On friday the 30th of july we had the tour stage from Zandvoort to 's Gravenzande scheduled. A 46 km stretch south-south-west of zandvoort. The trip to Egmond aan Zee (North-North-east of zandvoort) was a shy 60 km in total as measured on the 2004 water maps I bought for the DCC tourstages. So guys if you are reading this, the estimate of a good 40 km is justified. For the readers who weren't there the following post will explain the above statement. It will also explain the disbelieve of all of us including myself.

After the night at Amsterdam we good as much sleep as we could and got up at a reasonable time to start and prepare for the following trip. Working out weather forcasts and doing some final adjustment; afterall we had a trim clinic the day before. We met the rest at the beach later in the morning. The weather showed a medium seastate with a good North-West wind of about 14 knots. This would allow us to sail down in long spinnaker legs with short spi legs to get away from the shore again. We figured this would be a blast all the way down. Only one small item didn't seem right and that was that one weather forcast predicted winds from the south west, although probably later that day. We figured we should make as much ground under spinnaker as we could and then reach and beat the final kilometers to 's Gravenzande. With this wind not a problem.

So decided to set out a little after midday but I think we actually left the beach at about 2 pm. The winds at Zandvoort were still north-west and 14 knots. As soon as leaving the beach we all pulled the kites and went on our first spi leg. For this trip I hooked up with Tony Jenkins. Tony worked the spi sheet like crazy the first 30 minutes and we found the groove easily and were very succesful in staying in the groove thanks to the tips of the day before. Regulary we looked at Daniel van KerckHof and his Crew Anna-liese to see how we stacked up against them. At that time we were doing great. Sure they had a little bit more boatspeed but not to much more so we figured we were doing rally well. I personally enjoyed myself inmensely on the back of the boat working the waves and gusts. Actaully we all stayed relatively close together. Geert and Kirt Simmons, Ohhh I totally forgot about Kirt Simmons ! I'm sorry Kirt.

We were supposed to hook up with Kirt Simmons (USA) and his sons on thursday evening, They had just flown in earlier that day and had visited Amsterdam during the day. We agreed that Kirt would phone me and I would arrange for them to be picked up. Sadly there was not a call, at least that is what we thought at the time. Later it would turn out that Kirt had tried to phone me several times but had gotten a busy signal or at least he heard a signal that sounded like one. Either my receiver had not been properly on my phone all day or their was misintepretation of the European phone signals. Both Phill and Tony who stayed at my place mentioned that they thought that the Dutch phone signals were misleading. Sadly we will not find out what happened as I never checked how the receivers laid on the phone machine itself when I picked it up late that thursday evening. Sadly enough we failed to hook with Kirt and his sons and he had to stay at a hotel that evening. The next morning I received an e-mail with Kirts contact info in the Netherlands so I could contact him which I did. We phoned and agreed to pick him up at Zandvoort railway station later that morning. In the mean time we quickly arranged for some camping gear and sailing gear for Kirt Simmons to use.

Geert had been sailing with Frank Mauritz till then, but frank wanted to drive his van down to 's Gravenzande on friday and he would sail the Westland Cup on his Boyer A-cat. Frank had owned the Bim 16 before that but switched boats when his crew decided to stop sailing. However he still wanted to be part of the DCC and we were happy to have him. Especially on this friday. He helped us enormously by driving both the two sons of Kirt and our trailer with camping gear down to the site of the Westland Cup. I think we abused him a little bit that day, and we are a more than a little endebted to Frank for helping us out that day. Thanks Frank !

And now I must be sure not to forget the mention Greg Goodall who visited us on the beach before we set off to 's Gravenzande and who would join us at the Westland Cup for the next two days. IT was the end of his European tour for this year and he was happy to have some time for himself and not have to go sailing. We were happy to have him as well and get to know eachother better.

But I'm getting ahead of schedule. Days 8 and 9 : westland cup are another report.

So after we arranged for everything and got everything sorted transport wise we set off later then intended at about 2 pm. Followed by about 45 minutes of good spi sailing.

