The Pogo 2021 gathering, from Firefly

This post was originally published by Randall Watson on the Pogo Owner Group

I can thoroughly recommend joining the AIP and taking part in the events of the official Pogo Association. It’s free (almost; €1) in the first year and only €15 per year after that.

Traditionally, the AIP has been seen as a Francophone haunt – dominated by French speakers. That’s hardly surprising given that until fairly recently it was predominantly the French who hoarded all the Pogos, letting only the odd one slip out of their sphere of influence. But now the secret is out. More and more owners across Europe and around the globe are discovering and enjoying sailing fast, beautiful boats, designed for the most part without compromise to rating rules. Designed simply to go fast and to do it in simplistic, clean and intelligent style.

The recent efforts of the Association to translate their entire web presence into English is a response to the ground swell of non-Francophone owners and fans, and to the desire of many of these folk to have something more. Peter Weigt did a great thing by starting this FB group, initially as a Pogo 36 group, as Peter and Anja own Ferox P36 #7, and then expanding it to include all things Pogo. This group has become a focal point for Pogo lovers on social media. I love it, I check in most days, even if I don’t post most (or many) days.

The AIP is something a bit different; an independent standalone association, to promote sailing, camaraderie, and technical knowhow around all things Pogo. It’s a place where you can ask questions and get definitive answers and not just the unfiltered (and sometimes biased and sometimes wrong) collective opinion of a social media channel. The AIP runs courses (they’ve been in French until now – but that’s changing) as well as events; rallies, cruises, and races. It’s the official body for the class rules for each of the Pogo series (excl. 6.50 and Class40) and most importantly the AIP goal is to have fun. AIP is not a replacement for this FB group, but a complement.

With that in mind, there are a number of upcoming AIP organised events occurring in Europe this Summer. These are not just limited to Brittany, but will occur across a wider geographical area. Annual Pogo Gatherings will happen in two locations in 2022: 2-4 July in Barneville-Carteret (Normandy), and the other, a reprise of 2021’s stunning event ,on 3-4 September this year again in Douarnenez. Boats from the UK and further up the Channel (FR, NL, BE, DE, DK…) should register for the Normandy event already, and for September let’s see if we can double last year’s turnout. Plans for a Mediterranean gathering are ongoing.

Here is Firefly’s account of the 13th Annual Pogo Gathering in 2021.

It’s 20:00 CEST on Friday evening, 3rd September. I’m single handing FIREFLY from Brest, outside gybing the code 0 (ok it’s not a real Code0) back and forth in about 4-5 knt of failing breeze as I try to make the last few miles dead down wind to Douarnenez. Time is against me and again I wish I had a spinnaker.

On the dock, the skippers and crews of 15 other Pogos are enjoying the welcome Apéro; I can almost hear the merriment, even though I’m upwind. Glancing at the plotter I can see I will likely have two, possibly three, more gybes, and my VMG is slipping… now down below 3knt. With the boat massively loaded with all the essentials and quite a few luxuries for the week’s cruising that will follow the event I can’t realistically expect any better. I pull the pin, furl the Code0 and drop the main. At least this way I will dock before dark and have the chance of catching up with the others.

As I got to the dock there were plenty of willing hands to receive lines, and someone (Xavier?) plucked the bow line from FIREFLY’s pulpit as we slid past the transom of Xanax, who would be in front of us when we tied up.

It’s Pogos everywhere!

The AIP crew who had remained on the dock until I arrived thrust a bottle of local cidre and a half eaten bag of chips into my arms with a “Welcome to Douarnenez, here’s your Apéro – we saved you some” kind of smile.
Eric, whom I first met in St. Marine when we picked up our 36s at the same time (he’s #34 we’re #33), was on hand and invited me to join them at a restaurant for dinner (which had been the other motivating factor to down sails and motor – getting some dinner before the restaurants closed!). The food was great and the conversation fluid.

