Canada F18's?

I happened to be in Toronto with my family, (vising sister in law), and I was looking for a site talking about this event. You know, who's there, what's going on, etc.
I did find the NOR, http://www.cat-alist.com/uploads/events/2010_F18_Canadians_NOR.pdf
and will go by there tomorrow morning to check it out. I think Guy said he was going to be here also.
I even checked Sailing Anarchy for a thread.
Got a link?

http://www.cat-alist.com/index.php/index.php?option=com_content&view=frontpage&Itemid=1

Mr Casey is up there.

Anyone know if results will be posted?

The punk just posted on FaceBook that there is a 3 way tie for first and they had 20-25 today. No the little sh!t didn't post any names.

Why is it you think I will be there? Am I supposed to be?

I think he is talking about JC (John Casey) but who knows with Tad.

I was on the South end of Lake Ontario today, at Niagara Falls. I felt sustained gusts of 35+, for sure.

I'm going by tomorrow morning before they get started. I'll try and scan a copy of day 1 in on this thread.

Canada ain't much different from WI. Toronto is HUGE, kinda like around Houston. Good Dim Sum too. Gas is a dollar. Dollar a liter.

Haven't seen the results but I think there is a good chance Mr.Heemskirk is leading.

http://www.cat-alist.com/uploads/2010_results/canf18_day1.pdf

--gt

Just spoke to Jill - right now they're starting the third race, gusts to 30, "carnage."

http://www.cat-alist.com/uploads/2010_results/2010_F18_Canadian_Championship_Sat.htm

The throw outs are kicking in.

Only got in one race today... Daniel in first, Heemskerk second, Easton third is the word. Nice mix of conditions for the 2010 Candians - not sure if Prentice held on to become Canadian Champ. Hope so - he and Patrick are pretty cool guys.

It was an awesome event, lots of wind on friday and saturday with steep waves on Friday, and flat water with very puffy conditions on Sat. Friday was two races with the second race only 1/2 the registered fleet finishing. Second race on Fri, Easton/Burd had launched, rounded the weather mark and stuffed hard enough to snap their spin pole. Still finished in 7th, but in retrospect was the difference maker for their regatta. Three on Saturday, and Sunday the RC made the most of the little wind they had for a single race.
Top 4 were: Mischa, Easton, Daniels, JC
Karen-Ann and EYC hosted a great event including tasty dinners and partes. They are so stinking nice up there!
We got home around 2AM today. If only I didn't have to go to work today....
Chris

There's a nice write-up in SailWorld.com - F18 Canadian Nationals

Ugh! I was going to ask JC what he finished in that first race when he was OCS. I bet he's kicking himself hard for that if he placed top 3 in that race

He beat us but i'm not sure where he was... we were actually 7th in that race so 3 of the OCS were ahead of us.
Lot's of people were kicking themselves for things but such is racing... Mike & Tripp broke their spin pole while winning, Robbie & Mischa flipped while in the top 5, we flipped while in the top 5, all the OCS.... It's nice to think about what could have been but at the end of the day you can't make excuses for what could have happened you just have to go out and prove it another day.

That being said, this was the best sailing we had all year! Tradewinds of this year was the only regatta of the year that even comes close.
As far as a package deal Karen-Ann and her team put on one of the best regatta's i've ever been to and she's even standing there on the beach to pull your cat trax up!
We got to EYC on Thursday and only moved our car once and had no need to open our wallet again after registering, all because of this great venue.
I really hope it's in Toronto again next year! I will certainly be there, especially if all you Canadians come down to Massachussetts for NA's!!!

Mischa, JC and Chris Prentice were the OCS boats in Race 1. Mischa came back, JC and Chris didn't.

There were a couple of things going on in the start that made them OCS. The wind went to a right phase about 2 minutes before the start, so the boat was favored. The line was a bit short for the conditions (911 ft). I made it 1200 ft for the other races and had no problems.

JC would have gotten a 2nd in that race. It wouldn't have made a difference in the overall results.

Interesting that the competitors didn't press the line hard at all in the big stuff. I usually knew at 5 seconds to go that it would be an all clear start.

For everyone who came, who was using a compass to find the wind shifts?

Matt... for me at least, it was pretty difficult to stop your boat right on the line or even close enough to be able to stop it if it decided to squirt forward a bit. We were more comfortable hanging back just a bit to pull the trigger hard at 10 seconds which gave us a bit of runway to burn to get to full speed and still not be over. Not to mention the waves were knocking us back.

Dave- We were using a tacktick micro compass... i'm not sure how many other people I saw with them but we used it quite a bit.

Won on an old Hobie Tiger. FN classic! What does that tell ya?

That he had the best crew.

I was wondering when someone was going to bring up that he won on a Tiger....

To me, that means the Formula is working AND the best team is going to win no matter what boat they are on.....

or...... He's so freakishly good that despite being on a inferior boat, he still can kick butt.

I agree with you, just good to look at it from the other side.

Bingo!!!

I'm not saying the Tiger is inferior, Mischa is THAT good.

The formula seems to be working extraordinarily well.

Can someone put me in touch with any of the event photogs?
Thx,
J

jeremy@surfcitycatamarans.com

Lets see him race on an aqua-cat next time!

Thanks John. We sailed our best for this regatta and almost pulled it off, just had some bad luck in the last race (some brought on by ourselves, doing a 360 in 3 knots of breeze is not fast!) and having already used up our drop on the first race (which we finished second, guess the head start helped, woops) our standing took a hit.

That said, wow, what an event, again the club put on a great show, great food, great support on land and on water. Tonnes of "if only" and "what ifs" on a lot of teams minds this week I'm sure, but at the end of the day, wow, weren't those first two days fun!

