2018 Race – 1000 Miles Edition
The Race-1000 Miles organized by charter company Pitter (Austria) every 4 years. For this edition, 36 boats (Bavaria, Salona, Jeanneau, Sunbeam, one Class 40, 3 Multihulls (Neel 45, 2 Nautitech 40)).
Boat: NEEL 45 “ONZE”, year 2014 with including furling gennaker.
Start date: 30 Septembre 2018 from Cogolin, End date: 10 November 2018 in Cogolin
Harbours visited: Cogolin-Grossetto-Positano-Tropea-Lastovo (Croatia)-Hvar-BiogradLefkas (Greece)-Biograd-Lastovo-Marina Cala Ponte (Italy)-Tropea-Marina Nettuno (Anzio)- Villefranche sur Mer – Cogolin
Distance: 3300 nautical miles, 23 days at sea, average speed 6kn or 144 nautical miles per 24hours. According to race tracker max. speed was 22,6 knots.
Race, our results:
- NEEL 45 wins the blue ribbon for fastest multihull over 2 legs and 1000 miles
- NEEL 45 wins leg 1 on elapsed and corrected time (85% upwind, NEEL is only Multihull that didn´t use the engine in order to arrive at Lefkas), 14th boat overall out of 36 boats.
- NEEL 45 wins leg 2 on elapsed and corrected time ( 22 hours in front of the second multihull), 8th boat overall. This leg saw bad weather with thunderstorms and 45/50 knots of wind, 2m+ waves. We avoided the worst and had max 35knots of wind and 1-2m waves, no thunder and only very little rain. Race tracker shows max boat speed of more than 22kn.
- NEEL 45 wins final result out of leg 1 and 2 (low point system)!
What did people say ?
1. They liked the good performance upwind, even without daggerboard we didn´t loose a lot against the monohulls. The finish of leg 2 was an upwind tacking battle against a Bavaria 56 over more than 10 miles in winds from 2-6knots, where we finished about 5 minutes in front of the Bavaria.
2. The boat can easily achieve 7-11 knots of boat speed in winds of 7-15kn.
3. The boat is very quiet inside the cabin, no banging under the bridge deck.
4. Sleeping and cooking is no problem even upwind no one did complain, all had a good sleep.
5. If bad weather is approaching and there is no wind, you can do 9-10kn under engine in order to run for shelter.
6. The cockpit with the cockpit tent gives good shelter from the elements, but also at the helm you don´t have a lot of spray.
7. If necessary you can steer the boat from inside the cabin with the autopilot.
8. The boat has a lot of storage space and a very good cooling system.
Did we have big problems?
No, the only things we experienced were minor issues like the toilet doorhandle didn´t work properly or one bottom drawer in the galley area didn´t want to stay closed, or one shower head fell off after a short time at sea.
Download testimonial (pdf)