The morning dawned far too early, for me at least suffering from a chronic sleep deficit (small children). I did manage to drag myself out onto deck and up to the clubhouse in time for the first (covid friendly masked) race briefing, the coffee was a motivating factor. With a punctuality I had previously associated only with Swiss trains, my French speaking pro crew, Coralie and her family, turned up exactly on time to help me understand the briefing.

“There’s no wind, we go out and start on a really long line ‘cause the boats are expensive”.
The course was shown using pins and a length of red wool on the chart of the bay, and the tides and weather summarised in some cryptic code known only to the French sailing gurus. From memory, the start was already delayed by 30 min so that we at least had a few zephyrs floating around to offer some encouragement.
As I boarded FIREFLY and welcomed Coralie and her husband aboard I already heard their 13 year old daughter down below cursing in French – “What’s all this heavy stuff doing on board! Can we leave it on the dock?” Perfect crew!
We between a laid buoy just outside Douarnenez and the committee boat at the northern end of a long line. With a minute to spare inside our first warning, the tactic on FIREFLY was to motor to the other end of the line from everyone else and start at the southern end gambling that to do so would give us a “slightly” better angle to the first mark, as we were starting on a slight reach – at least that was the theory. It seemed to payoff early on for us as we did start pretty well, with the Code0 up and with 200m separation we steadily edged ahead of the bulk of the fleet and seemed to have slightly better luck with the few breaths of morning air that dared disturb the mirror flat water. The fleet to the north really seemed to struggle with some appearing to loose steerage way at times. Between one ripple and the next the Code0 backed and we were momentarily becalmed before it came in again fitfully 1-2knts from the West.

Mirror Finish Start

Like butterflies, or as Coralie’s kids say, like cats, we floated about the cockpit and the foredeck, furling the Code0 and unfurling the solent. Most of the crew were sent to leeward and no one was allowed to move. The minutes and hours ticked by. The sun rose higher. The wind gradually, almost imperceptibly, filled in…. from the Northern side of the course first! Our initial good start evaporated and at least 4 boats were by now clear ahead.
What followed was a battle of epic proportions. With Xanax clear ahead thanks to the lucky Northern fill, we knew we’d have trouble to catch them, so we set our sights on Tea the yellow 12.50 and on trying to claw away from Cavok II.

Photo taken from Cavok II… clearly they’re ahead of us…

With the wind now steady but still below 9 knots we really had the better of Tea, edging ahead. But coming back for the cross near the Cap de la Chèvre in a by now freshening NW breeze of 11 knts Tea had the advantage in the stronger wind and crossed ahead of us. Once clear of the Cape we tacked onto port with Tea riding perhaps 3-400m off our port quarter and sailed into a late summer fog bank. The fog meant slightly less wind, which favoured FIREFLY. We held our course, now pushing against the outgoing tide as we gained what we felt would be enough height to tack on to stb and leave the mark (Base Vielle – isolated danger) to port. On the stb tack it became apparent that the tide would still drag us below the mark, but we crossed ahead of Tea, and after a short dig on port to make the mark we tacked over and bore away rounding in 4th place behind Venullus (1), Xanax (2) and the P30 Cavok II (3) who’d got away from us as we focussed on trying to beat Tea.

Firefly about to be overtaken after rounding ahead 🙂 (Photo Cavok II; you can be sure that the second you ease the main too far and invert it, someone will take that photo!)

