Edinburgh Regatta: "One hectopascal per hour"

"We had a lot of respect for what was announced," says Constantin Claviez, skipper of the "Charisma", which had sailed a wide arc to the north in the Edinburgh Race. Although this meant that any chance of victory was lost, the gale-force wind was avoided, which ultimately ensured that the boat arrived at all. The reward was fifth place out of 21 starters.

Claviez describes the race as follows: "Our plan was to sail an 'S'. First towards Edinburgh and then, if the weather forecast proved to be correct, to tack NE to sail under spinnaker on the back of the low to Edinburgh. We were of the opinion that the only way to win in this weather situation was to get there. As the depression approached, the baro dropped one hectopascal per hour. We turned off at the start of the second night. After the low, we had another twelve hours of tough weather, then the most beautiful windsurfing - until the wind died just before the Firth of Forth and we had to cross."

The Charisma obtained an overview of the weather every six hours en route. The data transfer of Grib data was made technically possible by the on-board, very well installed SSB radio system from Sailor with 150 watts of transmission power. The transmission to the computer is made possible on board by a Pactor modem, which was installed by Kielradio GmbH.

Kiel Radio receives and transmits the digital data, the Pactor modem connects the computer to the service provider. This allows e-mails to be received. Important: Only the transmission of e-mails and weather is possible via this narrowband connection. Even the Grib data should be reduced to the necessary information. The website programmer of the Charisma website has prepared the e-mails with the weather data and sends them regularly.

Claviez summarises the conclusions from the weather information available to the crew and his experiences in an e-mail:

• If it hadn't been for the 2013 North Sea Week with the Helgoland-Edinburgh race, we wouldn't have set sail
• So there were two options: Not to compete or to face the situation at sea
• In my judgement, with 200,000 nautical miles of experience, this was responsible, as we have a very good and proven yacht in the Nautors Swan and I
• I was absolutely convinced that I had a crew with a strong character at my side that I could trust.
• We have already discussed and considered the possible weather tactics and routing in advance: The big S (mirror-inverted), i.e. from Helgoland WNW, then heading NNE and from north of the core of the depression WSW
• This is exactly what happened, as the updated data transmitted on board confirmed everything that had previously been forecast and about which we had given a great deal of thought in advance
• In the interests of safety at sea, we put our racing thoughts to one side - it was simply a matter of survival and arriving safely, intact and unharmed
• For us as the "Charisma" crew, it was clear that we did not want to face the very tough weather situation in the western North Sea off Scotland
• Congratulations from our crew go in particular to the skipper and crew of the "Magic" and the "Pogo 1" for getting through this - but we would not have shared their decision, as the limit of what was feasible was on a knife edge.
• The two fast yachts were able to escape the extreme weather due to their high speed potential - we, on the other hand, had to deal with force majeure
• My decision was based on the fact that we absolutely wanted to reach our destination of Heligoland-Edinburgh without running the risk of possibly not reaching it after all and having to run off the east coast of England
• As the track of the depression had been confirmed further and further, our only option was to actively steer towards it, so that we could sail north of the centre of the storm depression with an approaching course towards Edinburgh
• The number was hard enough and we also had a storm with 45 knots of wind, but from the right direction
• Nevertheless, the sea rose up to 6-8 metres and breakers flooded both cockpits
• There were waves that, due to the volume of their mass, had levered us out as a short keeler until the yacht was temporarily lying on its side with the cabin windows open
• If we hadn't been picketed as a crew in the cockpit, I wouldn't be able to write this for you
• Once we had weathered the greatest intensity of the storm depression, we sailed towards the Firth of Forth in fantastic weather conditions with optimum boat speed
• The timely arrival at the Royal Forth Yacht Club on 25 May 2013 at 16:55 was a great experience for all of us, especially in view of the great team spirit and performance of the crew

The entire Charisma crew of the Helgoland Edinburgh Race would like to take this opportunity to thank the race committee for the excellent organisation.