Match racing in multihulls is a blast. When we raced the defender series for the 2004 ICCT in F-18HT's, we had some very exciting racing against Johnny Lovell and Charlie Ogletree. The pre-starts are full of action and with the speed of the boats, you have to react fast to your opponent. Also, because the boats have no momentum, it adds a different perspective in contrast to the long "dialups" you see in the IACC events. Once the racing starts, things happen fast. We went down 4 to 1 against the Tornado silver medalists but felt great about our racing since their biggest winning margin against us was only 20 seconds. In particular, we had one race in 15-18 knots of wind where we were trying to get over them to windward on a downwind leg and Johnny was throwing some pretty aggressive luffs at us. With the chutes up, we were both on the edge of wiping out the entire downwind leg and they nipped us by seconds at the line. The umpires and judges were impressed and told us that was about the most exciting sailing they had ever seen.

We need more multihull match racing events and perhaps some team racing(?).

Bob Hodges