The start of the 2023 Mini season

Categories: CEMC · Cirrus Minor · CirrusMinor · Classe Mini · Mini · Mini Transat · Racing · SailingTags: · · · · · · · Leave a comment

I started the 2023 season by taking part in the last training stage organised by CEMC (Centre d’Entraînement Mini 6.50 de Concarneau) and Pole Mini Roscoff at the beginning of April. This was the last training before the first mini race, Plastimo Lorient, that I had registered for, and I really wanted this time to do the entire training. Last year I took part in only one session, together with one of my very experienced friends from Concarneau, Maxime Dagorne, and the pace of the training was too fast for me. I was a complete novice at that time, plus…

Calvados Cup Race 2

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After a couple of pleasant days spent in the charming town of Deauville, we were ready for the start of the second stage of the Calvados Cup. This time the race consisted of two crossings of the English Channel, plus a longer passage to the south of the Isle of Wight from East to West. Overall the race track looked like a big triangle, starting and ending in front of Deauville. The weather was more complicated than in the first race. For the start it was forecasted very light wind, which gradually built in intensity as we headed out north….

Calvados Cup Race 1

Categories: CEMC · Cirrus Minor · CirrusMinor · Classe Mini · Mini · Mini Transat · Racing · SailingTags: · · · · · · · · Leave a comment

The first stage of the Calvados Cup 2022 took place between Douarnenez and Deauville and contained some iconic passages, such as the crossing of the beautiful Douarnenez Bay and of the reputed Chenal du Four with its very strong currents, passing along the British Isles (Guernsey, Aurigny) and finally sailing across the Bay de Seine with its heavy marine traffic, changing currents and fickle winds. This year 48 boats were present at the start, 42 in the Series class and 6 in the Proto class, a figure double than last year, which shows the great interest in the offshore races…

Mini Campaign Part 2 – Calvados Cup

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Two months and a half after my first mini race of the season I returned to Brittany to take part in one of the most interesting mini races – the Calvados Cup. It is the only mini event that consists of 3 independent races that all take part in the famous English Cahnnel. Last year I participated with my friend Victor Mathieu in the same races and the great experiences I had (going backwards with the current at least once per day, being called upon and chastised by a stupefied French Coast Guard for entering a protected area near Alderney…

Plastimo Lorient Mini – The DAY!

Categories: CEMC · Cirrus Minor · Classe Mini · Lorient · Mini · Mini Transat · Navigation · Racing · regatta · SailingTags: · · · · · · Leave a comment

After a day and a half of delay, the long awaited race started on Saturday morning, April 9th. It turned out to be a beautiful day, 24 hours of respite between two depressions that swept the Brittany coast. We started very early, at 6:30 AM, because the Organising Committee sent us a new shorter route the previous night and we had to revise the waypoints on the GPS and discuss the strategy. At 8 AM we left the dock under sail, in very light wind. Soon afterwards we raised the big spinnaker and glided towards the starting line. We had…

Plastimo-Lorient Race: D-4

Categories: CEMC · Cirrus Minor · Classe Mini · Lorient · Mini · Mini Transat · Sailing · World SailingTags: · · · · · · · Leave a comment

Yesterday we brought Cirrus Minor to Lorient. The weather forecast looked kind of light, with winds of 6-8 knots from NE, and getting stronger in the afternoon. I was prepared for a relatively short, downwind sailing to Lorient, hoping to get there around 3 PM, and enjoy a nice lunch with Nico and Victor. Given his experience, Nico was not as optimistic as me when he saw that the wind dropped completely around 11 AM, after we got out from the Concarneau harbour into the bay. He said in a relaxed manner that we would arrive around 8:30 PM… if…

Plastimo-Lorient Race: D-6

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For the past 3 days I’ve been working full-time to prepare the boat for the race. The most important task was reviewing all the security materials. The security list is 6 pages long and it took me one full day only to check everything and make a list of the items that were missing. The good thing is that now the boat is, I believe, ready for the race 🙂 We will depart tomorrow towards Lorient and since there are several minis taking part in Plastimo-Lorient, we will organise a coastal race. For the mini skipper, every moment on the…

Plastimo-Lorient Race: D-9

Categories: CEMC · Cirrus Minor · Classe Mini · Mini · Mini Transat · Racing · Sailing · World SailingTags: · · · · · Leave a comment

Many things have happened in the last few days. First and foremost, I passed the World Sailing sea survival and first aid course!! The exam in French was not that scary, in the sense that I was not required to express myself in full sentences but merely to name or list certain terms 🙂 Now I am only waiting for my certificate to further submit it to Classe Mini before the start of the Plastimo-Lorient race. Playing with flares in the second day of the World Sailing course Once in Concarneau, I started training on my Mini 832 Cirrus Minor….

Plastimo-Lorient Race: D-14

Categories: CEMC · Cirrus Minor · Classe Mini · La Trinite sur Mer · Mini · Mini Transat · Sailing · World SailingTags: · · · · · Leave a comment

Today I started the World Sailing course. But since the first session was only half a day, I took advantage of a couple of hours of free time and strolled leisurely around CEPIM’s training center in Saint-Philibert, which is situated in a recreational area outside the village. The weather was magnificent, matching perfectly the beautiful Breton landscape. Wandering through the fields and woods, I discovered some strange looking rock shelters, named Dolmens de Kerdaniel, that now I’ve just discovered that date back to the Neolithic. No wonder that the Neolithic people enjoyed taking their strolls in such a marvellous place…

The start of my Mini campaign

Categories: CEMC · Cirrus Minor · Classe Mini · Mini · Mini Transat · Racing · Sailing · UncategorizedTags: · · · · · Leave a comment

My long awaited Mini campaign starts in just a few days! Many sailing related events have taken place since I last wrote on this blog. For a long time I neglected it because I have always found it easier to quickly share something on Facebook. I even created a dedicated Facebook page for my Mini Transat campaign (Bogdan Grigorescu Mini Transat 2023), only to discover recently that my Facebook account was hacked and then disabled 😦 Despite all my attempts to bring my account back to life, Facebook seems very slow to respond and set things right. Therefore I needed…