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Steve Clark's Aethon Wing Destroyed, America Out of Little America's Cup
Yesterday the C-Class Catamaran Aethon capsized after the start of race one of the International C Class Catamaran Championship (long nicknamed the “Little America’s Cup”) and her wing was destroyed. The team hit a patch of turbulence left by a freighter for which they were not prepared and were unable to react in time. Crew Oliver Moore lost his footing and was washed off the boat with the mainsheet wrapped around his leg. As the wing rapidly trimmed in, the boat capsized and helmsman Steve Clark, unable to get out of his trapeze in time, fell through the wing, breaking the mast in the process. Both crew members would be fine, and the platform would suffer only minor damages, but what was left of the wing was all but disintegrated in the three-mile tow back to New York Yacht Club’s Harbor Court.
Click to see horrifying video of the crash!
“The thing I would like to stress here,” said Clark, “is that this was not a product of the conditions. It was a freak accident that could have happened at any time, at any wind speed. If the wing is trimmed all the way to windward and can’t be eased the boat will tip over, and these boats are not designed to do that. It’s a tough end to the last 18 months of work Oliver and I put in, but sometimes these things happen.”
Little America's Cup Racing Begins, Day 1 Results
NEWPORT, RI, August 25, 2010 -- The nor’easter departed New England today — more or less — and is off to ruin Canada for a couple of days. Its departure — better late than never — gave the half-dozen winged multihulls sailing in the International C-Class Catamaran Championship at the New York Yacht Club’s Harbour Court a chance to stop talking and start performing. As if they needed any other encouragement.
Wednesday’s racing took place near Half Way Rock, north of the Pell Bridge, to minimize the remnants of the seas and breeze from the northeast. The wind at the start of the first race was 16 to 20 with puffs pushing it a bit higher. In the first race, Alpha, sailed by Australians Glenn Ashby and James Spithill, had a brilliant port-tack start. It was a shot over the bow. Ashby is an Olympic Silver Medalist and nine-time A-Class, world champion; Spithill was helmsman on BMW Oracle’s wing-sailed trimaran that won the recent 33rd America’s Cup.
Certainly a major story line was the first-leg capsize of Aethon, Steve Clark's and Oliver Moore’s C-Class Cat. This was a new boat for Clark, an American, the absolute prime-mover in the class, who held the International C-Class Catamaran trophy for 11 years, from 1996-2007. Clark has been as important to the class as Tony DiMauro was to the previous generation. These boats motor — on the sunny side of 20 knots — and the disturbed air off a freighter set off a chain reaction that resulted in a capsize and the loss of the wing.
Little America's Cup Update
NEWPORT, RI (August 25, 2010) — Six boats and wings are ready to fly, on day two of the 2010 Little America's Cup, aka the International C-Class Catamaran Championship. Instead of racing as planned yesterday, internationally accomplished sailors from five countries played show and tell under the tent at New York Yacht Club. A collection of designers, America’s Cup evaluators and multihull pioneers weren’t too upset that a blustery weather system delayed day one.
One of the most prestigious titles in the world of ultra-high performance sailing, the Championship was last raced in 2007, at the Royal Canadian Yacht Club in Toronto. There, Canadian challenger Fred Eaton and crew Magnus Clarke sailed Alpha to a 5-0 victory over the previously undefeated Steve Clark’s Cogito.
Of the four catamaran divisions, the C-Class is governed by a simple set of rules that reward outside-the-box thinking in aero and hydrodynamics to create the lightest, fastest course-racing boats on the planet.
“All wings under the C-Class rule are the same area of 300 square feet but it can be distributed in any fashion,” shares Steve Killing, the designer for Fred Eaton’s C-Class program. They are propelled not by traditional fabric sails, but by elegant wings, rigid but with twist capability.
2010 Little America's Cup Preview
Newport, R.I. (August 5, 2010) – Steve Clark has been dreaming of winning back the Little America’s Cup for the USA ever since he lost it to Canada in 2007. In 1996, Clark’s 25- foot C-Class Catamaran Cogito (pronounced with a soft g) had blown away designers and engineers with its mammoth wing sail and unmatchable speed, and with helmsman Duncan MacLane and crew Erich Chase it handily defeated Australia’s defender Edge IV on Port Phillip Bay to win the International C-Class Catamaran Championship, fondly referred to as the Little America’s Cup.
Cogito became and remained the gold standard of C-Class Catamarans for the next eleven years, a place in C-Class cat history to which Clark wishes to return by entering his new boat, Aethon, launched earlier this year, in the 2010 Little America’s Cup, set for August 22-28 off Newport. Clark’s goals for this Cup are oddly reminiscent of what they were for the 1996 event. Clark’s first experience in the C-Class had been in 1985 when he was involved in Patient Lady VI’s unsuccessful defense of the Cup, losing to Australia’s Victoria 150. It was largely this defeat that drove Clark to develop Cogito. Now, his “Cogito Project” is back where it started: testing a new boat and taking aim at winning the Cup back again.
