The Skagen Race starts in Helgoland in the German Bight, heads north around the top of Denmark, through the Skagerak and Kattegat before finishing in Kiel. Owner of Class 40 Red, Mathias Mueller von Blumencron, had persuaded us to join him to help promote Class 40s in Germany and provide him with competition.
Our Skagen Race adventure began with a delivery trip to Royal Harwich Yacht Club with crew member and Yachting Monthly Sailing Editor, Chris Beeson, inviting his Cruising Editor colleague, Dick Durham along for part of the ride and an opportunity to write about the experience in his blog. Tom, Natalie, Graham Iles and Sarah Fawcus then used the North Sea Race as the delivery passage to Scheveningen before returning to Blighty. A week later Tom and Natalie headed back to Scheveningen with the rest of the crew for the Skagen Race, Bob Clitherow, Chris Beeson and Tom Playford, to deliver Orca to Helgoland, arriving at this sandstone block in thick fog.
The race involved a tough overnight beat into a northerly, satisfyingly leaving Red behind us, to a buoy out to the west of Denmark in the North Sea and then a fast white sail reach towards Skagen. But the baby stay gave way, resulting in the tack of the heavy weather jib swinging back into the leach of the mainsail creating a metre long tear. In the course of recovering the sail Chris sustained a couple of broken rib. We pressed on nonetheless with the northerly building, kicking up fearsome breakers in the shallow sea off northern Denmark. With a tear in the main, albeit not getting any worse, a big breeze of 35 knots and more, a lee shore, one damaged crew member and another poking his head through the companionway and throwing up over Natalie, we decided to call it a day and took shelter in the fishing port of Hantsholm – although making the entry to the harbour through breakers was pretty exciting and called on skills honed bringing National 12s in to the beach at Pevensey Bay. The photos below show the aftermath, repairing the sailing in Hantsholm and then sailing back down the North Sea to Ramsgate.