Then the adventure began. The wind slowly but steadily dropped on us. At first both Tony and I thought that we were doing something completely wrong. The other had gotten ahead of us and we were unable to find the same groove as before. For us it happened rather quickly and right after a give back to shore. To others were still continious south on one of the longer leg parallel to the shore. We were unable to catch up and I think that the trim was off on my boat as well. The others parked their boats to wait for us to scrawl towards them. When we reached them the wind had shifted as well to almost a beam reach paralell to the shore but now at a much reduced wind velocity. Daniel signalled that Tony and I should continue under spinnaker and that they would follow. We assume that they would hoist a kite soon after us. He eventually did much later after we had gained a lead over him and then he reeled us back in quickly. Darn ! That Daniel and Anna-liese are GOOD !

From then onwards Tony and I were struggling with trim sometime finding some good speeds for some time and staying with the others and at other times falling out of trim and see the other pull away. However right at that time we stayed with them and even got ahead of Geert and Kirt who had dropped their kite to see it they would be faster on this course than with a kite. We were sailing pretty darn high for a kite I agree. Their wasn't much difference in speed and at times they showed better speed but we largely maintained our relative positions. Later Geert and Kirt would pull their kites back up and we would be sailing side by side. By now we were wildthing and sitting WAY in front of the baots. Such a contrast to when we left.

The minutes past quickly and turned into hours. About halveway we were unable to fly to spinnaker both due to direction and strength of the wind. And we all dropped our kites and sailed on main and jib alone. The water surface turned really flat and almost glassy. Not a good sign ! And we only were only a little past halve way then. I think it was 5 pm or even 6 pm at that time. We stayed pretty close although the others showed to have better pointing ability than us and we were slowly dropping behind. Than at one time before passing The Hague wwe found some extra speed and we started catching up again. Then I dropped my water bottle and it bounced of the trampoline overboard. Tony and I went back for it making a tack and a gibe. That screwed up our new found trim and we weren't able to catch up anymore. There and then I decided to really pick everybodies brain for how to tune this rig. That I did and it allowed me to find much better trim in the sailing I did the last 2 weeks. Anyways it would have been helpful then but we were back to far to ask. In hindsight I see that when sailing with the others we did relatively well considering the new rig and that no rig in tune straight out of the box and that we dropped back more when we weren't around the others. I think unintentionally we could copy what they did when we were near and that kept us up to speed. On the other hand maybe these midtrip conditions were just to much for my rig and settings at them time, wwe could compensate for it more in the stronger winds, but in this very light stuff it hampered us. The others stayed close together all the time so it was definately the us.

We headed up a bit to get past the Scheveningen Pier (part of The Hague) that is a recreational pier stretching into the sea with restaurants and gambling corners etc. At the very tip their is also a bungee jumping tower and Tony and I saw people launching themselfs of the tower. Progress with tantilizing slow. Even though we still had some good speed considering the very light winds. Luckily the wind never died completely on us. It sayed at some windforce 1 or 2-4 knots. It was getting late by then 6;30 pm and we still had to do some distance. Another 12 km of the 46 km trip but it didn't feel like that then because their was a haze that prevened us from seeing more than 7 km. Therefor we couldn't see any clearly recognisable point in the distance. Not even the VERY large cranes and structures that signal the entrance to the Rotterdam harbour. These can been seen from tens of km away. Cat club 's Gravenzande is just a km away from that. These structure protrude a significant way into the saw and really look to end the beach with a rectangle corner (as they do in reality) But none of that could be seen that day. I looked to us like we could continue sailing to Belgium and beyond. In fact that is what crews started to ask. I knew we couldn't pass the Rotterdam harbour entrance without sailing 4 to 5 km straight out to see. So as long as we stayed relatively close to shore we couldn't miss the cat club 's Gravenzande. However I too was a little disoriented because of the haze. I knew how to find the cat club and how this part of the coastline looks like and what to look for but not being able to see those large structures was unsettling. Funny was really that is was a clear sunny day that day, the whole day. It wasn't like their was mist or cloud cover, just a low level haze that wasn't really apparent at the time but that did limit visibility of the horizon greatly. Then when we passed the outer marker of the Scheveningen Harbour we saw the cause of our slow progress. The marker looked like it was pulled throug the water by a motorboat. We had been sailing against the tidal current and it was quite significant. At first with the strong wind on a spi reach we hadn't given the current much thought even though we knew it would be there. Later I check up on the current charts and found that we were unlucky to have been sailing against the current for almost the entire time as we started out relatively late. One must understand that the currents are completely tidal along this coast line and that the Dutch coast doesn't have an easily predictable tidal system. The tides here can vary greatly both in location and time. It is actually a system that can be approximated by 5 sine waves of arbitrary wave lengths. This can cause secondairy high water levels and other strange effects. This secondaire high water level (meaning their is first some retreat before the water rises again) can be gone some days or weeks later only to repear at later in the month. We were unlucky in the sense that we hadn't prepared mentally for this. Turned out we run the full bore and full run of the rising tide all the trip. At its peak the current can be about 2 knots or 3 feet a second. Meaning that in the light wind segments were could be doing some 6 feet a second, a relative good speed considering the winds, and still only cover only 3 feet a second over land. I think we felt that we sailed some 10 to 15 km more due to the current than we actually had to. So some 60 km instead of 46 km. An increase of 30 %. Meaning we delayed our arrival by some 1 and halve hours. That on top of the delays we got due to the dying winds.

