....will be posted once the trophies are handed out - so look for the update later this evening.
Chris.
What a fantastic weeks sailing! The awards banquet at the Lone Star Flight museum was very memorable.
A big thank you to everyone who made the event possible.
Chris.
Looks like it was an awesome event!
I want to say congrats to Mike and Tripp who placed 5th! Mike is a senior and the A skipper at Tufts University and Tripp graduated from Tulane last year.
These guys are awesome and are only going to get better, they've only been on cats for a few years. Also they sailed a Nacra F18, not an infusion.
I wish I could have made it, but these are the types of guys that are the future of cat sailing!
Thanks for all the updates and photos.
Mischa is absolutely incredible. I knew he was good, but to get 15 out of 17 bullets and do no worse than a 2nd. You would think he would have at least one bad race.
Surely at least more than once he got buried at the start, picked the wrong side of the course, fouled someone, hit a mark, or had some equipment failures. It's not like he didn't have any competition. Did he have any come from behind stories to get a bullet?
Now you guys understand what the level of F18 racing is overhere.
There is little wonder why Tornado teams are doing part of their training in the EU F18 class.
Wouter
Our event photographer, Sean Stevens from hotshot.com has posted photos from days 3,4 & 5 on his site:
Day 3 photos
Day 4 photos
Day 5 Photos
Chris.
Mischa is absolutely incredible. I knew he was good, but to get 15 out of 17 bullets and do no worse than a 2nd. You would think he would have at least one bad race.
Surely at least more than once he got buried at the start, picked the wrong side of the course, fouled someone, hit a mark, or had some equipment failures. It's not like he didn't have any competition. Did he have any come from behind stories to get a bullet?
Carrie and Mischa got consistently excellent starts - hammering the pin end of the line with great speed and position. As far as I know they had no equipment failures.
They had tremendous speed down wind - this is where they really seemed to pull away. Sometimes it seemed like they did not pick the most favored side of the course on the first beat (the left typically paid), and would not always be first to 'A' mark. But by the end of the first down wind leg they would be back at the front (or very close to) and would certainly pull out a lead on the last downwind leg (many of the race were four legs).
They were tremendous competitors and were very open sharing advice on boat tuning and technique. For example, we did reasonably well on day 1 in about 15 knots of breeze (scoring a couple of 4th places), but suffered with poor boat speed the next day in lighter conditions. Mischa gave us advice on rake and diamond tension which put a bunch of power into the boat and our results on the 3rd day reflected this - we got our best result of the regatta - a 2nd. We would also have scored a 4th if I hadn't capsized us on the last down wind leg in an overly aggressive overtaking maneuver.
It was inspiring to compete against such quality opposition - this can only be good for the F18 class in North America.
Chris.
Any tips you can share on mast rake and diamond tension. I seam to adjust it with trial and error, but don't sail enough in different conditions to keep track of what works best.
What do you think his key to downwind sailing was?
Pure boat speed is critical I think. It can make up for a lot of mistakes.
I can't speak to Tiger settings but the Nacra Infusion tuning guide on nacraeurope.com seems to be pretty good. My only question is about the diamond tension. I seem to get better results with the diamond tension less than they recommend in the manual. Maybe due to different wind conditions.
How was Mischa sailing the boat downwind? Really hot or deep or in the middle somewhere. Was he flat downwind or was he always trying to flying a hull?