The Roadkill Cup – Palma de Mallorca 2010.

Over the recent Easter holiday weekend a keen and enthusiastic group of Musto Performance Skiff sailors met on the beach at the Yacht Club Nautic S’Arenal, Mallorca to conduct race training in the Bay of Palma. The majority of the Spanish Musto fleet is based here and now numbers eight in strength and growing. Last years training event was a huge success and so this year the intention was to commence the 1st Euro Cup event of the season. The fleet consisted of boats from ESP, GBR, SLO and FRA (although a British sailor) and totalled 10 boats for the training event.

Javi Lapresa (ESP 325) was our host and ensured that everything possible was done to ensure the visiting boats were welcome and give freedom to use all the available facilities. Sailing initially took place from on the beach where the classes competing in the season’s first European ISAF World Cup event, the Princess Sofia regatta were also based. Once the regatta finished the fleet moved to the dockside of the yacht club and were exposed to the entertaining but challenging floating launching ramps in the marina.

The official event was to consist of 2 days of training and 2 days of racing, however the recent short notice announcement of the Eurocup series did not allow sufficient time for full racing event preps to be finished so it was agreed to just hold 4 days of high quality training instead. The coaching was led by Russ Clark who with the class secretary Paul Manning ran a varied and entertaining series of exercises on the shore and on the water sessions, crossing the language barrier and ensuring maximum benefit was gained by all.

The fleet standard covered the full spectrum including sailors who have finished in the top 5 at international events to newcomers to the fleet who have only had a boat for a few months. Exercises ashore included the usual rig settings and tuning, use of a boat tied down as a simulator to race training exercises in the car park and staging scenarios for discussion; individual perspectives on 3 boat lengths raised a few eyebrows!

In classic Mallorcan style the day started around 11am for coffee, pastries and a chat about the days training, video debriefs were viewed in the yacht club and the exercises ashore completed in time to launch for the sea breeze, which conveniently established itself after lunch. Loaned a RIB and the championship race marks by the yacht club Paul was able to set courses in the bay varying them as required to achieve the training aims. With such a wide skill set to cater for the fleet was disciplined and despite some entertaining interpretations of the “rabbit start” hand signals lots was achieved. The weather gods smiled all week as the conditions varied from flat calm to 25 kts (all be it briefly), sunshine and not a drop of rain in sight (apart from the thunderstorm tactically avoided by more coffee and a video).

As is true with the spirit of the class information from the more experienced sailors was always forthcoming in helping the newer sailors to progress. In 4 days the fleet was on the water for around 20hrs and not a minute wasted. Where else in Northern Europe can you do that in March/April? By the time the boats were packed up on Tuesday evening, muscles ached, tales of daring do were being recalled and there were smiles on everybody’s faces (possible from the free beer).

For those that think it is a long way to go for 4 days sailing, think again. The “event” was 4 days however most of the fleet had been sailing together for the previous week on the bay. Cheap flights are available to Palma from all over Europe, accommodation is plentiful and inexpensive and with boats grouped together on trailers it is no more expensive than Garda. For those sailors unable to attend the forthcoming Worlds in Australia this training event has to be a feature in the calendar for an intensive pre-season shakedown in a splendid location.

As for the Roadkill Cup - it will be awarded next year to the sailor with the ambition, who achieves, displays, wants and most importantly improves - be it racing or training as the event develops. The event will take place next year over the Easter weekend.