GBR-25 strolls to Euro series win

With the Barlo Plastics Farr 40 European Series in the bag, Mark Heeley and the crack crew of GBR-25 look ahead to the Farr 40 worlds

GBR-25 has won the final round of the Barlo Plastics Farr 40 European Series. The three-day event, co-hosted by the RYA and the Royal Southern Yacht Club, started last Friday and by Sunday night, skipper Mark Heeley and his crew were feeling pretty satisfied with a 2,1,2,1,2,1,1 scoreline in this eleven-boat fleet.

Tony Buckingham’s A Bit Of A Coup and Tony de Mulder’s Vitric V filled out the rostrum but GBR-25 took the round and the series alarmingly comfortably. Heeley has been forthright in the past about the dodgy whetstone on which he has had to sharpen his world dreams but after wrapping up the series, he was more generous.

“The standard of Farr 40 sailing in the UK is much better now than three months ago,” said Heeley, “but at the world championship, which is still over two months away, we will be sailing against crews that have been sailing Farr 40s for a generation longer than us. The challenge will be for everyone to really build their programmes and apply themselves to keep raising the standard otherwise an average result will be a real possibility.”

Statistically, the UK Farr 40 fleet would settle towards the lower-middle of a world class Farr 40 race with the Americans and one or two Europeans riding high. It’s Heeley’s task to make sure he and his star-studded crew learn from the few mistakes made during the series, then produce faultless displays at the world championship in the Solent this September to get them into top-ten contention.

In the meantime, sail wardrobes will be optimised, crews kept in trim and on target weight and many local brains picked for anything that might bring the slightest advantage at the world championship

Barlo Plastics Farr 40 European Series
Round 4 (after three days)