Gilligan's Run: Endurance Series Round Two
After a tough weekend at the Islander Reef Run, the second race of the Endurance Series hopes to be an easier day on the water with a much shorter course. Gilligan's Run is the shortest course on the Endurance Series schedule. At just under 30 miles, the race starts and ends at the Acapulco Hotel and Resort in Daytona Beach Shores. The course usually runs North to a mark just offshore from the Ocean Deck Restaurant, then South to round a Ponce De Leon Inlet ocean marker buoy, then back north to the start. The weekend is topped off by awards presentation and fish fry at Steve and Cindy Caron's house within walking distance from the Finish line which is always attended by most participants.
448 Beachcats Around an Island, Now That's a Race!
Texel/Netherlands, June 11 2010 - A week prior to the start of the 2010 Zwitserleven Round Texel Race on Saturday June 19, the organization received 448 pre-entries. The high quality fleet represents fifteen countries. World's biggest cat race is part of the Zwitserleven Sailing Week, and so is the 2010 Grand Prix/Europeans Slalom Windsurfing. This event takes place under the auspices of the International Funboard Class Association. More than fifty surfers from eight different nationalities have subscribed so far.
The Zwitserleven Round Texel Race is about two different competitions. It includes the battle for the line honours and for the overall victory on handicap. The equipment plays an important role in the first case and development assumes large proportions. Xander Pols (NED) won the line honours twice before, but lost them in 2009 to William Sunnucks and Simon Farren. This British duo brought out new big guns by introducing an extra wide M20, which has meanwhile been copied by many competitors, like Pols. Also the curved dagger boards will finally enter the infamous cat race. John Moret and Danny Radelaar from the Netherlands, third over the line in 2009, will use the same set-up as Pols.
Team Bugaboo gets line honors for first leg of Tybee 500
The first Nacra 20 to finish was Team Velocity One skippered by Trey Brown with crew Bailey White. Finishing at 6:06:00 pm, about 4 minutes ahead of the next Nacra 20.
The first leg of the Tybee 500 started from Islamoroda in the Florida Keys. Because of the lack of sandy beaches in that area this becomes the only leg that uses a traditional on-the-water start. On all the rest of the legs an off-the-beach start is used.
Tybee 500 - World Class Sailors Race from Florida Keys to Georgia
500 miles in 6 Days up the Atlantic Coast - The Tybee 500 is an extreme sailing endurance race from Islamorada in the Florida Keys to Tybee Island, GA. The annual race begins May 10th at the Islander Resort in the Florida Keys and continues up the coast for six days, arriving on Tybee Island May 15th.
Each day there is a spectacular beach launch through the Atlantic surf that is very exciting for race fans on the scene. After the teams leave the beach the race is covered live on the Tybee 500 website at http://Tybee500.com . Each catamaran will carry the Spot™ satellite tracking beacon enabling a realtime view of the race on the website while the teams are offshore.
Race Schedule: Starts are 10am, finish times vary.
- May 10 Start from Islander Resort, Islamorada, FL and finish at Ramada Hollywood Beach Resort, Hollywood, FL.
- May 11 Start from Ramada Hollywood Beach Resort, Hollywood, FL and finish at Jupiter Beach Resort, Jupiter, FL.
- May 12 Start from Jupiter Beach Resort and finish at the International Palms Resort, Cocoa Beach, FL.
- May 13 Start from the International Palms Resort, Cocoa Beach, FL and finish at the La Playa Resort, Daytona Beach, FL.
- May 14 Start from the Playa Resort, Daytona Beach, FL and finish at the Amelia Hotel, Fernandina Beach, FL.
- May 15 Start from the Amelia Hotel, Fernandina Beach, FL and finish at the Oceans Plaza Beach Resort, Tybee Island, GA.
This will be the 8th annual race, beginning in 2003 where two man teams battle the open ocean, equipment breakdowns, and fatigue to be the first on the beach at Tybee Island. Sailors appear as alien figures wearing their protective gear. Each sailor carries enough food and drink to compete for up to 20 hours, in case light winds keep them offshore longer than expected.
55th Annual Miami to Key Largo Race Report
April 17, 2010: It was a windy, wet, and wild Miami Key Largo Race this year. The race started at 8 AM just south of the William Powell Bridge in Biscayne Bay with the downtown skyline of Miami as a backdrop. When the gun went off, over 100 boats took off like a herd of leaping gazelles. We had a left quartering headwind at about 15 knots. Everyone was bounding headlong down the bay, going south toward Key Largo. Oriol and I had our hands full the whole race.
Tybee 500 Registration Open
TheBeachcats.com is happy to announce the launch of www.Tybee500.com a new website for the 2010 Tybee 500 long distance catamaran race. Teams wishing to enter this years race from Islamorada, FL up the East Coast of Florida to Tybee Island, GA can begin the registration process by filling out the simple online registration form.
There are over 3,000 photos from past years races, so be sure and take a look and see if you spot anyone you know.
Each team that is accepted to participate in this epic adventure will be provided with a team profile page on the Tybee500.com site. News items and updates posted on the site will be automatically tweeted, so be sure to add Tybee500 to your twitter account.
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