Spitfire J121: Swing contest

“It’s going well. We’re comfortable,” says ocean sailor Jelmer van Beek enthusiastically when we call him around 9 a.m. Saturday morning. “Beautiful weather conditions with fifteen to twenty knots of wind. And yes, we are sailing nice half wind back and forth all the time. Just when you’re dry, another wave comes across the deck.” He laughs, “Pretty much, you know the drill.” He sails aboard the Spitfire J121 of skipper Frederic de Visser of Scheveningen. Beforehand, Van Beek let it be known that he and his team were definitely considering a start at sea, but it ended up being Enkhuizen-North. “Yes, the wind was not favorable and with the current we didn’t come out either. So now the plan is to sail all the rakes on the IJsselmeer. By 9 o’clock we had done almost 120 miles. My Scheveningen friends all think it’s a crazy race. It’s super fun to be out on the water at night with so many lights.”

What is it like for you to sail the 24 Hours again after ten years and so many experiences as a professional ocean sailor richer? “Yes nice, to consider in Enkhuizen with the other participants before and if you get wet, at least it’s fresh water. That’s a lot more pleasant and dries faster. Also the IJsselmeer waves are fun again. In the Optimist, of course, I sailed on that an awful lot.” After his training with Team Heiner’s youth program, Jelmer van Beek’s sailing career took off. For example, he sailed the Fastnet Race, Middle Sea Race, the Sydney Hobart and, as skipper of Team JAJO, he finished second in The Ocean Race VO65 Sprint Cup. That the Coast Sailors 24 Hour Sailing Race is a different category of sailing competition may be obvious. But how different is this race compared to traditional sea sailing races. We asked Jelmer. “The unique thing about the 24 Uurs is that you have to turn the corner about every three quarters of an hour. You sail a lot from tack to tack. The funny thing is that you sail with and against everyone. You may be able to see the starting spot off each other, but otherwise you have little idea of how well you are doing relative to the other boats you encounter. This makes the game very different, because normally you are constantly watching each other. Now you do that to avoid sailing against each other.” Asked how the mood on board is, Van Beek replied, “It’s good. We just ate the buns with fried egg. Those were prepared. There were a few more freeze-dried meals in the cupboard, but I passed those by,” Jelmer admits with a laugh. “We have a watch schedule of two hours of sleep and five hours on deck,” he continues. “That goes just right. There are seven of us, so there are always two people downstairs and basically five upstairs. At the same time, we’re doing a lot of work on the Rak 24 program and getting weather reports in. We really do our best to get a good result.” At the time of calling, the wind gauge shows 20 knots. “We have a lot of boats around us. Some are sailing with a reef, some are not. We have a full mainsail and medium/heavy jib up. We have sailed Code zero a few times. We can do that very occasionally when we just have a slightly wider reach. And everybody waves to each other. You always do that on the water, but yes now you have a lot to wave to.” As we conclude, the Spitfire has covered 138.61 nautical miles. That puts the Scheveningen team in the lead in both ORC1 and the standings for most miles.