Unfortunately, FIREFLY does not presently carry a spinnaker in her wardrobe, so we were rapidly bested by Tea after the upwind mark rounding (but we still beat them to the mark – and that’s what mattered to us!).
Fluffing around gybing back and forth to try and achieve the best VMG, and avoid the worst of the tidal streams, we gradually slipped back, as those with spinnakers stretched out their leads. As we eventually neared the finishing line, we did manage to hold off the hoard of P8.50s under full symmetric spinnakers. I can’t remember exactly where we crossed, 5th? 6th?
Packing up and coming back in, Coralie’s son took the helm until we were almost at the dock. There’s a reason why French sailing is in a strong position globally. When you can comfortably let a 9y old bring a 36 ft boat into a tight marina and the 13y old complains about drinking water supplies as “too heavy”, you know that there’s significant depth of talent in French sailing.
The evening meal and prize giving were hosted by the Winches Yacht Club in premises above the Port Authority, just a stone’s throw from the docks. An excellent meal, and plenty of refreshments were followed by a prize giving not to be forgotten, with pretty much everyone walking away with goodies; from Axxon caps to a new 9” B&G Zeus3, bean bags to Musto neoprene tablet pouches, harnesses to a (much needed) corkscrew supplied by a number of significant sponsors.

Eric speaks after taking home the main prize a B&G ZEUS3 plotter

Following this, those not suffering too much from the rigours of the day headed “into town”, which meant walking 200m to a drinking establishment set back down an alley off the main quay. When I made it back to FIREFLY around 01:00 the kids were already asleep. Coralie turned in at some time before coffee o’clock.
Sunday morning’s briefing at a horribly early 08:30 was, I must admit, not terribly well understood by the skipper on FIREFLY. Clearly not enough sleep and insufficient coffee played a significant role. It was foggy and still with at times <100m visibility. The course would be laid somewhere, and we would start somewhere. But we’d wait a bit until there might be some kind of breeze. At least that’s what I understood.
In the fog, we looked for a laid buoy and a start boat… there were at least three boats to choose from that drifted in and out of sight through the fog and, the skipper and first mate on FIREFLY chose poorly, with likely none of those boats being the start boat. Nonetheless, from the radio chatter we established that the race had started and we set about heading dead north close hauled on stb in 2-3knts of wind, slowly bringing the fleet into sight and even more slowly overhauling some of them. All crew to leeward on the fore deck. A gradual thinning of the fog laid bare how poorly we had started.

That’s FIREFLY off to the far right shortly after the start (Photo credit not sure)

We followed the line of Vellunus and slowly crept past a a number of other boats, keeping the 2 12.50s and Xanax in our sights some way ahead. Scanning the horizon for any sight of the mark. Race control piped up on the radio asking if there was any wind at the top of the course, and to our surprise Praia Branca (P 8.50) responded they were rounding it. We couldn’t even see it! Somehow, hidden deep in the fog, Guy had stolen a march on every other boat, rounding the mark well before many even saw it, hoisted their big light weather kite and were streaking off ahead for the win. Well done!

Praia Branca “Streaking” off for the gun.

At this, Xanax and two others tacked over to try for more breeze out to the East but as the sun broke through the fog the breeze dropped out completely and the boats out just a few hundred meters to the right of the course sputtered to a standstill on a painted sea.

On board FIREFLY we held our nerve, knowing we’d also have to tack to get up to the mark, watching the numbers decrease. We daren’t move a muscle, maintaining just a knot or so of boat speed – sometimes even holding just under 2 knots in only 1 knot of true wind.

Apparently wind on the fritz..

Carefully, all non-essential crew loaded the rail at the shrouds, and through the tack we went with crew moving fluidly to the other side – roll tacking a 36 foot boat in a dead calm – I pumped the main battens through with a single flick and we came out of the tack having maintained our boat speed and slide onward without a ripple right toward the mark. Unfortunately for us Tea rounded just in front as they came in from stb, but we were still ahead of Xanax. Yay!

Downwind we crawled, however it was a repeat of the day before as the spinnaker-less Firefly was gradually overhauled by those carrying spinnakers. Damn ye kites!

By the time we reached the finish line, Guy was anchored nearby and flying his drone capturing some great footage as the breeze slowly filled in for the rest of the afternoon, in time for us to head back to the dock and say our goodbyes as various crews packed up and left for home, while others retired up to the club for a post race refreshment.

Credits : Guy Jestin

It was a great weekend and one that I would fully recommend. Looking forward to the same event this year, and really recommend joining AIP and joining the fun.