Fighting to beat the record

“It’s going so particularly hard,” reports Volkert Zijlker of the Dazzling Dolphin, a Dehler 39 SQ, when I ask how things are going. “But everyone in the Tocht 5 class is going so hard, so we have to keep fighting to win.” Before the race, he still reported that he had hoped for a light-weather 24 hours because his mainsail is no longer in top shape. “It started blowing a little more than predicted. So trick 1 is to keep the mainsail whole, then the rest comes. We worked very hard last night and fortunately we kept the mainsail in one piece. Sometimes sailed a little conservatively and put in a reef quicker or took the pressure off the neck corner.” The Dazzling Dolphin is a “family affair” this year, as Volkert calls it. Son Tammo and girlfriend Anouk, daughter Lisanne and friend Marc are also on board. Completing the crew is Wim van Slooten. Wim has started six times in the Fastnet Race and finished four times. Lisanne sailed the Sydney Hobart in 2023. So a very experienced crew. And Volkert is competing for the 14th time in the Coast Sailors 24 Hour Sail Race and has sailed it thirteen times.

Few sail changes

They started in Hindeloopen, a tactical move with last night’s northeast wind. For now, they are now in first place in Tour 5. Volkert: “So far we have sailed a relaxed trip. With this northeast wind you can sail beautiful northwest-southeast laps. We actually sailed all night from the Wieringermeer to the Noordoostpolder and back again. Now we are making a second run from Enkhuizen to the Afsluitdijk and vice versa. I specially chose races of about fifteen miles, so everyone could take a break on those long races. That way there are few sail changes and few exciting buoy turns, where one boat has to jibe and the other has to tack. With this constant wind, it’s ‘picture perfect’ of course.” Volkert has been preoccupied for days before the 24 hours with the weather and the favorable courses and especially the starting location. “Beforehand I let the wind tell the story and I linked the racks to that,” he says. “That way we hopefully made it easier on ourselves. But because we sailed harder than anticipated, we are now starting to run out of racks. Our forecast was 180 miles in 24 hours, but when I see now we end up with 183.7 miles. Our record is 184.5, we’re probably not going to make that, but we’re doing our best.

I have a great team together, we all have a lot of experience. That helps to have peace of mind in the boat.”