Fun regatta. Did 5 races yesterday to finish things off. Ado/Jess 1st, Ravi and Sam 2nd, Robbie/Catharine 3rd. Great job by Mike Levesque and his RC crew to get off 13 good races. First regatta on the F16, really enjoyed the experience, look forward to sailing them again.
The main halyard hook at the top of their mast broke. The way they were sailing they would have been in contention. Adrian and Jesse were sailing incredibly well. They were relaxed and consistent. Morning beers might have helped. No shrimp on the Barbie however. This was my first time sailing in an F16 fleet and I did miserably as I expected. It looks like I'll need a new spin pole. Everyone was extremely nice and helpful with me trying to get my old Blade up to Falcon standards. Great group of people and very competent sailors as expected. It's amazing but not surprising how the smallest mistake in boat handling or minor equipment failure can cause you to lose so much distance on the pack. Jill Nickerson, Gina McDonald, Pease and Jay Glaser were so informative and welcoming that it truly enhanced the experience. The talent of the youth sailors bodes well for our class. Amazing venue. You sail out of the beach past Marstrom 32's, foiling moths and serious racing monoslugs. There's also the fun of tacking upwind crossing the bow of a auto carrier that doesn't have disc brakes like we do. I'd like to give credit to the guys who came out solo. The winds we had must have made them wonder why they were out there-except Karl of course. Great time, great people. I'm glad to be part of it.
Greg, thanks for the great wines and the champagne for the winners!
My bottle made it all the way home unbroken, in checked baggage! We missed you at the house for the after-party, did you guys get there before we did and leave?
Great regatta, fantastic location, thanks to all who worked to put it on, that was a lot of fun. Now I need a week off to recover from my 'vacation'!
Greg, shoot me a PM with your contact info and wine store location, I'll pass it on to my NY buds.
Congrats to Ado and Jess, excellent job!
Final results are here: http://f16worlds2014.org/results
Hard to believe it's already over...
Congrats to the winners. The results barely show how close it really was.
The Aussie pair of Adrian and Jesse were tough to beat. Gracious in victory, one of the best acceptance speeches ever.
Ravi and Sam were OCS several times, returned and still smoked most of the fleet. Had they not had gear failure earlier in the week, we may be looking at a different champion. Ravi is headed to Boston for college, can't wait to see him playing in the F18 crowd up here over the next few years.
It was great meeting so many of you who I feel I've
known
for years on here. Karl is a standup guy. I owe you rum.
Many thanks to all of the F16 class volunteers and sailors for helping pull this off. Huge thanks as well to Sail Newport for all of their support, assets and volunteers, especially to one of its founders, Dr. Robin Wallace, for use of his boat, Dolphin, as the signal boat. Thanks too, to some of my local Hobie fleet friends, as well as some great RC volunteers from elsewhere in the bay who I've met over the years. Couldn't have done this without all of you.
Hope Newport was everything you expected and more. Looking forward to seeing you all again soon.
Mike
Are there any photos? I saw cameras out but haven't seen any links.
Daphna Brown took a lot of photos, not sure how to get ahold of her though. Maybe she will see this and post?
Hard to believe it's already over...
I needed another four days of racing just to remember how to sail the ding dong boat again.
A huge thank you to everyone who helped out the singlehanders. There weren't many of us, but operating without the assistance of others getting on and off the water is tough if you abhor the thought of your boat touching sand as much as I do.
Great venue, Mike did a great job, and I'm glad I made the trip. Thanks to everyone who competed, (as humbling as that was), and to everyone who made this event happen.
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Thomas Konig took a bunch of pictures too. There was talk about putting them on a Dropbox account so everyone could access them.
Mark Thomson took a bunch of pictures as well I believe