6th at the Southern Area F18 Champs / Spring Fever

It's a little hard to call this event the first of our season since we already sailed one event earlier this year in January and our weekend after weekend regatta season doesn't start for another month or so. But since the boat went into winter storage for 2 months, we went skiing in between, and spring has sprung we will call the Spring Fever Regatta the start of our 2010 season.

77 boats showed for this year's Spring Fever at Lake Hartwell in Georgia. With 16 F18s this regatta served as the Southern Area Championships for our class and the competition showed up in force.

Friday & Sunday were light 2-5 knots, very spotty conditions, typical lake sailing.

Saturday started out light but in the first race as we rounded the windward mark in 2nd the wind clocked and piped up to about 13 knots leading for an exciting spinnaker/jib reaching drag race around the course with Alex Shafer as the rest of the fleet sat struggling to get around the windward mark, but it wasn't long before regatta winner Nigel Pitt caught back up and was nipping at our heels, we managed to hold him off for the only time we would beat him the entire regatta, though we came VERY close in one other race.

It's tough to be consistent in these conditions and we were were all over the place with two 2nds, two 4ths, a 9th, 10th, and a 12th. We had great starts most of the time but sometimes didn't find that first shift / puff and in those conditions it's very hard to claw back.

After Saturday's racing Nigel Pitt was clearly in the lead with Mike Krantz, Alex Shafer, Karl Langfield, Dave Ingram, and us all somewhere in the top 6, it was anyone's guess as to where. At dinner we were all comparing what we thought our scores were and no one could figure out for sure what the order was, this built some excitement but definitely made everyone a little tense Sunday morning as we rigged our boats.

The RC informed us that they would not tell us the final scores incase we didn't get any racing in and they were the final results. However, despite the late wind the previous two days, the wind filled in just enough for 1 race.

Brendon and I were ready to race and just like our competitors knew that we could end up anywhere from 2-6 depending on how we did in this race. We had a mediocre start but felt a bit slow running with the pack to the left. Really wanting to tack out right with a few boats but pinned in by a couple windward boats, we suffered as the pack in front of us tacked away, we wanted to lead them back but the boats to windward didn't tack until it was way too late. The race just went downhill from there as we struggled to get through the parade of boats but it seemed like there was a speedbump everywhere we went. Rounding the leeward mark in 10th to find ourselves with 9 boats directly in front of us we tacked off and then made the decision to tack back on the inside into the middle of the course. As if we hadn't enough go wrong in this race, we really felt like we shot ourselves in the foot on this one. By the finish we lost two more boats and overall ended up loosing to David Ingram in 5th place by 1 point! To make matters worse loosing to the Ingrams meant we had lost a bet that Dave had with Jake Kohl, sorry Jake!

Krantz and Langfield sailed really well the last race with Krantz winning by a large margin to set them into 2nd, Langfield into a tie with Alex Shafer for 2nd with Shafer winning the tiebreaker, Dave Ingram in 5th and then us in 6th. As mentioned before, Nigel Pitt ran away with the regatta for the win.

I can't remember the scores past that but i'm sure them and pictures will be up on Twinhulls.com and Waltercooperphoto.com soon.

While we were a bit dissapointed to be shot out of the back of the lead group we learned a lot as we almost never get to sail in light shifty conditions making the trip totally worth it, not to mention the awesome food, parties, and the amazing Southern hospitality shown to us by Nigel & Tammy, and everyone else. The RC, led by Wick Smith did an excellent job of getting races off in challenging conditions. I asked Wick on the water on Friday if he missed racing and he said yea but then we both agreed that in those conditions the pontoon boat's engine was much more enjoyable.

We look forward to going back next year!

Brendon and I will be on the water Sunday with our new North Sails jib and spinnaker. Trevor Burd and I will be getting some practice in for our next event, the Tybee in May.

Spring Training Day 1 & 2

Despite having sailed in FL just 2 months ago, we quickly got a bit antsy to get back out on the water.

We need to thank our friend Malcolm for allowing us to store our boat in his basement for the harshest winter months and thanks to our friend Ernie for doing some amazing boat work at an amazing rate.

We had a 2 hour shake-down sail this past Thursday which was highlighted by me going for a swim when I went out the trap without being hooked in! Floating the 38 degree water while Brendon circled around to get me was not very enjoyable.

