Well thought out polite posts will be ridiculed and dismissed. If you haven't had at least one adult beverage of your choice come back later once you have been properly prepped.

Tomorrow the forecast threatens to be soft so you fly weight bitches better get your little points early instead of sitting on the beach holding hands and giving each other soft gentle kisses. Yes Ricky and Karl I'm looking squarely at you!

Howdy Ding and All!

We have about fifteen - boats offshore in the distance race. Winds are west at 8-10 going to the NW.

Beautiful day in Sarasota. Randy and Jamie are finally getting to sail together after ten years...Ron White and Mike Fahle are driving Lovell and Ogletree's former Tornado with racks, and Mike McGarry and Don Wigston are trying to foil. The Roberts 27 and 30 are in the Gulf with the Stilettos and Corsairs.

Pressure will be coming up this weekend, with a weak front slipping through. SSS is an awesome venue, and the CA boats are already here along with the right coasters.

Best of Luck to the multihull leaders at the US Sailing meeting. I'll try and get some video footage for y'all.

Merry Sailing,
Bert

Ding, I hope you brought your A-game this week. You don't need to worry about the young punks on the water. Sharing a house with me is going to take a toll on your liver....

We need the Rum Handle Cam in full swing.

Bitch the A-game is here the question is where the f!@k are you!?

That would be too much work, we'd be switch the cam out too often. Come on THart, fire it up pretend you still get your boat wet.

Not in the budget and couldn't find a sponsor, but my liver is with you in spirit.
Sell my C-2 for me and I'll get you a handle of rum.

I just purchased an F18 in Sarasota today, however I'm not hanging around for your silly race.

Have to ask.....is throwing a daggerboard overboard part of your a-game? Yeah....we all saw that!

Less weight, perhaps?

New foiling strategy?

Just taking ETNZ's strategy.

BUMP..."cause this is a catamaran sailing site and this is a big deal. Bueller....Bueller....Bueller

Todd Ricardi has a bullet! Ravi Parent has a bullet!...

http://www.catsailingnews.com/2013/10/f18-americas-continental-day-1-results.html Results

Some pressure, but lots of holes today.

It was a short line and good starts were necessary to stay in control of your lane.

Ricky and Dalton are in the lead, with Gunnar in second. Sandra and Alex are up there, so are Luke/JC.

Karl/Beth are sailing well, and so are Laura and Ding.

Katie and I ate an OCS on race 3, along with the 3 other boats that tried to roll me.

Jake broke a rudder pin on the 2nd race and retired.

Rumor is that we will be racing offshore tomorrow with 5 mile legs - should be fun finding a white mark, that far up course, and no GPS allowed...

Cheers, Mike

Thanks Mike, keep 'em, coming when you can.

Day One

This is the F18 America's ... right? Like North and South America?

Was wondering how this team got an exemption:
Gunnar Larsen
Ferdinand van West
1785
Den Haag, Zuid Holland
Watersport verbond

Did you race today?

Mike

Owning NACRA probably didn't hurt.

After 8
http://www.regattanetwork.com/clubm...ta_id=6320&show_crew=1&preview=1

In the past you could have a winner (non-national) and a national champ who came in 2nd or 3rd (scored highest "national") but was a national.
I'm not sure how it would work for an "Americas" IE "the New World" event.

Fun day on the water today. They kept us inside for another round of W/L courses but added a 90 degree reaching leg from the gate to the finish.

We had great breeze15-18, big puffs, and a few shifts to keep it interesting.

A big shuffle in the standings? Results
Here - http://www.regattanetwork.com/clubmgmt/applet_regatta_results.php?regatta_id=6320&show_crew=1

In the coed fleet, Sandra/Alex had a tough day with a DNF, but are closely followed by Annie/Eric.

Sarah and Rob are also hanging in there.

Karl/Beth had a rear beam pull out but Ahpc jumped in and will have them back on the water tomorrow (way to go Jill and Robbie!)

Laura and Ding are sailing well with consistent finishes and no swimming

Katie and I had a couple of huge stuffs on race 3 that sent her up to inspect the snuffer. However we retired before race 4 because of loose rudder/gudgeon/plate issues. We are all repaired and will be back out tomorrow.

That's it for today

Mike

Can't wait to see the video. They've been great so far.

+1

so refreshing to read about sailing on this site.

Maybe the F18 rules should be changed so that every championship is Open?
In Europe it is normal (and encouraged!) that foreign sailors compete at each other's Nationals.
This year we had Germans, Brits, French, Belgians, the more the merrier.

