and 3^rd on the final race day. Nicolas showed his skills as a sailor and builder of the boats and managed to keep Cool Runnings at bay. Spi Ouest provides excellent racing and I cannot praise our race officer on our course enough. With back to back racing and many many starts it was absolutely flawless race management I’ve seldom seen. The Open 7.50 seem to have a revival. The boats are extremely well build and exceptional fun for the money. With over 28 build by Nicolas originally there are plenty for sale and the ultimate way to get into adrenaline fuelled sailing for a modest budget.

The medium of my profession

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Merry X-mas and the best results for 2012

 .....and to all the other nationalities I've sailed with this year:

Buon Natale e un felice anno nuovo (Italian)
Prettige kerstdagen en een Gelukkig Nieuwjaar (Dutch)
Merry Milied u sena ġdida kuntenti (Maltese)
С Рождеством и Новым годом (Russian)
Frohe Weihnachten und ein glückliches neues Jahr (German)
God Jul och ett gott nytt år (Swedish)
Glædelig jul og et Godt Nytår (Danish)
Geseënde Kersfees en 'n gelukkige nuwe jaar (Afrikaans)
God Jul og et Godt Nyttår (Norwegian)
メリークリスマスと新年あけましておめでとうございます (Japanese)
Vesel božič in srečno novo leto (Slovenian)
Crăciun fericit şi un an nou fericit (Romanian)
Feliz Navidad y un feliz año nuevo (Spanish)



Looking forward to see you in the New year.


Jochem Visser ( Dutch cheese, Boatspeed doctor......Cloggy)

The art of carving water