Contact Us

Use the form on the right to contact us.

         

123 Street Avenue, City Town, 99999

(123) 555-6789

email@address.com

 

You can set your address, phone number, email and site description in the settings tab.
Link to read me page with more information.

News

Preview 2022 season with ROST

Laurien

(Article from February 2022)

2022 will be a special year for ROST. In principle, this will be the final year of the project. With the European Championship IRC in Breskens at the end of August set as the main event, we have an ambitious but good goal for the season, becoming European champions! In this article we’ll take a look at the upcoming season.

As you all know, the ROST project started in 2017. After three successful seasons, a restart was made with a new generation of sailors, ROST II. With great expectations and even higher objectives than the previous ROST, we started work in the winter of 2019/2020, with the main goal set for the Fastnet in 2021. However, where ROST I was ‘sailing along the favoured winds’, with ROST II we faced a bit more difficulties. When we wanted to start our training program in the spring of 2020, our 'dear aunt corona’ came into our lives. The rest is history. We could not start training until the summer and almost all regattas were cancelled. 2021, the year when it was all supposed to happen at the Fastenet, also didn't turn out the way we expected. We started the year in a lockdown again, so had to wait to train. Again, most of the events were cancelled. In the end we were able to start the Fastnet in august, but after a turbulent start from the Solent with winds above 30 knots, we sustained damage to the boat at the Needles, which forced us to stop the race early. At the start of ROST II, ​​the project was planned to last two years. Fortunately, thanks to all these setbacks, another year had been added, thanks to our sponsors. 2022 will really be our year! There is no Fastnet scheduled for this year, so we have chosen the IRC European Championships as the peak event. This year this event will be sailed off the coast of Breskens. There we will try to achieve the best possible result to properly close the ROST program.

At this moment the boat is high and dry at the Yagra boatyard in Hellevoetsluis where we are busy getting the Ker46 van Uden fully ready for the coming season. That was different this year than usual because our boat captain, Pieter Henken, was on an internship on a crane vessel on the other side of the world. As a result, the team had to pick up the job without him. A tight schedule was therefore made, so that the boat is ready in time for the next season. The boat has been completely sanded and antifouled again around Christmas. We are also replacing our rudder for a smaller one, as this is one is more favourable for our rating. In addition, standard jobs are performed such as servicing the winches and replacing or repairing broken items. The winter is used to finish the list of smaller jobs for which there is less time in the summer. The weekend of February 12th is dedicated to servicing all our sails and the week of February 21st the boat will be craned into the water so that we can start our training.

In addition to maintaining the boat, we have been busy working on our team bond. In November we had a team weekend in Friesland. We started off with fun and did nice activities. In addition, we had good conversations with each other about how we can perform better as a team and everyone’s personal role. It has been a useful weekend in which we have grown together. As a result, we have laid a good foundation for the coming season. In mid-January we had a session at the top of the DutchSail team base. Ruud van der Stroom, our sailing chairman, was present to kick off the season. During this session we talked about the plans for the coming season and new strategies to outpace the competition next year. We also have a weekly zoom call with each other to provide an update on the current job status and other matters.

When we go on the water in the week of February 21, we will bring the boat to Scheveningen as soon as possible to start training there. The IRC European Championship is inshore, which means that we sail two to four short races of approximately 60 to 90 minutes per day. This means a lot of boat handling such as markroundings, tacks and gybes. These manoeuvres are central to our first training sessions of the new year. In preparation for the Europeans, we will take the boat to the Solent three times next season to sail competitions there. At Easter the RORC easter challenge is sailed, in June the IRC nationals and in July Cowes Week. We’ll also sail on our own water in the Netherlands, such as the Van Uden Reco in Stellendam in April. The full schedule for upcoming season is as follows:  

-       February 26, First training, Scheveningen (NED)

-       April 15-17, RORC Easter Challenge, Cowes (UK)

-       April 22-24, Van Uden Reco Regatta, Stellendam (NED)

-       May 24-25, Vuurschepen race, Scheveningen (NED) – Harwich (UK)

-       May 27-28, North Sea Race, Harwich (UK) – Scheveningen (NED)

-       June 4-6, North Sea Regatta, Scheveningen (NED)

-       June 10-12, UK IRC Nationals, Cowes (UK)

-       June 25, Round the Island, Cowes (UK)

-       July 16-18, CAM Race, Lauwersoog (NED) – Larvik (NOR)

-       July 30 – August 5, Cowes Week, Cowes (UK)

-       August 22-28, IRC Europeans, Breskens (NED)

We are all motivated to close the ROST project well despite the setbacks of recent years. We have a wonderful schedule for the coming season with great events in which we can show what an awesome project ROST is and make our sponsors proud. We are eager to achieve a good result in Breskens at the end of August! Keep following us via the social media channels and the website!