From Rick Bliss:........... Fantastic day on the water yesterday at the F-18 Championships is Sarasota, FL. The race committee is doing a great job of getting races off. The strong winds depleted the fleet by the end of the day. I was on a fast power boat with the photographers so we were racing from one mark to the next and Capt Randy was positioning the boat for close in action shots. Flips and stuffs and people flying through the air. A few minor fender benders. A few ripped sails, broken tillers, exhausted crews and a couple of people separated from their boats. The safety boats were kept busy. They tell me there are great videos of the action on Sailing Anarchy. I haven't had time to check. Been too busy. I've extended my stay down here twice. Cold and wind today.

The New England teams are doing very well. Mike and Tripp took a first in one race but almost blew it when they came through the gate and reached off toward the finish line. They stuffed the bows, recovered, tea-bagged, recovered, stuffed again and Mike steered from behind the beam. The second place boat quickly closed the gap but Mike held them off. Following that boat after boat stuffed on the tight reach and a few unlucky ones pitchpoled. Super viewing for us!

From Rick Bliss:...........Today the racing started with 16-18 kts of wind out of a heading of 30 degrees. I'm approximating the wind speed. It was pretty cold on the ride out to the weather mark. I was assisting there because the photographers were going up in a helicopter. A windward leeward course through a gate then windward and back through the gate witha reach to the finish. The finish line boat was now a big catamaran since the racers had hit the previous yacht twice and the owner probably had had enough. Blair Toland's teammate Mark Herrendeen was slightly dazed when we reached him the day before after their daggerboard struck the swim platform when a competitor didn't give them room. They were back sailing with a new spinnaker pole today.

It seemed that tacking up the middle of the course was the way to go most of the day. Banging the corners proved disasterous to some top teams and their many followers. The weather mark was a great to watch the race. At times we had so much action you couldn't keep track of everything. Boats coming in on port weaving through multiple boats that were screaming in on starboard. Everyone flying around the mark and reaching off toward the offset mark sometimes three and four boats abreast. All prepping to raise their spinnakers seconds later, some raising them before the offset mark and almost capsizing or struggling hard to make the mark. The rest turning down slightly and blowing passed or being passed depending on how good they were at getting the spiinaker up and sheeted. As the day went on the sightseers got more numerous. One poor team had to round a slew of powerboats when his mainsheet wouldn't release and he couldn't turn downwind.

We had a few more instances today where people got separated from their boats and had to be scooped up by safety boats. Yesterday one of the young lady skippers had to swim to another capsized boat when her boat couldn't get righted and the safety boats were dealing with 7 capsized boats at one time. I thought I was on a fast boat until I saw one of the safety boats blazing across the water like what you see on TV with the hydrofoil racers. Okay so I exaggerate but when the driver saw the body in the water and the teammate not able to get back to him he ripped down the course later saying something about 65 mph. It was what they call a flats boat and it carried a 300hp outboard.

I was at the weather mark not the finish and things do change often on the spinnaker run so I can't give all the results but I believe Gunnar Larsen, Mike Easton, Todd Riccardi, Taylor Reiss, Cruz Smith and Bob Merrick all appeared to have a pretty good day. Lots of women competing in this event.

This event is open. Top finisher will win the Americas Championship, top US boat will be US National Champion. Pretty sure Europeans is open as well.

From Rick Bliss:...........Winds today are predicted to be a little lighter. It's blowing pretty good already at 8:30am. Chilly right now as they're setting up their boats but clear skies and sunny so the temp should be up around 80. The racing will be on the ocean rather than in the bay so everyone has to go through the drawbridge. The plan is to have two long openings of the bridge and hope all the boats get through in two groups before any emergency crops up where the fire dept or police need to get across the channel. Yesterday a large number of boats were late leaving the beach (very crowded at the launch area and all it takes is one slow poke in front to hold up the rest). The race committee delayed the first start. The wind and tide will push the boats down the channel to the bridge but it's going to be tough coming back in with the wind on the nose. Things are percolating around here now. Have to head out.

Fantastic reporting, and greatly appreciated by those of us who are not able to be there. Thank you!!!!

Great video from Wednesday!

From Rick Bliss:...........A perfect day for racing. 11-13.5 kts with light chop. A windward leward course, twice around with a downwind finish. The drawbridge was raised twice to allow the mob of cats to get out into the ocean. A well set course was in place early and the races got off on time. In one race Gunnar Larsen thought he was going to sneak in on port tack at the weather mark but the young kids are ruthless. PROTEST!! He ended up doing turns before the offset mark and even as fast as he did it he lost maybe 6 positions. I have it on video and at some point will figure out how to transfer it from my iPhone. Gunnar later pinned Mike Easton on the downwind leg and made him do turns dropping him from first to third in that race. The hot team for the day was Taylor Reiss and Matthew Whitehead. They had two firsts and two other good races. Standings right now are Mike Easton and Tripp Burd 1st, Gunnar Larsen and Fergie van West 2nd and Taylor Reiss and Matthew Whitehead 3rd. We again had four boats side by side at one point rounding the weather mark with the outside boats bearing down on our anchored boat at 15 kts. We also observed a Canadian boat flip and lose one of their crew just after raising their spinnaker and just as all the trailing boats were hoisting their spins, blasting by to one side or the other of them. Fortunately a power boat got there quickly to scoop him up and zip him back to his overturned boat . Very few flips today but we did have some. The sailors got in four great races so only two to go tomorrow. A Halloween costume party is going on right now and the food is starting to be served so this is all I have. One last comment. Jim Zellmer has done a heck of a job coaching the junior sailors down here at at the Sarasota Sailing Squardron.

