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….
Tag: Mini
Calvados Cup Race 1
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
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!
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-6
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
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-15
The long anticipated moment has finally arrived – the day I “set sail” for my first mini race! I haven’t gotten to the boat yet, but I landed safely in La Trinite sur Mer for the first milestone of my campaign – attending, and hopefully passing, the 3 day course on sea survival and first aid. I said hopefully passing because I will be facing my first test in Frendh since high-school 😦 And it’s not even multiple-questions, but plain writing… In all honesty I asked the organisers, CEPIM, if I would be allowed to use Google Translate during the…
Racing schedule 2022
At the end of 2020, after spending almost a full year locked at home, I decided to resume a plan I had had in my mind since 2017, namely to start competing in Classe Mini. Along the way I was fortunate to meet some incredible people who really helped me get this going. I would not start this campaign if it were not for Victor Mathieu who advised me patiently from the beginning, helped me get my mini (my beautiful Cirrus Minor, a Nacira 6,50 no. 832), introduced me to the world of double-handed mini racing (and we had great…
The start of my Mini campaign
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…
How to take a Mini across Europe
Once the excitement of buying a new boat faded away and my Pogo was safely resting in Marseille for the winter, I started pondering seriously about how on earth I would manage to bring it home, or more precisely, to the Life Harbour in Limanu. As winters tend to be long and mostly dark, they are perfect for adventure dreaming. With Google Earth opened in the cozy comfort of my home, I plotted different routes from Marseille to the Black Sea. And as it usually happens, it was just an email exchange with Marc, who graciously took care of the…