Diana Bogaards, Wednesday, 19 October 2005

The 17th Hobie Cat 16 World Championships start on Tuesday October 25th with the Women, Youth, Master and Grand Master series

The organization of the 17th Hobie Cat 16 World Championships 2005, has received over two hundred pre-entries. These teams represent 28 countries, of which 10 are European. They will all compete for the World titles in the Nelson Mandela Bay of Port Elizabeth in South-Africa. From Tuesday October 25th until Friday November 4th , the heat is on. The fleet is very competitive with current and past champions, like Cedric Bader / Yann Montoya (FRA) who won this year’s Hobie 16 Europeans Youth, as well as the Open, but equally so, the 13 time South African Champion Blaine / Roxanne Dodds. They won the world title in 1998. And former Hobie 16 World Champion Shaun Ferry from South Africa will also keep the top runners honest.

Favourites
The history of the Hobie 16 Worlds shows that the Australians have been the most successful with six victories. Fourteen Aussie teams will go for a 7th victory, whereas Bob Enwirda/Anna Wenmmo and Tim Shuwalow/Cameron Hooper are the strongest candidates. They can expect tough competition of many other top sailors, like the current Hobie 16 Youth World Champion Jerome Legal (FRA). He is now too old to defend that title, therefore he and Mickael Siret are aiming at the next one in the open class. Christophe Renaud de Malet and Alban Rossollin, also from France, will try to better their 6th position of last year. Other top ten potentials are Mark Laruffa (ITA), Stephan Rumph/Kim Liedtke (GER) and former World Champion (1994) Enrique Figueroa with Carla Malatrasi (PUR). Enrique Figueroa has a wonderful season winning the Hobie Tiger Worlds earlier in the year. Then following that up by winning the North American Hobie 16 Championships. A dark horse, from Guatamala, is young Juan Maegli, who finished 4th at the Cancun Hobie 16 Worlds 2004.

Women
The womens fleet is competitive as well, with last year’s winners Pamela Noriega of Mexico and Marie Duvignac and Pauline Thevenot (FRA) who won the Women Europeans 2005. Other favourites are Morgane Laurancy and Marion Pennaneach (FRA) and former ISAF Women’s World Champion Inge Schubort (RSA.

Youth
The Hobie 16 Youth World Championship 2005 will be exciting with several potential winners. The battle for gold will most likely be between France, Great Britain and Guatemala: Tom Phipps and Jon Cook (GBR), the Hobie 16 ISAF Youth World Champions 2004, against Euope’s best team Cedric Bader and Yann Montoya (FRA) with Guatemala’s Juani Maegli and Cristina Guirola fresh from their second place in the north American Open Hobie 16 Championships. The first Hobie Dragoon World Champions ever, Richard and Andrew Glover from Great Britain, have switched to the Hobie 16 and will try their luck in South Africa.

Masters
South Africans, are in general very competitive Hobie 16 sailors, so it is not surprising that two past World Champions of this country are racing for the Master title. In 1978, Colin and Matthew Whitebread took the victory in the 2nd Hobie 16 Worlds in Texas. Twenty years later, Blaine and Roxanne Dodds triumphed, in Sotogrande, Spain.

About Port Elizabeth
Hobie Beach, part of the Nelson Mandela Bay of the coastal city of Port Elizabeth, will be the event’s venue. The sailing conditions are excellent with calm and warm waters and fair breezes. For those who do not compete, the area offers many opportunities to explore. It is the gateway to the garden route, a highly regarded coastal stretch with natural lagoons, bustling wildlife, abundant forests and friendly people. It leads to Cape Town, some kind 800 kilometers to the west.

About the Hobie Cat 16 Worlds
The 17th Hobie Cat 16 World Championships start on Tuesday October 25th with the Women, Youth, Master and Grand Master series. The competition takes three days until Thursday October 27th, whereafter the three day Open Qualifier begins. The top 112 teams will go to the Semi-Finals from October 31st until November 2nd. The best 56 competitors sail the Finals on the last two days. The Organising Authority is the International Hobie Class Association (IHCA) in conjunction with Worldsports and the South African Hobie Class Association under the authority of South Africa Sailing.

http://www.hobieworlds.co.za/HobieWorlds/index.jsp





For more information about the seventeenth Hobie 16 Worlds, please contact the following person:

Diana Bogaards, press contact
Mobile: +31 6 51383762
E-mail: diana@diabo.nl

Good Luck Bob and all the other North American entries.

