Yachts

ALIBABA II

A good start of the season 2009.

The team of Alibaba II has had an excellent start of the 2009 season. After two first places in the Wednesday races at HSS and and an overall fist place in the ESF regatta, we are looking forward to the class championship on the 26th - 28th of June. But we do know that a successful streak might end very fast and we do remember the havoc we experienced in the class championship last year. So let´s get our feet back on the deck…

The crew in the races:

Wednesday race on the 10th of June
Helmsman: Gustav Nyberg // Tactician: Johnny Winqvist // Trimmer: Henrik Roos // Halyards: Leif Bockelman and Foredeck: Ville Vento

ESF regatta 13th – 14th of June
Helmsman: Gustav Nyberg // Tactician: Johnny Winqvist // Trimmer: Henrik Roos //
Halyards: Leif Bockelman and Foredeck: Markus Lumme

Wednesday race on the 17th of June
Helmsman: Gustav Nyberg // Tactician: Henrik Roos // Trimmer: Claes Tallberg // Halyards: Martin Grotenfelt and Foredeck: Leif Bockelman

Evli –regatta on the 26th – 28th  of June
Helmsman: Gustav Nyberg // Tactician: Ville Vento // Trimmer: Henrik Roos // Halyards: Leif Bockelman and Foredeck: Turo Nummi (Friday) and Markus Lumme

The team from 2008 will continue together even this year and hereby defend the ranking victory. The Alibaba II team includes: Gustav Nyberg (helmsman), Ville Vento (tactics/trimmer), Henrik Roos (trimmer), Leif Böckelman (halyards/trimmer), Turo Nummi (foredeck, halyards and trimmer) and Markus Lumme (foredeck). The main goal for the season was supposed to be the WC in Newport but due to many reasons Alibaba II will attend only the 6mR ranking regattas in Finland and surely also defend the Nicolai Sinebrychoff Challenge Cup.

The crew 2009:
Leif Böckelman (halyards), Turo Nummi (fordeck), Henrik Roos (trimmer), Gustav Nyberg (helmsman)
and Ville Vento (tactitian).

Comments from the 2008 season:
The season started with the ESF regatta in the middle of  June. In our opinion this regatta has established its place as one of the top 6mR regattas during the season. The arrange-ments are good, including a nice dinner with live music and great fun. Alibaba II finished second with guest stars Pasi and Antti Kaarto onboard. The rest of the crew included the owners B/N/R.

Helsinki regatta required some changes in the crew since LB had to stay onshore and cure a pneumonia that according to the helmsman sounded more or less deadly. Markus Lumme took the foredeck position and Turo Nummi was responsible of the halyard position. This resulted in a winning team since Alibaba II won the whole regatta.



The next regatta, Hanko is considered by some to be the high mark of the season. Maybe this is due to the fact that it always includes a quite action filled transportsailing from Helsinki to Hanko. This year the crew transporting the yacht included Ville, Turo and Lefa. The only minor problem related to the event was more or less NO WIND. Luckily we met some friendly  motorboats that provided tugging for us on Tuesday and after some long hours we landed in Barosund, at the Varuboden pier. The evening continued with a nice barbeque and (some) red wine. Next morning started with as light winds as the day before. After some sailing we were able to have a rendezvous with Henrik Roos who provided tugging to Hanko with his sailingyacht. Not a very demanding sailing experience but as Turo stated, “why use your energy now when we will need it in Hanko on the racing course (and for the aftersail events)”.



I guess we had atleast some energy left since we were able to finish overall second in the regatta. The regatta started great with a first place, but on the second day Alibaba II finished ninth. The last day in the regatta was more or less a dejavu from the transport-sailing since the wind was very light. Our position during the race was probably everything from tenth to first, but on the last leg to the windward mark our tactician decided to go out on the right hand side when more or less all the other yachts sticked to the middle or the left hand side. This time it surely paid off and we could finish first with a pretty comfortable gap to the yacht that came in on the second place in this last race. This meant that Alibaba II finished overall second in the regatta (won by Fridolin, FIN-12).
 
After a well deserved summer holiday for the crew the season continued with the Nikolai Sinebrychoff Challenge Cup. This year the defending yachtclub NJK had decided that Djinn would defend the trophy. The Alibaba II crew was the same as in the Helsinki regatta and it proved once again to be a winning concept. In the initial fleetrace Alibaba II won the possibility of challenging Djinn for the trophy. The match race was a very tight competition with the score 1-1 after two races, but the third race ended in a slim win for Alibaba II and  therefore Svartbacks Segelsallskap will be the defender of the trophy in 2009.  

The winning crew of Alibaba II and defender of the Nicolai Sinebrychoff Trophy 2009: Gustav Nyberg (helmsman), Henrik Roos (trimmer), Ville Vento (tactitian), Turo Nummi (halyards) and Markus Lumme (fordeck).

The Evli Classic Regatta which was also the Class Championship 2008 was arranged in the end of August. After the win in the Sinebrychoff Cup, the Alibaba II crew had high hopes regarding this regatta. In the first race the high hopes were crushed by a collision with Maybe VI at the first windward mark. To our knowledge the whole situation was crystal clear and maybe less words about this case is better than many. The whole regatta continued in a fairly negative mood with an overall fourth position.

Due to the possibility to win the whole 6mR ranking 2008, Alibaba II decided to attend the Musto Cup which is no favorite of ours. A very crowded racecourse with some surprising events usually caused by commercial and other vessels. Alibaba II was also in pretty bad condition after the Evli Classics which caused some doubts within the crew. The crew included Gustav, Ville, Lefa (as trimmer this time), Bettina Jansson during the first day on the halyards and a friend of Markus Lumme on the second day (sorry mate I can´t remember your name) and finally Marre Lumme on the foredeck. Alibaba II finished overall third and won therefore also the 6mR ranking 2008 with a very slim margin to Off Course.

The crew of Alibaba II were quite pleased with the season but we will hopefully avoid similar damage to the yacht in 2009 as we experienced during the 2008 season. 

Thank you to all that helped us by being part of the crew or by transporting the yacht during the 2008 season! A big thank you also to the sponsors!

Alibaba pictures at Sailpix.fi