{"id":527,"date":"2014-06-10T13:09:28","date_gmt":"2014-06-10T10:09:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/optimumsailing.gr\/wordpress\/?p=527"},"modified":"2014-06-10T13:12:12","modified_gmt":"2014-06-10T10:12:12","slug":"never-ever-ever-give-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.optimumsailing.gr\/wordpress\/never-ever-ever-give-up\/","title":{"rendered":"Never Ever Ever Give Up"},"content":{"rendered":"
Cape Sounio, Monday June 9th<\/sup>\u00a0\u00a02014,\u00a017:02<\/span><\/address>\n

We are on our way back from a mentally and physically tough long weekend after successfully competing in 47th<\/sup>\u00a0ANDROS International Race from 6th<\/sup>\u00a0\u00a0to 9th<\/sup>\u00a0of June. \u00a0As one of the oldest and most prestigious offshore yacht races in Greece, the OPTIMUM Team scored 3rd<\/sup>\u00a0in the ORCi division after a stressful and drama packed 3-day. \u00a0This great result was achieved after a very great effort from OPTIMUM 3-ASPIDA-SAXOBANK Team by posting a DNF (Did Not Finish) in race 1 from Vouliagmeni to Andros Island and a 1st<\/sup>\u00a0from Andros to Disvato Straits. \u00a0Add to that a DNS (Did Not Start) in the inshore presentation race\u00a0on Sunday<\/span>\u00a0and you might think that the OPTIMUM team sailed to Andros for the great hospitality that the Nautical Club of Andros reserves for all competing crews.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe compete in Andros race as it is the only serious offshore race in the Aegean Sea that includes night sailing before the Aegean Rally, the top offshore sailing event in Greece. \u00a0The start was from Vouliagmeni\u00a0on Friday<\/span>\u00a06th<\/sup>\u00a0at\u00a016:30<\/span>, to Andros, a 72-mile course through famous Kavo Doro and the finish line in the port of Chora, Andros. \u00a0At the start, OPTIMUM-ASPIDA-SAXOBANK and 3 more yacht teams were over the line early and had to restart properly. \u00a0Then, we led as we should due to our size and performance envelope and managed to extend very far ahead from our competitors looking good for a win in the dash to Andros. \u00a0But with about 20 more miles to go to the finish the light SW winds died completely and we seriously \u201cparked\u201d. \u00a0For 5 hours we covered just 2 miles and at dawn we saw our competitors closing on us with a light breath of wind from NW. \u00a0Two of them not only reached us but passed us from a distance less than 100 meters further offshore from the north coast of Andros were we have \u201cparked\u201d most of the night. \u00a0Sounds frustrating? \u00a0Well, that was the least of our worries as the main cause of stress was time. \u00a0Our time limit for concluding the 72 mile course was 19 hours and the way things looked like, it would be impossible to achieve. \u00a0But the boys did not give up. \u00a0We kept doing our best without sleep, little left food and water and managed to start moving again forward. \u00a0The wind picked up from behind, we hoisted our largest spinnaker and sailed to our limits in an effort to cross the finish line before13:30 on Saturday<\/span>. \u00a0We did not. \u00a0At 13:34:20, \u00a0we crossed the line but we did not get the sound of the horn which meant we were DNF\u2026 \u00a0After 19 hours+ of racing hard we were denied (properly by the rules) that we finished\u2026 Well, this may happen to any team from time to time but it always hurts, let me tell you\u2026<\/p>\n

On Sunday<\/span>\u00a0we got more drama! We left the dock to race in the presentation race for the locals and tourists in Andros and to try to get a good result to earn us a trophy at the local ceremony that same night so\u00a0to feel better ourselves after race 1 master disaster. \u00a0As soon as we exited the port, it was clear to us that it was not safe to race our carbon 52-footer in a theater like course with rocks and swallows were the wind was blowing steady 30 knots, gusting 40+. \u00a0\u00a0We returned to our dock with low morale after our decision to DNS\u00a0(Did Not Start) racing for the day, but safety comes first and is not an option in the OPTIMUM Team.<\/p>\n

Then\u00a0Monday<\/span>\u00a0arrived, and the wind blew hard yet again. \u00a0The rest of the fleet, after various incidents and breakages\u00a0on Sunday<\/span>\u00a0were cautious selecting storm sails or reefing their mainsails. \u00a0On OPTIMUM-ASPIDA-SAXOBANK we were on fire. \u00a0We knew that these were the conditions we will face in a month\u2019s time during the Aegean Rally and that was the reason we were there, to practice our trade racing offshore in heavy weather. \u00a0As such, we started in full mainsail and No4 Jib, reached the turning mark under control, bear away, hoisted the A3 spinnaker and never looked back. \u00a0We surfed repeatedly in almost 20 knots of speed all the way to the finish to win race 2 and due to inconsistent performances by the other competitors, we ended up in the 3rd<\/sup>\u00a0podium position overall in Andros International Race, WoW!\u201d \u00a0declares mainsail trimmer Lambros Nakis with a sign of relief in his voice.<\/p>\n

OPTIMUM-ASPIDA-SAXOBANK crew line-up for Andros Race included Alexandros Sofroniadis, Alexander Maroungas, George Hatzigeorgiou, Lambros Nakis, Nikos Apostolakis, George Eliopoulos , Alexander Steinhauer, Manolis Markogiannakis, Daphne Penna, George Kyragiannis, Andonis Drillias, Vaggelis Karras, Manos Roudas, Nikos Lazos, Periklis Livas and Panos Moraitis.<\/p>\n

The title of Most Valuable Crew (MVC) for the long weekend of racing goes to always available bowman Alexandros Sofroniadis for spending lots of time at the top of our 26-meter mast kicking the battens to tack and looking for wind in race 1 and at the end of our 2-meter long bowsprit in race 2 today, sorting out spinnaker tack issues and getting more wet than any other of us, possessing a positive attitude all the way through.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cape Sounio, Monday June 9th\u00a0\u00a02014,\u00a017:02 We are on our way back from a mentally and physically tough long weekend after successfully competing in 47th\u00a0ANDROS International Race from 6th\u00a0\u00a0to 9th\u00a0of June. \u00a0As one of the oldest and most prestigious offshore yacht races in Greece, the OPTIMUM Team scored 3rd\u00a0in the ORCi division after a stressful and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":526,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.optimumsailing.gr\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.optimumsailing.gr\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.optimumsailing.gr\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.optimumsailing.gr\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.optimumsailing.gr\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=527"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.optimumsailing.gr\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":531,"href":"https:\/\/www.optimumsailing.gr\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527\/revisions\/531"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.optimumsailing.gr\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.optimumsailing.gr\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.optimumsailing.gr\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.optimumsailing.gr\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}