Today we met Tyler Burd & Garth Fasano, another F18 team for us to train with. Winds were a gusty 15-20, perfect sailing except that the thought of flipping when the air and water are only at 40 degrees is not a happy thought. We agreed on a plan to head upwind out the East passage into the ocean and around the R2 Buoy off Brenton Reef. Blasting through 3-4 foot waves we settled into a nice groove, working hard to keep the hull and our butt's out of the water. Brendon was working hard at the mainsheet while I steered around the waves despite that neither of us could feel much of our fingers. We got to R2 and luffed up to discuss the beat with Tyler & Garth. We then headed downwind into Narragansett Bay through Newport up to the south end of Prudence Island. At the south end of Prudence we turned around and battled it out upwind. During this beat Brendon and I started to get REALLY cold so we put the throttle down to get in as fast as possible. As we neared the Newport Bridge I told Brendon to be prepared for a wind shadow from the support column. I've never been able to figure out exactly how the wind shadows come off these things and as soon as we neared the column, powering up in a puff the breeze immediately shut off sending us into the water and off the back of the boat. The boat nearly flipped over on top of us and as I fell I pulled the tiller to turn the boat onto a beam reach and headed right at the next bridge column. I did all I could to steer the boat to keep it from flipping but as Brendon had dropped the mainsheet we needed to get back to the boat asap. Luckily we found the strength to get back on the boat and get it straightened out. Garth later told us they were very worried for us as the witnessed this. As if the cold hadn't gotten to us enough this put us over the edge, luckily it was a quick upwind sprint through the harbor to Sail Newport. Overall we sailed for about 3.5 hours and covered 29 nautical miles, a pretty amazing training day.

The boat is now packed up and ready to head to Georgia for the Southern Area F18 Championships / Spring Fever Regatta. Expect updates from this over the weekend or early next week.

2010 Tybee 500

It's official! We are registered for the 2010 Tybee 500.
We are extremely excited to announce that we will be sailing as part of Team Seacats this year.

The team roster includes 2 other experienced teams, Team Seacats White - Chris Zander/David Strickland (whom we battled with A LOT last year) and Team SeaCats Orange - Jake Kohl/Frank Moore. As a well established and experienced team we are looking forward to the support that these race veterans are showing us!

We will start practicing in Newport (where the water is currently 32.2 degrees!) in late March, will compete at the Southern Area F18 Champs / Spring Fever Regatta in Georgia over Easter weekend and then continue practicing in Newport until the Tybee which starts May 10th.

5th at Midwinters

photo courtesy of www.racebook-us.com

We've finally recuperated from the drive north and am finally able to sit down to summarize our experience at the Tradewinds /F18 Midwinters this past weekend.

After 12 races and 3 days of racing in 10-25 knots we came out in 5th overall, 5 points behind fellow New Englanders Accelerated Chaos and 19 points ahead of Team Zhik. While the top 3 boats clearly had an extra gear than the rest of the fleet, we managed to beat a couple of them in a few races throughout the series. Between the 3 of these boats they have more Nat'l titles and high level sailing experience than I could ever dream of. It was rewarding to be able to mix it up with them at times, scoring a 2nd place in the first race affirmed that we are capable this and that we have come a long way in the last year.

The rest of the fleet found ourselves in tight battles, we may as well have tied a 10' line between us and several other boats because that's about the most separation we saw the entire race!

This tight racing and fantasy level sailing conditions made this one of the best weekends of sailing any of us had ever experienced!

The two days prior to the clinic we took part in a clinic put on by Robbie Daniels. While the wind wasn't on our side during these two days we still learned more than we had all season. Robbie is an amazing coach, add in Jill & Enrique and you have the best multi-hull coaching team imaginable. Jill was also kind enough to provide us with water & lunch all through the regatta... that alone made it worth every penny! We will definitely be taking part in another one of their clinics in the future.

Pictures and story at www.catsailor.com We will add some pictures to here as they become available on www.racebook-us.com

Tradewinds day 1

Amazing sailing conditions of 10-12 with some gusts to around 15 and completely flat water! The F18s got 4 races in... the top 5 is John Tomko, Alex/Nigel, Mike/Tripp, us, and Chris Titcomb/Sam Adleman that means New England boats in 3 out of the top 5! It is really competitive though, in the last race of the day we were in 4th with a big lead over the next boat and small mistakes within our final minute of the race let a few boats sneak in and push us all the way to 7th.. that's all it takes.

We sailed hard for a 2nd place finish, but it appears they might throw the first race out as timing was off at the start. We are hoping they don't but will admit that the timing was way off... I hit my watch at 1 minute and the start was still 20-30 seconds late.

Forecast today is calling for 20-30... should be a fun day!

More info and up to the minute results can be found at Catsailor.com on the open forum.