News

December 3, 2007

One could definitely say that Mean Machine’s début was a successful one. The Farr 40 10th Anniversary Regatta held last weekend in Miami, saw the team finish in third place overall.

With a brand new Mean Machine Farr 40, just out of the shipyard, and a team with some fresh faces, Peter de Ridder’s crew just got better and better with each race on their return to the Farr 40 class. The Team sailed consistently with an obvious learning curve, as the race results for the three days reveal. Mean Machine finished the first day in 9th place, the second in 5th to finish off by winning the last day and taking the 3rd step on the podium.



Over 8 Windward-Leeward races with Peter de Ridder as skipper and Ray Davies on tactics, not to forget the rest of the Mean Machine crew, the team notched up the following scores: 6, 12, 8, 11, 2, 5, 6 and 5; putting them in third place in the overall standings. The only boats to top them were American Jim Richardson’s “Barking Mad” and Massimo Mezzaroma’s “Nerone” from Italy.

Conditions out on the Miami waters weren’t generous to start off with, and the light wind barely allowed the two races to go ahead; but the following days provided some more favourable conditions for the crews to enjoy.

This Miami regatta presented Peter de Ridder with two challenges: the first was to reach the successful performance level in Farr 40 that the team have achieved in the TP52 class; and the second was the challenge of going back into the class after a period away from it.

Mean Machine had some of the core team-members onboard for the challenge, such as Ray Davies, Dirk de Ridder, Jono Swain, Tom Dodson (who made the perfect coach for the team), and Allen Smith, who together made up the professional proportion of the crew. With Peter de Ridder directing, the crew, more used to sailing on a TP 52 of late, have needed some time to adapt to the new boat: “We noticed the differences while we were still training for the race. The Farr 40 is a different boat in terms of handling, as well as being more physical to helm, both upwind and downwind,” said the Dutch skipper.

But in their début competition de Ridder’s crew have yet again proved they are true “Mean Machines”, fighting off world class rivals such as the World Champions “Mascalzone Latino”, Australia’s “Ichi Ban” and Germany’s “Morning Glory” who are all more than familiar with the class.

Alma mater of Mean Machine, Peter de Ridder spoke about his return to the class: “We sailed and practiced in Miami for more than a week, which was necessary to bring both the boat and crew up to speed. Finding out the rig tune and getting into smooth crew manoeuvring is quite important, for all of us, as we’ve had almost 2 years without any F40 sailing, so we had to tune in again. Through the week we saw a solid move up the learning curve, continuing as the racing days passed by. Although we all are convinced there still is a lot to be gained performance-wise, we found ourselves on the right track. Illustrative of this was the change of our position in the general standings as time progressed. From 9th overall after the 1st day of racing, we went to 7th on the second day and concluded the event with a 3rd overall by the end of day three.



As always the racing in the F40 is tough and it can be harsh. A good result in one race can be followed by a bad one in the next race. Consistency and focus till the end of a race is all that matters in a fleet with such depth. There were many good teams out there in Miami and maybe only 1 or 2 teams were missing to really have made it a gathering of the top of the F40 fleet.

Given all this I am after all pretty happy with the outcome. Both with the end result during our first re-appearance in the class, and also with the steps we made along the learning curve”.

An excellent début performance in a more than just competitive class.