ABOVE: Every
student spends
a day aboard
BELOW:
The only boat
to have won the
Fastnet three timesenter Jolie Brise herself, which raised a few
eyebrows. Two of the crew told me what happened
next: ‘Of course at the start it was obvious that she
was the biggest there by quite a way, and we set
off with 180º wind shifts left, right and centre. Not
having a huge crew it made things quite diffi cult,
but quite fun. We managed second place across
the start line, then jogged around the course a few
times, changing positions a lot while a local boat
held the lead until the fi nal
downwind leg. There was
only 6 or 7 knots of breeze
towards the end. The lead
boat gybed astern of us and
we only won by about 3ft,
standing out on the bowsprit
to see who crossed fi rst. It was
very exciting. They cheered
us, of course, but were a bit
surprised that a 104-year-
old boat could still beat all
their modern boats.’
Toby said the return to La Havre was very different
from the outward legs. ‘You’ve got the Grand Banks,
Flemish Cap, Atlantic depressions building up behind
you and all that. Going over it’s very warm; you meet
the trade winds and can just zip along. Coming back,
you hit the Labrador Current which is freezing cold
and if you look at the “Great Circle” track, it would
take you into the southern limits of the ice coming
down from the Arctic, except for the Sail Training
International waypoint which stops us going too
far north. It can be a really tough trip, but safety
is planned into every detail. In these days, when
some schools won’t risk going skiing, Dauntsey’s
is able to take a group of 16 and 17 year olds racing
a centenarian eastbound across the northern North
Atlantic. We’re proud of that.’HISTORY LESSON
The racing element is always deadly serious because
they have Jolie Brise’s reputation to uphold. She is an
icon, the only winner of three Fastnet races since the
inaugural in 1925, possessor of not one but two Blue
Water Medals, collecting Tall Ships trophies regularly
year by year – not just individual legs. In 2000, she
won the whole Tall Ships Transatlantic Regatta.
This year, the homeward leg started in very light
airs and Jolie Brise is magical in those conditions.
She was the penultimate Le Havre pilot cutter
before steam-driven boats took over, with all those
generations of experience culminating in a design
which was superbly suited for two things – to get
to the incoming ships fi rst as they arrived from
the west, and to weather any sea, while waiting for
them in open waters. There was no fee for the pilot
that came second. That’s why she is fast. In Toby’s
experience, she outperforms boats that she really
shouldn’t, but he says that sometimes you get
a racing car, like a classic Ferrari, which is perfectly
balanced – and Jolie Brise, with her very deep keel
and her huge rig, has that degree of design perfection.
During the race, when the wind picked up and came
aft, the big square riggers lifted their heads and
were away. Jolie Brise had pulled out over 100
miles in the light airs on some of her competitors
but as they downloaded daily positions, the crew
knew they would be overhauled eventually. Were
they dispirited? No. Did they change anything?
Absolutely not. ‘You never know what will happen’
was the mood, and they stuck with it.ADVENTURE