As I understand it, the A class cats and F18hts raced at the Newport Unlimited Regatta last weekend. What are the results? Who finished where? Any comments on new sail shapes, hull shapes, CB and rudder shapes? These are development classes. What are the latest developments? Anything new? Did any new boats show up?
Bill

Here's one result - "Zephyr" a BRAND NEW 40 tri overstood the finish line and after heating up the boat in an effort to make it...well....you can see what happened:

That will leave a mark!!!

now i'll bet that was something to see! 40ft cartwheel. I've been on the fordeck of an Olson 30 when it broached, and that was unconfortable feeling, I'll can't immagine what that was like.

Not necessarily a cartwheel to get in that position...look carefully and you can see it is being righted by a tow boat from a completly turtled position...so it could have just capsized and slowly gone turtle...still pretty messy though.

oh comeone, allow me my fantasies when it doesn't hurt anything, hehehhehehehhehehehehehehheheehhee

I bet that tri didn't go over gracefully. One ama couldn't possibly support all the weight necessary to go over easy on her side. It probably dug in and the boat rolled forward tail over head kind of over her shoulder. While not a true tail standing pitchpole - I bet it wasn't that far away.

The owner says that not much was damaged except for a few battens in the mainsail (and I would assume seawater in the electronics).

I can't help but wonder if his mast was sealed.

On the tri's that I've been privileged to ride the amas and beams are built well enough to easily weather a capsize. The Farrier boats can recover from a capsize with a little help. I saw a few photos on one of the F-Boat websites demonstrating the process. The beams may look spindly but trimarans usually are exceptionally well built to survive an upset condition and the subsequent recovery.

The easily recoverable catamaran capsize is the one thing I miss about sailing my small trimaran. The dreaded pitchpole is the small tri skipper's one demon because it is almost impossible to recover without some help.

Hanging your weight off the stern of an 18' tri does not provide enough leverage to bring her back up. If one ama pops a hatch cover and begins to fill with water she will roll to a capsized position. If the mast and the amas begin to fill water, the boat will turtle which sets the stage for a lot of damage to the sails/battens but most tri's can take the structural stress of assisted righting.

Only once in four seasons have I pitchpoled, though. I'm trying to imagine how to use a drogue to provide enough leverage for righting. (What I need is a "skyhook"!)

I will make another attempt at the Round The Island this year but when you see my boat don't laugh at all my safety preparations. It may look like I'm ready for the Transat but out there by my lonesome I may need it all. I'm confident that, like my first attempt, all the safety backup will have been simply added weight for the trip.

See you there,

--Dean in Orlando

When I said that the ama can't possibly support the weight, I meant while moving forward from a bouyancy consideration. Structurally I'm sure it can. I said that wrong but was trying to say that the ama would go submarine when it got too much pressure causing the boat to roll over her shoulder.

I'll be there too and looking for you! Are you going to launch at the yacht club or the park?

Hey Guys,
I did not ask about about big boats pitchpoling. All I see them doing is turning over and turning in big insurance claims, like 50 to 100K, and raising the rates for all of us.
Does anybody know about the small boat racing? Did the small boats even race? Why are the results so quiet? Usually they are the first thing talked about on Monday morning. It is the end of the week now. What's up?
Bill

Urm...



No.

We beach cat sailors are in a totally different risk profile. The ORMA 60's will have no bearing on our premiums.

Bill,
Nema hasnt posted the results for some reason.

http://www.nemasail.org/racing04.htm#unlimited

Saturday started out with 18-22knt plus and higher gusts and it and built into the afternoon. It was a grey, foggy day with very limited visibility. We had trouble just finding the starting line. Reported wind gusts of 30 and higher from some of Fboats. That F41 went over forward, bow in the water with the chute up. This was caught on film by someone. A F31 went over also and broke the rig.

