Nacra 17 Worlds Santander, Spain

http://www.sailing.org/events/isafw...31438&view=fleetevent#results__13866

Sarah and JC in Thirteenth and Robbie & Catherine are 25th after two races - sixty-seven boats on the line.

Hard to get a good feeling for standing with uneven races between fleets, but my guess is Sarah and JC will be the top US team somewhere in the 20s at the end of today. Main focus for this regatta needs to be to qualify the USA for a spot at the Olympics. This regatta qualifies 10 countries- we're currently not one of them.

so 67 boats divided into 3 fleets makes about 22 boats per fleet on the start line.

That's got to be a lot of fun (and pressure) to have that many boats all storming down at once...

What's the largest number of boats you've been on a buoy race start with?

How big (# boats) are Opti starts? H16 starts?

There are two fleets of ~34 boats each. Not a very big start really, but I think the race course is fairly short. F18 worlds usually has 60-90 boats per start, big opti and laser fleets have around 100. I think Etchells worlds this year had 90+ on one line.

Personally the biggest fleets I have sailed in would be F18 worlds (~60 per start), Etchells Jaguar Series (~60-70 per start), and Laser nationals (~100). Big fleets are lots of fun.

Around 90 F18 at Carnac a few years back. And F18 are very very competitive on the start line! I think all our starts ended up being under black flag.

Is there such thing as a "reasonable" second row start for a fleet of 90 F18s? I can't imagine there is such a thing as clean air with that many sails...

Short answer, no (IMO). But, if the line is set wrong or/and the left side of the course is a loser a second row start at the boat is better than front row pin end in my opinion. I can't imagine a second row start ever being part of my plan A starting strategy, plan B is another story. Yes plan B and I are very familiar with each other.

So after 5 races, the 10 qualified countries would be:

01 FRA
02 SUI
03 GBR
04 ITA
05 ARG
06 AUS
07 NED
08 NZL
09 ARU
10 AUT/DEN (Both are on 31 points!)

This can still evolve of course. No big surprises in this list so far, ARU is really a NED with second passports pissed off at not having be selected by their country…

What's more interesting is who is missing: The country with the Gold in the last olympics on cats is not on this list. ESP, with Iker Martinez and Tara Pacheco, not playing this week due to injury, will need to grab a qualification at another event next year, either the same event (3 spots) or the European Continental Event (1 spot).

Behind, the race is on to try to grab a spot, but it's going to be hard. In current order:

PUR
RUS
GRE
SWE
USA
CAN
ESP
JPN
BRA (will get an automatic qualification as host nation)
VEN
POR
BUL
NOR
BEL
HUN
SIN
MON
HKG


The qualification rules:
http://www.sailing.org/tools/documents/201402Rio2016QualificationSystemFINALSailingEN-[16399].pdf

I believe that some video can be found here.

https://youtube.com/user/isafchannel

Artsy-fartsy tourist board highlights

Has anyone actually videoed a full Nacra 17 race yet?

I think that the medal race will be on UK TV on Sunday though

Absolutely not. If you start second row, you are pretty much guaranteed to finish no higher than somewhere in the last 50% of the fleet...probably a lot worse. There is a LOT of dirty air with 50 boats on the start line and once you slip behind a couple of boats, you start getting handed off backwards and it's tough to maintain your position let alone gain anything.

yeah, I was hoping you wouldn't say that.

So what's to do if you're spat out the back? Chase flyers? Go left when everyone's going right? Pray that they all fight amongst themselves?

Second row sucks no matter the fleet size. If it happens the key is to suck it up and start looking for an escape quickly (while still going as fast as possible). Taking transoms early in order to get to relatively clear lane is usually worth it in the long run.

My approach is the remind my crew to remind me to stay patient. At that point, it's too early to start taking gigantic gambles.
Minimize damage by footing or pinching a little into a lane or, in the case where I'm stuck between two boats, I'll try to make it uncomfortable for the guy that I can reach and make HIM want to check out (if I can get him to wonder "what the hell is wrong with this guy?", I've done my job). We tend to be on the heavy side so boat speed in moderate breeze isn't an asset that we can claim title to. This plays into this situation pretty heavily.

I don't usually hit the "run away" button unless it's absolutely terrible (practically sitting in last place already) or I had previously identified that I wanted to be on the opposite side of the course anyway...but, that said, if the opposite side is favored, its usually not the case that I'm the only one to have figured that out - so lanes will start opening up as people start to tack over.

Great showing by USA! A lot more than the two teams highlighted above...