My money's on the Puerto Ricans:


Enrique and Carla!

my money is on the great whites.

Tim Shuwalow from Aust. could be a sleeper.

Matt, I'm with you, they're a great team! PS: A belated congrats to you on your H17 victory! Way cool!

Yes the great whites become more active inshore in summer. Take a look at this:

From News24:
Cape Town - A Fish Hoek lifesaver had a close encounter with a Great White shark on Friday, Cape Talk radio reported.

Paul Major set out in his surfski just after 16:00 from Fish Hoek beach. He was heading towards Simonstown and was about 100m from shore when the maneater knocked him off his boat and began crunching the rear of his surfski.

He said the shark circled and then chewed the fibreglass while he lay very still and prayed out loud.

Then it submerged while Major balanced on the remainder of the ski.

He managed to swim back to shore.

And this:
From the Cape Times
Surfskier attacked at Sunny Cove

Great Whites are back
October 3, 2005

By Anél Powell

Less than 24 hours after a surfskier was attacked by a shark near Sunny Cove, another four Great Whites have been spotted hugging the coast in False Bay as the predators move away from their winter feeding ground off Seal Island.

Clive Wakeford, president of Western Province Lifesaving, confirmed that a Great White shark was also seen swimming near the Sunny Cove walkway at 10.30am yesterday.

The sharks were spotted from a Base 4 helicopter yesterday afternoon.

Two Great Whites were cruising off Muizenberg's back line and another two were swimming close to Fish Hoek beach.

Mike Meyer of the City Shark Working Group, said: "Research done by scientist Alison Kock indicates that the sharks have left Seal Island, their winter area, and moved closer inshore."

After a week of shark warnings that had lifeguards at Fish Hoek beach on high alert, Trevor Wright's surfski was attacked by a Great White shark in Sunny Cove just after 3pm on Saturday.

Wright, 52, was paddling 80 metres from Sunny Cove when the shark attacked.

Wright was unharmed in the incident, but the shark destroyed the front of his surfski, puncturing the fibreglass with four tooth marks.

"Here's trouble," was the first thought Wright had when he felt "a hell of a knock" on the back of his surfski.

Knowing that the water was too deep for protruding rocks, Wright said he quickly realised "something was not lekker".

A Great White shark then appeared in front of his surfski.

"I still have this vision of the shark's open jaw and eye," said Wright.

Although Wright did not see the Great White approach, his friend Alan Weston said the shark came up out of the water to attack the surfski.

"I just saw the front of the boat in its mouth," said Wright.
He was too far from the shark to hit it with his paddle.

"I thought: it's you or me and it's not going to be me," said Wright.

The shark then released the surfski and swam alongside the craft, thrashing about in the water.

When the shark dived under the surfski, Wright and Weston paddled to the rocks.

"If I had fallen into the water, it would have been far worse," said a relieved Wright.





Hopefully the sharks will be put off by the large number of boats on the water during the competition.

Don`t worry about the sharks too much, the reports of all the recent attacks and sightings are mostly in False Bay, Cape Town, in the colder water found there, Great Whites aren`t too fond of warmer water, Port Elizabeth has a much warmer current along it`s shoreline. I`ve sailed a LOT in PE and only ever seen Raggies (Ragged-tooth sharks), they are a bit like the bulldog of the shark world, all teeth but actually quite docile - divers even go looking for breeding grounds so they can swim with them !
In PE you are likely to see a lot of dolphins, expect schools of over 40 to surface and swim around the boats at the start line while you are waiting to start a race - we had that at the Dart Worlds in 99.

Cheers
Steve

The 17th Hobie Cat 16 World Championships??? surely there have been more than 16 previous Hobie 16 worlds? I seem to remember them from as early as the late seventies/early eighties (perhaps even earlier) Are they held bi annually?

White pointers are just another big friendly fish that can become "miss-guided" when they are hungry, Here (in the world capital for white pointers) we find that if you enter into a "pact" with them early on, that "if you leave them alone they will leave you alone" Its a bit like realising that if you step out in front of a speeding car it will probably kill you, but if you stand back and let it pass, you will live to say "what a great good looking car!