However after crossing the harbour or Scheveningen en the city of The hague we found that we were sailing into increasing winds now coming from the south-west. That made another thing clear to us. We had been sailing in a zone where two conflicting winds had fought against eachother and tried to push one-another back. Neither really won and the result was that both winds merged into a much lighter wind blowing perfectly east, the direction that both could partially agree upon. We actually sailed from one system in the north to another in the south and through the light wind area seperating the two. Needless to say we were happy with this new found system and we made the most of it. For Tony and me it meant that we stood a change of staying with the others again. The haze still limited our view and we I recognized the site only when we had gotten much closer however we had covered the last 12 km in about 60-75 minutes of sailing which was good progress considering the earlier part of the trip. During thsi part we hooked up with a nacra I-20 who was out as well and probably looking for the same site. It was still very light as the Dutch summer nights are very short due to its nothernly location. The twilight starts at about 9:30 pm and ends at about 10:30 in this period. So we still have very good light and we would have it for some 90 more minutes. We stayed with the I-20 and after a while we landed on the beach together.

Phill Brander, Frank Mauritz, Greg Goodall and Kirts sons James and Christopher greeted us when we set foot on shore at 8 pm exactly. After some 5 hours and 45 minutes sailing. In hindsight a respectable time considering the conditions and not really exceptionally long. Afterall we had taken 6 hours on the Egmond aan Zee leg. We did cover less ground but then again we had the current with us on the Egmond aan Zee leg although the wind decreased on us that day as well.

We still couldn't really make out the Rotterdam harbour structures even though the evening felt clear. The next day however we could and we were really close to them. Funny how a low level haze can limit visibility. We could see the shore very well all the way trhought the trip but we could not look past I would say (after measuring on the map) 5 km. We were that close to the structures.

Tired of the trip we got out of our sailing gear and putt up some tents and then went out for dinner together. We were just in time for it; not much longer and the kitchen would close. Most would stay and sleep in the tents. Geert and I would go back with Greg Goodall to Zandvoort to get a race watch for Daniel, to get Geerts car to 's Gravenzande and for me to get a good night sleep as I had lend out my camping gear to somebody else. I also wanted needed to make up the tab of expenses to see how much was left and bring back several hundred Euro's to pay for the Westland Cup entry fees an BBQ cost. Which I did early saterday morning before I got into my car to drive back to 's Gravenzande to be into time the enroll everybody.

We were told that the other had a great time near a campfire on the beach with some local surf dudes. It was pretty apparent that they enjoyed themselfs. The beach had filled up with boat and compitors already. A significant portion of the 94 boats eventually enrolled was already there on frifay night.

But the rest is for the next report.

Wouter