Summer of the F18

Taking delivery of a new boat gave us no time to rest after Tybee. Todd spent all his free time working on the boat at Sail Newport, tweaking little things, tuning, changing lines and etc. Boat work on these racing machines seems never ending. In order to keep everything running smoothly to be competitive and not break anything, boat work is imperative.
After a couple shakedown sails our first regatta was the Sakonnet Challenge. 12 F18 catamarans showed up to this event, the best turnout of a single class in several years in our area. After a strong day 1, and a bullet in the last race of the day, we were in second place. Flukey conditions on day 2 got the better of us pushing us back to third for the regatta. All in all not a bad finish for our first outing on the new boat. Mike Ferrara was pretty happy with the new boat, pronouncing on the beach "My name is Mike, and this is my little boat!"
Our second regatta was the Hampton Beach Regatta where 11 F18s showed up. Todd invited 2nd time cat sailor Andrew Vachon to crew for him. The last time we sailed together was Sakonnet Challenge two years earlier on the N20 and we sailed very well. Once again, we proved to be a fast pair rattling off three 2nd places, a 3rd and a 5th. We even managed to lead speed demons Mike & Tripp around the course a couple of times only to have them get the better of us just before the finish. We woke up on the morning of day 2 to find nasty conditions (large waves, drizzle, and lots of breeze). Racing was quickly cancelled, leaving Saturday's scores final with us in 2nd overall. A couple of boats mustered up the courage to venture out through the large surf. We decided just to watch, it wasn't worth breaking anything! Sure enough they got through the surf, both broke their rudder casting retainer clip, one of them capsized then they sailed back in. We sure didn't miss much!

Team Accelerated Chaos launching at Hampton on Day 2

Regatta 3 was the Statue of Liberty Race. This is one of our favorite regattas of the year, this year marked Todd's 9th year in a row and Brendon's 3rd. We had some timing issues at the start and were late to the line. This left a line of boats for us to screw around with in order to get a clear lane. It was a screaming double trapped jib reach and we were faster than almost every boat we came up behind. By the end of the Navy Pier, John Sullivan on a tiger decided to make it hard for us and fended high and low, nothing wrong with a bit of friendly competition! Finally after several minutes of being slowed by John we got a big enough gust to surprise him and take him on the high side before he knew what had happened. From there we had a clear lane in the front of the main pack. We put some distance on the pack and caught some ground on the leaders only to lose and then gain again. Upon nearing Liberty Island we were in 2nd in the F18 fleet (out of 7) and about 5th overall. Just before the rounding mark the two Capricorns managed to get above us and roll us. After the rounding mark we went down the center of the river, more towards the Jersey side while the Capricorns blasted down the Brooklyn side. Under the Verazanno the situation was the same, both us and the Capricorns raising our spinnakers for a couple minutes to get through the lull the bridge/land was causing. The wind quickly forced us to douse and continue on a dreadfully wet double trapped jib reach. About halfway back between the bridge and the finish line we noticed the leeward board had slipped down but didn't think much of it as this had been okay on the 20. It wasn't too long before we heard a SNAP! and saw a yellowish white thing float up behind the back of the boat. We weren't sure if we had hit something or the board had snapped but decided just to keep going, figuring the board would break off flush with the hull. Well apparently carbon is a little tougher than we thought as 1/2 of a half of the board was still being dragged in the water. We were going so fast we thought "oh well, let's just figure it out when we get to the beach". We got back to the beach 2 hours and 14 minutes after the start, about 15 minutes after the first place boat (an F18). The two Capricorns managed to slip by us during our daggerboard ordeal and we had to settle for 4th in the F18 fleet. Our time was good enough to correct us out to 10th overall out of 41 boats.

Cha-CHING!!!

Regatta 4 was the Newport Regatta. Unfortunately Todd had to work on Day 1 and we missed an epic day (so most of the competitors thought, but really it's just typical Newport conditions). We joined the racing for day two and had a good day despite having really bad luck with dealing with mark roundings with the monohulls sharing the course. It's great seeing them out there, just not when your on the outside of them in an 8 boat pinwheel! I think the frustration is mutual. The RC ran 6 races on Saturday and only 3 on Sunday so we couldn't be contenders at all, it was fun acting as the spoilers though! It was great practice for us just to get on the water as this was Brendon's first buoys race on a cat.

1-2-3: Bob & Tripp, Sandra & Mark, Todd & Brendon

Next up for us is Hyannis Regatta and BBR. Look for an update after these events. It's really cool sailing in these events as we will get exposure to 3-400 other sailors from V15s to Lasers from 505s to 420s to PHRF boats! Stay tuned for more updates.

After 5 events Team Adrenalin sailing as Team Jaypro Sports for the summer stands in 2nd in the Narragansett Beer F18 Summer series. Team MicroWind has a strong lead with Team Bad Dad in third. Almost 25 teams have participated in the series so far!