Thanks to all the competitors for pushing themselves and the fleet to a new level ever year,

Cheers,
-Patrick

Matt, the waves and puffs (as Todd mentioned) made it hard for those of us who don't train in those conditions that often to stay on the line, that and our OCS made us bit nervous ;-)

Dave, We use a speedpuck set on speed, although we are considering moving to something (perhaps the new velocitek coming out soon) that shows both speed and heading as both are valuable tools to have while racing. On the last day in light air the speed helped us know if the main was under / over trimmed, but the lack of compass heading didn't help us keep track of the big shifts going on.

That said, if you are gifted you need either, but who is ever that gifted (cough cough, Misha, cough cough) :-)

The speedpuck uses a gps, i'm pretty sure the rules dont allow it for racing.

The US Fleet created a set of prescriptions for the 2010 NAF18 Championship to allow the device and the fleet voted to keep those prescritions in effect until the 2010 WC vote in December at which time all the prescriptions (for the US) will expire. I supsect the CA fleet did something similar since the CA F18 President was at the USF18 fleet meeting last August.

Where do you stand? I was opposed, for no particular reason, but now that I use one I'm not so sure.

Yes, the Can fleet followed the US, as far as I know, hence why a lot of people were using the speedpuck at the Can nats (its simply cheaper then the tactic compass).

I'm a bit worried about GPS in our fleet when it gets easy to "ping" start lines and marks (giving you distance to layline, distance to start line, etc), but for now that is hard to do given the physical distance from where you need to put the device on an F18 (yes, the Rockbox has a remote, never used it, so it may be possible). That said, not sure if it is really an issue, as no device will ever ensure you win. Also, distance to start line probably doesn't help much in an F18 given the lack of "to the inch" accuracy of GPS and the style of starts we do (no big boat "start your momentum at 1 minute" starts), and layline distance assumes constant knowledge of wind direction, which would require more tech to be accurate.

To me the ideal device for an F18 would be Speed, heading and estimated VMG (for both upwind and downwind). Speed (and hence VMG) would need GPS to work. The SC-1 from Velocitek does this but in a package that is not that appealing to F18s (to big / bulky, can't reach buttons). They have a new product coming out soon, the SC2 which looks to solve this issue (fingers crossed).

My 2 cents, back on subject, loved the Nats and I hope next year everyone does the NAs and Can Nats back to back, would be a great couple weeks of racing!

Dave and I use a Nova Sail NS360 unit. Best of both worlds - dual displays (top/bottom) fluxgate compass chip for determining heading, and GPS chip for determining speed, vmg, course over ground, etc. Also has countdown timer and LED backlighting. Total package @ $499 from most of the on line retailers.

That does sound like a great product, have you used the VMG stuff in it? Looks similar to how velocitek does it (tell the box the wind direction). I've always liked that idea until the wind shifts, then it will be useless.

No remote also means not very useful given where you need to put it on a cat (out of reach on the spi pole just inside the jib on our F18).

Thoughts?

I'll throw something onto the F18 forum in a little bit - it should be noted that the US Class voted on some pretty specific language regarding electronics. The International Technical Committee is currently working on new wording for the electronics rule. The intent is to open the rule to allow for newer, inexpensive options, but continue to prevent expensive devices that provide advantages which supplant sailing skill. Specifically, display of real-time position, distance and bearing to marks or the start line, and VMG are data that are generally regarded as being of unfair advantage in the F18 fleet. We'll see where the debate takes us...

John,

I think the garmin wrist unit is around 125.00 and does vmg, location, speed, compass so your argument about cost does not hold up very well. A tactic is around 400.00 and just does compass and timer. It would just be to hard to set up a good system on a beach cat that gave you an advantage over another team with setting the line and marks and trying to read it and change settings while racing. A lot of teams have used vmg for distance races only to find out they should have gone to shore and not followed the rhumb line. One thing about sailing is the conditions are never the same and no electronic device is going to make you better than someone else on beach cats because of the loss of attention to boat handling playing with the device. They are fun to play with though.

I'm putting in my order for one of these (Jimmy not included).

Dave, when we discussed the issue in the general membership meeting the fleet with a signifiant majority only wanted speed and heading and possibly VMG. The debate was very similar to what is shaping up here in this thread. We also discussed the issues that could arise with the ability to update the firmware on these devices.

That is really cool but when that first wave hits you in the face and rips your glasses off and the whole system shuts down it be much good. I think he was getting info from weather boats around the course (outside info).

Dave,

Those are the only ones I would want it is just that some units that don't cost very much have other options and would make them not legal. A team could not use a garmin 201 because it has some systems that are not legal but only cost $125 much less than a legal system. If they are going to write a rule about cost there are just no facts to support it. I would also like to see the facts on where distance to start line and mark location has made a team better than one that does not have it on beach cats.

No outside info - that was actually a rule. He was getting info from his wind sensing lasers though.

RESISTANCE IS FUTILE!

Had to lighten up this thread....

Cause it has gone WAY off course!

If we want to talk about GPS's, how about start another thread..cause GPS's don't belong in here.

This is a thread for the Canadian F18's!


Mike

Mike,

I think we are all in agreement we just don't know how to write the rule to include different systems.

I thought the Canada F18's were over

[quote=Dlennard I would also like to see the facts on where distance to start line and mark location has made a team better than one that does not have it on beach cats. [/quote]

Okay Dave just for fun I'll turn it back on you, show me evidence where those types of devices don't improve your starts.

The way the process will work is the technical committee will write up the rule for these devices present it to the WC and then the WC will vote. Hopefully the WC will poll the fleets and vote in such a way the repesents the wishes of the fleet.

Moved to other thread http://www.catsailor.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=220589&gonew=1#UNREAD