Mean Regime

Peter de Ridder, with his Mean Machine programs, has been one of the more successful owner/skippers anywhere over the last few years. He has been kind enough to chronicle his amazing year as the overall winner of the 2006 Breitling MedCup TP52 Series with his latest mean machine. Enjoy.

The Mean Machine Team had a pretty busy season of racing. Not only was the TP52 Mutua Madrilena/Mean Machine out on the race course, but also the good old Mumm 30 and Farr 40. We raced both of them on the US East Coast. The Mumm only once, convincingly winning Acura Miami Race Week early March of this year; the F 40 twice in Newport waters. One training event, somewhere in June and the Pre-Worlds and Worlds early September.

Our Far r40 act never really came together. Where the Mumm30 feels like a big dinghy or a small TP52, the F40 feels like a truck. That may already be one of the reasons why our F40 sailing showed some ups and too many downs. As the F40 fleet has gained lots of depth over the years, I estimate appr. 2/3 of the fleet moves around the course at same speed, knows how to start, to handle the boat and knows how and when to change gears. Tthe racing is very competitive, exciting and good practice. Hence being not well prepared for the F40 may add another explanation to why we did not perform to our normal Mean Machine standard. Only during the second half of the Farr 40 Worlds we were in contention, proving to ourselves that we still could compete against the best, but that on the other hand we did not take the challenge seriously enough by being insuffiently prepared to race them for the full event. Our act came together a few days too late...

Well, for sure we took our TP52 project way more seriously. As of the early days back in autumn of 2004 we were fully aware of the fact that only a well campaigned effort would have a chance to win. We (myself, Ray Davies and Tom Dodson) had extensive exchanges of ideas with Rolf Vrolijk, Fietje Judel and Dirk Kramers defining what type of boat we wanted to have for the Med. Before finalizing the hull lines in mid August 2005, I went out on the race course in Valencia and Palma to watch the races, taking deltas at every mark rounding. By that time another group of our team (Dirk de Ridder, Jon Gundersen, Chris Reid and Jonothan Swain) already had defined the deck and cockpit layout by exchanging a string of e-mails and drawings. We also got Southern Spars on the move to design us a new 3 spreader rig. The guys of Southern in close cooperation with Rolf and Michael Rickelsen did an awesome job with many newly developed detailing in order to save weight and to minimize windage. Furthermore our guys responsible for the sails (Jon Gundersen and Liam Newman) worked together with the North people (Burns for main, Mickey for the A-sails and Henrik for jibs) in order to have our first set of sails already close to the ideal 100%.

Paul Hakes and his crew, together with our boat captain Chris Reid and our project manager Rob Weiland made us a great looking boat and by the end of construction in December last year 7 of our professional crew came down to Wellington to sand the hull for 4 weeks till there was nothing left to sand.

After having test sailed the boat in Auckland out of ETNZ's base, the boat was shipped to Valencia and the Med season was off. Our tuning up was done for a 10 day period during Palma Vela late April followed by the kick-off of the Breitling MedCup in Punat Ala.

I guess most of the Anarchists know how we went. It penned out to be a battle between Warpath and us. By the time we left Copa del Rey, with the last two events to go, we had a 1 point lead on the Warpath guys and hence it would be full on till the end of the MedCup. By then we also found out that my doubtless pick for the tiller was the way to go on these boats. I remember an earlier comment of a reknown Kiwi yachty: " What kind of stupid idiot thinks a tiller would work on a boat like this?" Well I happened to be that idiot and thru the season we were sailing more or less circles around him while he was standing on the wheel. I again repeat: "Wheels are for wimps!"

The battle against Warpath went completely our way. Winning Athens and last week at Ibiza gave us at the end a margin of 160 against 211 points. Warpath had some bad luck by the end of the circuit by breaking a backstay during the coastal race in Ibiza. On the other hand, being pretty dusty after our celebrations of winning the MedCup already a day before the last event would end, we finished the job in great style by putting in 2 bullets on the final day of the season. By doing so we did' t leave any room for any doubts about who was the most consistent team during this seasons MedCup.

Looking back I feel it all came down to how we approached and executed this project. Key is preparation in order to minimize risk and the unforeseen, as well as to be able to focus without any distracting worries from the racing ahead of you. Key is also the team one puts together. We had a great and well balanced team with heeps of history together, lots of commitment and dedication. and just as important, no rockstars . Also important was the continuity in the team: we only had 2 crew changes thru the season. Furthermore we always had fun together, on the boat as well as on shore, when having our crew dinners most of the times topped off with a few bottles of Limoncello, our Team drink.

Ray, Tom and I carefully put our team together, knowing that at the end of the day we would end up with a bunch of guys with whom 1+1 is a bit more than 2. This is not "The Dream Team", but the "Mean Team" made it possible for me to look great while driving the bus! Well, that's it.

Kind regards,

Peter