hell of a run
This awesome onboard video of Team Mumma Duck during the just completed Tour De France a la Voile is a fitting ‘goodbye’ to the boat that can claim the longest tenure of any design over the grueling French endurance race The Farr (née Mumm) 30 was the chosen one-design for 11 years of the event, when names like Pacé, Coutts, Stead, Peyron, Dick, and Greenhalgh did their wet times among hundreds of others – professionals, amateurs, and students. Next year, the Archambault-built, Joubert-Nivelt designed M34 will pick up the reins, and boy, does it have some big shoes to fill.
And here’s a final report from the Bouwe Bekking-led Mumma Duck from Saturday:
The Tour de France á la Voile 2010 has finished, for Team Mumma Duck we ended a 2 year campaign with mixed feelings. We started the last day with a one point lead over Ville de Geneve, and an 18 point cushion with Purflo Saint Malo, flying the Blue kite of the amateur class we were the target of the entire amateur fleet.. Not a nice place to stand. To make it a little more technical: When we would sail one more race an extra discard would come into play changing our 1 point lead into a 5 points deficit (we discarded a 17, Ville the Genève a 22).
We didn’t manage to maintain it. Saint Malo had a fantastic day, without the pressure of the blue spinnaker they managed to overhaul us and Ville the Geneve by 7 and 1 point respectively. The amateur class proved to be the most intense (and interesting) fight of this Tour de France. The final result: Saint Malo first, Ville the Geneve 2nd, Mumma Duck third.
This already illustrates our mixed feelings, we lost the lead on the last day, but we became third in a well fought podium, we had a fantastic Tour de France, learned heaps from both Bouwe and Laurent. We had three victories, high places in different offshores, we hit rock bottom (literally) but with a fantastic shorecrew and a close and very relaxed team we solved more or less every problem we came across. We made loads of friends, hit 22+ knots during a mistral-power-packed offshore from Marseille to La Seyne Sur Mer, had dolphins jumping around the boat, ate like kings (and queens), produced a shitload of video, pictures and website messages: This are just a couple of things that shoot through your head when you lie in your bed and think about last month.
Tomorrow we haul the boat out of the water and every single teammember will do on thing as fast as possible: Wash clothes, enjoy a good shower and sleep.