http://vimeo.com/77828733


Sam Greenfield is doing magnificent work, and I could kiss him for putting sailing to Two Steps from Hell music.

It's all over. Mike Easton and Tripp Burd are the 2013 Americas and US National Champions!!

Wow, what a great regatta! We had breeze on, and we had light air. We raced inside the bay with chop and current, and we raced off shore with waves. We raced in full wetsuits and board shorts. It was 5 days of sailing in all conditions. The only constant was that the Sarasota Sailing Squadron amazed us all with fantastic RC work, and onshore hospitality. What an excellent job by everyone involved!

The only downside to the week was that we stayed out on Longboat Key, and the publix liquor store could not keep up with our households Mt Gay consumption. They ran out by Friday. Next time, Ding and I will have to call and give them a heads up that we are coming to town...

I couldn't agree more with Mike, what an amazing regatta and if there was a negative it was that we did drink the liquor store out of Mt Gay but I guess we own that one :-).

For those that made the long trip south thank you so much for coming to our little part of the F18 world I enjoyed catching up with you guys.

Start planning for Corpus next year!

Or you could stop at the local Costco and buy it by the pallet-load.

Don't ask me how I know

Pallet-load? Nice...

Someone should let Mt. Gay know that their dollars spent on regatta support are leading to direct fulfillment (although I suspect they already know).

Mike

yeah, the clerk will have to call the manager over, but as long as your credit card clears you're good.

they even offered to assist me with a pallet jack. Needless to say I got a lot of funny looks dragging it across the parking lot

I suspect that hearing "that's a whole Lotta *mumblemumble* gay" is not unknown for you to hear in parking lots Jay.

Make it rain, baby...

and it's more boat ramps than parking lots, but I guess they're all the same

I've always said there's no such thing as too much rum, but this enters a whole new category. And, I'm very impressed.

Mike

Interview with the Champs?

I have interviews with Mike Easton, Gunnar Larson, Ravi Parent, and Robbie Daniel. I will be publishing them on usf18.com over the coming weeks. First one will go up tomorrow. Have requests out to many of the top teams.

Jeff, could you post links here for the terminally lazy?
Thanks!

Dave

First two interviews posted:

http://usf18.com/interviews-with-the-lead-pack-mike-easton/

http://usf18.com/interviews-with-the-lead-pack-ravi-the-young-gun-parent/

Thanks.

Today's first interview: Gunnar Larsen

http://usf18.com/interviews-with-the-lead-pack-gunnar-larsen/

thanks again

Tired of hearing from skippers? So am I. Today we have Tyler Burd, first of the Burd super crews.

http://usf18.com/interviews-with-the-lead-pack-tyler-burd/

"...their rig came down pretty slow, so I was able to grab the mast and push it away. We ducked, and sailed under their mainsail and just kept going!"

Common themes: make sure your boat and body are up to the task, practice, and work on consistency. Not rocket science, but not as easy as it sounds, either.

Nice job Jeff. I see you have the crew angle covered, any non-cat sailors in the trophies?

Mike

I can't load it because someone (Beth) is hogging all the bandwidth

Not sure what the problem with the site is today. Went to add another couple interviews and can't get access. Will look into it.

It's working just fine for me. In Jay's case the problem might be between the keyboard and the chair. :-)

Naa. Beth's got a thing for Tripp hence the bandwidth hogging

My wife doesn't usually pay much attention to sailors...usually.

This is confusing, we have Beth, Beth II, Karl and Karl II?

The video is for Tyler, is she moving on?

Recently posted:

Cruz Gonzalez Smith and Mariano Heuser: http://usf18.com/interviews-with-the-lead-pack-cruz-gonzalez-smith-and-mariano-heuser/

Todd Riccardi: http://usf18.com/interviews-with-the-lead-pack-todd-riccardi/

Good job, Jeff!

Mike

Gotta stay entertained during endless meetings.... editing a website works ok

nice
Thanks for all the updates and interviews.

Thanks Jeff for running the site and tracking down the interviews, good stuff.

Can't claim credit for running the site. Mike Easton did a ton of work getting the new site setup and making it easy to use. I just try to keep the content current.

cool good on both of you