Can these two reprise their Fastnet feat?

• NEWS
• 24 Dec, 2009 02:56:00 PM

Can these two reprise their Fastnet feat?

Mike Slade’s maxi ICAP Leopard and UK based Niklas Zennstrom’s new, state of the art 72 footer RÂN showed they are the boats to beat in the northern hemisphere when they scored impressive line honours and handicap victories respectively in this year’s Rolex Fastnet Race.

Mike Slade’s maxi ICAP Leopard and UK based Niklas Zennstrom’s new, state of the art 72 footer RÂN showed they are the boats to beat in the northern hemisphere when they scored impressive line honours and handicap victories respectively in this year’s Rolex Fastnet Race. Now they are in Australia to see if they can do it all over again in the Rolex Sydney Hobart which starts in just two days time.

They think they are in with a real chance, though they both know that to do it they will have to beat some very fast boats.

"What’s really nice here is there are lots of really competitive boats,” says Zennstrom.  “The more the competition the better you’re going to sail your own boat and that’s what you’re here for. To race, not just to sail around by yourself.

“This year we have had a lot of races where there’s not that much competition so it’s fantastic that it’s so strong here.”

Zennstrom had a good look at two of the boats he must beat to Hobart to have any chance of taking out the Tatersall’s Cup, Loki and Limit, during the Rolex Trophy series last week, and believes that the conditions on race day will be crucial.  “If we have a lot of upwind work we will be favourites but if it is a lighter, downwind race it will be them. 

“When we conceived of RÂN the challenge was to build a boat that would perform in the light winds of the Mediterranean but also sustain the big weather of the Rolex Sydney Hobart.  We have a bigger bulb on the keel and a fuller hull for tough conditions but it does mean that very light winds are our Achilles heel.

“We will prepare as well as we can, we will sail as well as we can, but if the conditions are not ours there is nothing you can do about it.”

Mike Slade knows all about getting, or not getting, the right conditions. When he was last out here with ICAP Leopard he had to beat Wild Oats XI. His wide bodied, heavier boat needed a race of big, typical ‘Sydney Hobart’ winds, not the light reaching conditions that proved so ideal for the lighter, narrower Aussie greyhound.

Following this morning’s official race forecast, it seems the wind gods might be looking slightly more favourably upon him. “Wild Oats XI has been an unbelievable boat, probably one of the best you’ll ever see. Last time she beat us by 27 minutes. We were disappointed but it was a light downwind race that did not suit us at all. We were pleased we were so close to her.

”We are as well prepared now with the best boat we could possibly bring to this race, and given the forecast conditions I’m looking pretty good right now.”

Slade says that this is probably his last Rolex Sydney Hobart.

"You have your day in the sun with a boat, but you can’t push it too far,” he says.  “I’m getting old and you get to a stage when you think this is bloody silly and the wife starts complaining about how much it costs.  It’s hugely, extravagantly expensive to bring a boat down here and you can only do it so many times.” 

If that is true that this is his last Hobart, Slade’s affable humour will be deeply missed.  When a journalist asks about his Australian built maxi, and the number of Australians who want to sail with him he quips “this is a British challenge sailed by Australians. I go to sleep, I don’t sail the damn thing. When the going gets rough I go below but they love it up there.  I don’t know what they’re doing half the time.

“The Fastnet and the Hobart are the two best races no question, and this is the better of the two.”

If this is Mike Slade’s last, it is Niklas Zennstrom’s first Rolex Sydney Hobart, and he is showing all the symptoms of becoming an ocean racing junky.  “I’ve always sailed, but not at this level,” he says.  “As a kid I sailed Lasers and did some racing and cruising. For many years I was passionate but couldn’t spend as much time sailing as I wanted to.” 

Creating the revolutionary Skype voice over internet will do that to you, but Skype’s success has also allowed Zennstrom to go back to racing at the deepest end. By any standards RÂN’s a seriously professional campaign. ”In 2004 I started to do some racing in the UK, and of course you get more competitive so you want to go faster.” 

He is not particularly interested in moving up to an even bigger boat, though. He says that in Europe and America the competition in the 60 to 72 foot level is the most intense. “This race is quite unique in having so many 100 footers sailing against each other but often we’ve seen Leopard sailing on her own and that’s not much fun.

Zennstrom began building the nucleus of what is now RÂN’s highly rated crew on his previous boat in the 2007 Rolex Fastnet Race.They are some of the cream of Volvo Round the World and America’s Cup racing.

“The key is people who understand how each other works. There is very little misunderstanding on our boat. And we don’t have a lot of big egos, we have a good time together.

“We have the potential to do well,” Zennstrom concludes, “but we are by no means underestimating this race.  I have the greatest respect for this race.  For me, just getting to Hobart will be a great achievement.”

By Jim Gale/Rolex Sydney Hobart media team