Mike

Update from Jill via Facebook:

ISAF Worlds update. First for the good news. Pictures can be found on Team K2 Facebook page.

Katie and Keenan were found alive and well...no thanks to the Regatta safety boats. It took an hour of reporting them being missing before anything was done. And by that time they had been found. Fortunately a 49r coach found Katie out of sight from Keenan and the boat after floating for about 15 minutes. We are hoping some safety issues are addressed tomorrow.

Catherine is on one piece after being checked for a head injury from a violent pitch pole.

The bad new is, none of the US teams qualified the US in the multihull class. It was pretty much one disaster after another but all involved gave it their all. It is time to regroup, make some adjustments and move forward.

Most of the bad stuff you have read has had some or all truth to it. Some a little embellished. The weather has certainly not been good to this event.

The competition is fierce. The Brits, French, Italians and more all have it well together with high level federation support as well as sponsors to provide a lot of team benefits. The US federation is doing a much better job than ever before, but it just does not compare to the top countries in depth but they are trying. It is tough. Many of the international teams sail full time and that is their job.

Of the three teams we have here, we need to look at their combinations. Weight is a big issue as we find ourselves sailing against teams that are running 285-295. Currently our only team in the weight game is Keenan and Katie.

The good news is, we know where we can improve and will strive to continue to do so.

We were hooked up here with a good living situation, on the water support and general running around....although privately funded. It is pretty hard for any team to do an event like this on their own. You need a built in network to cater to your needs. This time it was Sully and Me...Jill.

Traveling to different countries for events sounds glamorous but it is work and lots of it. We have been to the airport 11 times and have not started the return trips. The grocery store 5 times and other than occasionally taking a wrong turn, the boat park.

Our day starts early and ends late. We do this because we love it and like anything else, it does have its rewards. You get to meet and work with the best sailors and coaches in the world....and you get to be the best you can be.

Tomorrow splits the fleet to gold and silver. Non of the multihull Americans made the gold fleet but we will try to go out with a bang!

"Most of the bad stuff you have read..."

Huh? Where are these stories being posted?

As for separation, are they allowed to carry radios? I've been out overnight, capsized and alone. Trust me, you don't want to have to go through that before you start carrying a radio on your person.

Mike

Classes have these blanket ... rules... no hand held communications... (See A class) IMO... it is bordering on criminal....
The come back is always.... Well... we know how to properly run a safe catamaran race... no worries... Nah.... the spirit is willing but the resources are usually not there... Carry the damn radio... if they take your medal... you will go nuclear and lead coverage on ESPN..

The real problem is just qualifying.... The last time the US was in this position... (last sailed cycle for Bejing)... Johnny and Charlie pulled it out for the selection round of 4... A lot fewer countries had quality Tornado teams since it was a mature class. ( I think there was one more spot as well for china... my memory may be off tho)

It's going to be tough.... Johnny and Charlie had a silver in the pocket.... already proving that they could sail under that kind of pressure...

The US fleet has a big job ahead...

Johnny Lovell won the Prince of Wales cup in match racing He's no rookie and Charlie has an impressive record on his own in fact Charlie beat Johnny on A cats once, crew beats skipper HUM

Strictly speaking that's not correct, Aruba is part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
Which means they have Dutch passports just like in the rest of the kingdom
Pretty awesome if they make the top 10 countries though, they worked very hard to get there with very limited funds (no coach etc).
The other Dutch team which is just sailing for fun is now in 29th position, which is well inside the gold fleet.

I'd agree with Jeff here.. you can definitely recover from a second row start in most F18 fleets. Taking transoms early, getting out on your own and going fast is key. The first day in the gulf in Sarasota Dalton and I had a rough time starting and did this almost every race and made it to the windward mark in the top 20 most of them. Same thing at Catacup and worlds in Long Beach several times. An F18 is usually a lot faster on it's own than battling with other boats.
Might be tougher in Nacra 17's though where it would be a lot harder to have a boat speed advantage with the talent there.

I'll third Jeff and Todd here. This is extremely evident even in a small fleet. For example, Mike and Tripp punch out into clean air early every time and have great starts. 2 boat 1 boat length behind them on the line in dirty air and you are 5 boat lengths behind in about 10 seconds. Once you break out into clean air you can start sailing at the same VMG as the lead boats and stop the bleed.

Qualified: FRA, ARG, AUS, ITA, NZL, SUI, GBR, DEN, AUT, NED.

Did you watch the live medal race on Sunday? WTF was that collision? At that level I'm surprised this took place. From the footage it seems that FRA 225 should not be where they were.