So.....Great White attacks have increased against jet skiers? Yet another reason to admire those super-efficient, streamlined, eating machines. They must have finally received those chum payments I've been sending to them

Yes, although this event is only 18 months after the last (May 2004 - Mexico). A lot depends on when the mfg (in this case, Hobie Cat Europe) can/wants to supply the boats.

The surfskis they are talking about are kind of like kayaks, not jetskis.

-Rob V.
Panama City (not too many Great Whites around here)
Nacra 5.2

Opps....my bad. Well then....Bad Shark! No more chum for you!

Could sharks be trained to attack jetskis?

Go Team 204 Youth: Mike and Sam Good local article on Mike in: The Sunday Paper
It's good anytime sailing gets press.

[color:"red"] Good Luck Boys;
From all of Fleet 204
[/color]

Fantastic! You 204 folks are something else! I'll be rooting for them!

Just when you think you missed out on a really, really fun regatta, something like this pops up!!! They 'started' the 16 Worlds today - women, children, and old farts.

"It's Tuesday morning 11am and the PRO David Brookes just posted AP over A. No racing today. The wind is not predicted to decrease until late tonight.

"The race committee boat reported wind gusts of over 46 knots and huge waves. The weather station has posted gale force wind warnings."

Geez guys, what's the problem? Roll a reef in that 16 and go for it. Wimps!!!!

Not looking good for the rest of the week, should have run the regatta in Cape Town, we`re having 10-13knots every day (not enough to go sailing )
But PE looks a bit hectic for the week :
http://iafrica.com/weather/portelizabeth/
They don`t call it the Windy City for nuthin`

If they race, methinks Sean Ferry`s in with a chance, he likes it breezy.

TUESDAY, 26 OCTOBER

CHEVROLET HOBIE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS GET UNDERWAY

After a disappointing cancellation of the first day of the Chevrolet Hobie Cat 16 World Championships, Nelson Mandela Bay blessed the hundreds of competitors with perfect sailing conditions on the second day of this international event. The first race in the Masters and Grand Masters division got underway shortly before 10h00 in a moderate breeze and fairly flat seas.

The wind picked up nicely and they managed to finish a fairly quick race on a windward/leeward or sausage course before heading in to shore. South African Blaine Dodds took advantage of his knowledge of local conditions to win the race in the Masters division. Sailing with his daughter Roxanne, Dodds is no newcomer to the sport of Hobie sailing and already has a former world championship title under the belt. Dodds and Steve Arnold won the Hobie World Championships in Australia in 1998 and together with fellow South African Shaun Ferry were regular top three finishers in the world championships during the early 1980’s.

Americans Mike Montague and Kathy Ward were second with Australians Bruce Tardrew and Turnbull in third place. Harry Handley from New Zealand was first to cross the line in the Grand Masters discipline.

After two races, the French team of Morgane Laurancy and Marion Pennaneach led the Woman’s discipline with a first and second place finish. Mexicans Pamela Noriega and Andrea Mier y Teran are currently in second place with Belinda Zanesco and Susan Ghent of Australia in third position. South Africans Belinda Hayward and Kim Wilkinson-Davies are fourth after a great third position finish in the second race of the day.

The French also dominated in the Youth division with pre-race favourites Cédric Bader and Yann Montoya holding the top spot. Fellow Frenchmen Sébastien Eyssartier and lea Jeandot are currently second with Juani Maegli and Cristina Guirola from Guatemala in third place. Bader and Montoya came to this year’s competition as the reigning European Hobie 16 champions and have been expected to show their mettle early in the championships.

As the afternoon progressed the wind strengthened and soon took its toll amongst the fleet. By mid-afternoon gusts of up to 35 knots were measured in the bay with huge sea swells causing havoc in the fleet with yachts colliding, capsizing and competitors being washed off course.

According to Comish Hunter from Fish Hoek, Cape Town, who was sailing in the second race in the Grand Masters, conditions got quite difficult very quickly. “We were tacking to the start when the boat just dropped from under me and when I looked around my crew Dezi Moon was sailing off without me. That’s when I decided to do the sensible thing and called it a day.”

The final race was abandoned shortly before 15h00. Two yachts were damaged and a further four had to be towed in from King’s Beach and Pollock Beach where they were blown ashore.

For more information, visit the race website on www.chevrolet.hobieworlds.co.za