The father and son team of Lars and John Kämpfe won the 650-mile Round Denmark Race 2021 in doublehanded division sailing their older 26-foot Dragonfly 800 trimaran named TRI. This was a race cursed by light air that got dubbed the Danish Doldrums. Their win is truly impressive since conditions did not favor a trimaran – light air and a lot of upwind work, which also does not favor a trimaran.
Even though the boat is older, Lars updated and modified the boat over the years. TRI managed to sail close to the wind with speed thanks to her big square top main and a Code Double Zero. The Code OO has a very flat shape making it much more like a genoa. Downwind, TRI used a Matrix asymmetrical (in fact it is a standard UK Sailmakers J/80 class kite.) The upwind sails are Tape-Drive Silver and X-Drive.
The light air took its toll on the fleet; only three boats out of the 26 doublehanded starters finished before the time limit. The race started on at 1300 on June 21st and the cut off time was 1200 June 27th. TRI finished the course in five days 12 hours, finishing over five hours ahead of the second place J/105.
The race had classes for fully crewed and singlehanded boats. Eight out of 21 finished in full crew class and 13 out of 23 finished singlehanded class. The singlehanders had the advantage of starting two days earlier, when there were good winds.
Lars and his son John have sailed together on TRI, but this was their first long distance race together. Lars said they made a perfect team and even in the trying conditions there was not a single harsh word spoken. Lars is an experienced multihull sailor and is a winner of the small multihull class in the Silverrudder race.
An interesting note is that Lars’ father was an experienced multihull sailor as well and he was a UK Sailmakers customer too. That means there are three generations of Kämpfes racing successfully with UK Sailmakers sails.
GREAT RACE FOR FATHER AND SON !! SUPER !!
GREAT RACE FOR FATHER AND SON !! SUPER !!