The A cats didnt show up. 6 HT's showed and 6 N6.0s showed. Most everyone came in early on Saturday. The RC set the course North of the Newport Bridge, east of Prudence Island. The top mark was at the Bridge, so the legs were like 4 miles long and given the conditions most of smaller boats came in early. I think one of the 6.0's sailed both races on Saturday. It took most of the afternoon to get off 2 races due to the long course.

Sunday was a different story, started out 15knts and sunny and died off and then the seabreeze built in. The race was around Jamestown. Bob Hodges & Chris Brown on an HT and Mike Ferarra on a 6.0 claimed they finished first. Mike says he was first and Bob says he was first, so I dont know the real answer. Supposedly it was very close. Either way it was a great day on Sunday.

The HT results from Sunday
1st Hodges/Brown
2nd Hugh Piggins
3rd Brandy Wood/Doug Kirby
4th Vining/Burley
5th Mark Murray/Charlie Barmonde - DNF
6th Hunt and Kris Stookey - DNS

N6.0 results
1st - Mike Ferarra
2nd - ?
3rd- ?



Bill

5 6.0s were present and racing with spinnakers. 4 or 5 the 6.0s started and finished the first race. Winds were moderate and seas flat in the bay. The wind picked up for the second race and on the long upwind beat a blow came down the course and laid all but one 6.0 over. All the 6.0s righted and continued on. Mike F was rounded and set the spinnaker for the finish and the rest of the cats sailed straight in to the harbor. Race committe said they recorded a high wind reading of 23 knots. We all feel the winds were slightly harder then that in the some of the gusts. Nothing close to Curacao conditions! Sunday started with moderate winds that abated shortly after the distance race started. The race committee had some problems Saturday and races did not get started till almost 1 in the afternoon. We did get to see that 40ft tri when she was upright, sure was a fast and sailing will all her rags on(no reefs).

6.0ne Results:

1) Mike Ferarra
2) Craig Hackett
3) Scott Malcolm
4) Dave Fortier
5) Scott M.

Bob Hodges supplementing Bill Vining - Chris and I were the first boat on the water on Saturday. We first sailed upwind south of the Newport bridge and the breeze was probably 15-18 knots with maybe some higher gusts. We turned downwind and set the chute. No real problems as we sailed back to the bridge. We took the chute down before we got to the bridge and continued downwind to the starting area. We then hung out for about an hour and watched the breeze build. We were sailing the Gunboat 18HT that WF had just bought from Peter Johnstone. After a couple of what I thought were +20 knot puffs came through, I decided not to race as it wasn't my boat and I didn't want to break anything major before the LAC (this will be the boat we will race). We sailed back upwind towards the bridge and the breeze seemed to moderate back to the 15-18 knot range but once we got on the south side of the bridge, it really pumped back up so we had no regrets about coming in. We checked iwindsurf.com later that evening. They recorded 20-22 knots with +25 knot gusts in our racing area. Seven miles up the bay they were recording gusts over 30 knots. We were also happy not to get caught in the frontal line that marked the cold front coming through about 4:00 PM.

Sunday was a beautiful sailing day starting out with 10-12 knots at the start from the north. We led at the turn around the north end of the island but had quite a duel with Mark Murray. We got a break when Mark snapped a rudder gudgeon on his transom but he sailed beautifully to catch us napping at the end of the bay (we were not paying good attention to the current). We caught him at the Beavertail mark because he was having problems turning the boat upwind with one rudder. We got around the mark with a pretty good lead on the rest of the fleet. At this point, the breeze had shifted to a light SE seabreeze. We made a major error coming into the mouth of the bay as we did not play the east shoreline to get out of the current. We basically got stuck in the current with little to no wind and watched Mike Ferrara sail up to us. We finally got a puff of wind and squeaked into the bay and were able to set our chute and head for the bridge and the last mark. We now only had a lead of about 200-300 yards on Ferrara and we stayed that distance to the mark past the bridge. We thought we had Mike tucked away on the last upwind leg to the finish but we let ourselves sail into some bad air from the F-31's that were finishing with us and finished the race overlapped with Mike. I think he actually beat us across the line because he figured out the favored end. Good sailing on his part.