Dartmouth Royal Regatta from onboard Fandango


In the first of our two reports from Dartmouth, Roger Cerrato of Banks Sails joins the crew of Fandango to pit his wits against the rest of the field!

After our slightly disappointing fourth in IRC 1 at last year's Dartmouth Royal Regatta, I rejoined David Scanlan aboard his First 40.7, Fandango, to see if we could improve. Earlier in the year Dave had added a new 1/2oz Runner, Kevlar Light No.1 and PBO Medium/Heavy No.1 to his sail inventory and despite showing great speed at events such as Cowes Week and the Beneteau Cup, the boat has lacked the consistency needed to win. With a very competitive fleet of 24 boats including proven winners such as the Farr 40, IMX 40, HOD 35, Prima 38, Dehler 39, Sunfast 40 and X-362S as well as two other First 40.7s, we knew this would be another tough event.

Two weeks earlier Banks had delivered a new Checkmate Kevlar Mainsail without reefs for Fandango, but after looking at the forecast for the first day's racing on Thursday we began to wonder if this might have been a bit rash! The committee decided to set a heavy weather course and after a good start we reached off under spinnaker towards the Skerries Buoy. The conditions were a lot better than expected and we enjoyed a good race in a breeze of around 12-16 knots. It was then a beat back towards the mouth of the river, with a short reach to finish the lap, then gybe and head off towards the Skerries again.

After two laps the shortened course flag went up and we had our stopwatches on Dignity (Farr 40) and Maverick (IMX 40) as they rounded the gybe mark for what should have been the last time! We were saving our time but were shocked as they both headed off to sea once again. The result was a first to Fandango by a healthy margin from Reet Petite (Prima 38) and Mighty Max (Sunfast 40).

Friday morning and with strong Easterly winds again forecast, heavy-weather course C5 was again set. At the start we had a breeze at around 15 knots and we decided to set the Asymmetric to the Skerries as most of the fleet headed high under Genoa. On hearing the call for the Asymmetric, David Scanlan muttered something about "getting wet". We told him that spinnakers regularly get wet, but David said he meant himself rather than the sail! It was as if he knew what was to comež

This time the breeze picked up towards 30 knots as the fleet approached the Skerries. By now we were flying along but unfortunately not in the right direction! It got so bad that we dropped the Asymmetric bare-headed, never an easy manoeuvre! To add insult to injury we then trawled the No.3 before hoisting it and following the fleet around the mark. We had a fantastic beat with full Main and No.3 and must have passed 15 boats on this leg as we battled back into contention. For the last lap we had a great battle with our sister-ship, Shockwave, and scored a third on corrected behind Dignity and Owl (HOD 35).

Day three, a change of wind direction and a better forecast and the committee boat ventured out for the first time. A coastal course was set with a short first beat to a laid mark and then some longer beats, reaches and runs. With a very heavy pin-end bias there was some excitement at the start but we had a good leg and showed blistering upwind pace in the 10-13 knots to round close behind Maverick, well ahead of the similar rated boats. At the finish line Maverick narrowly beat us on corrected time, but after a tense wait in the Royal Dart Yacht Club bar we realised that our second place in the race, with the Prima 38 White Knuckles in third, was good enough to secure our Regatta victory with a day to spare!

We did race the final day but a combination of 11 hangovers, a terrible spinnaker gybe set, an accidental life-jacket inflation and a Genoa sheet coming off resulted in a fourth place! Not as bad as it could have been but by then it was academic. Owl won the race to secure her second place for the regatta with Mighty Max third in both the race and the regatta. The prize-giving ceremony was held at the Dartmouth Yacht Club and judging by the grip Dave and Tina Scanlan had on their trophies I don't think they will want to give them back! Thanks to Dave, Tina and all the crew for a great regatta and some hectic socialising, I'm looking forward to next year already.

Read Donald Wilks' report from onboard Blues Xtra


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