Tampa Bay Cat Sailors do not have an official website but they did distribute an e-mail this morning concerning the results of the race. I can’t attach the complete Sailwave results since the Forum software limits you to TXT, GIF or JPG. Here is the final placement and the descriptive e-mail from TBCSI.


1 T4.9 221 Hagan, Mike Rich, Carter 1 2 1 1 4 1 = 6.
2 T4.9 262 Lindsay, Jennifer Stern, Seth 2 1 4 2 3 3 = 11
3 T4.9 189 Harnden, Chuck Harnden, Mavis 3 5 2 4 1 4 = 14
4 T4.9 32 Coffman, Michael Coffman, Theodora 4 3 3 DSQ 2 2 = 14
5 T4.9 213 Crawford, Mike Williams, Ron 6 4 5 5 6 6 = 26
6 T4.9 AUS 184 Simmons, Kirt Ruesink, Geert 8 7 7 3 5 5 = 27
7 T4.9 194 White, Rick Woodruff, Stan 5 6 6 OCS 7 DNS = 33
8 T4.9 215 Maples, John Danis, Rob 7 8 DNF 6 8 7 = 36

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Attached are the Sailwave results (as HTML) for the Taipan 4.9 Nationals/A-Class/Open Multihulls held at Gulfport Yacht Club, Gulfport, Florida on November 9-10, 2002.

GYC is planning this regatta as an annual event. It was a great event held at a gem of a club. Gulfport Yacht Club members went to great lengths to make all sailors feel welcome. There were a lot of GYC volunteers to help make everything run smoothly. The Taipan Nationals Regatta if run to this standard could become a must attend event if you enjoy well run and fun regattas.

The weather was cooperative. Both days were sunny and warm. Saturday the winds were a little fluky but Sunday they steadied out at 8-10 knots.

TBCSI offered a variety of races including gates and the traditional triangles. This was a good test for all the sailors and really tested their abilities.

The competition was intense especially in the Taipan 4.9 Nationals. There was a huge prize for the first place winner. The Taipan manufacturer offered to supply the food and accommodations, charter boat and entry fee for the winner to attend the Australian Taipan Nationals in Australian in January 2003. This trip includes 5 days before/after the Nationals for sightseeing. The only thing the winner has to pay for is air fare.

Mike Hagen and Carter Rich (the first place winners) abdicated their prize to the second place winners (Jennifer Lindsay and Seth Stern). Jennifer and Seth (both TBCSI members) are heading for Australia in January. They have promised updates to us so that we can keep TBCSI members informed.

These results were also in Monday's St. Petersburg Times sports section.

Even though Ron and I placed 5th we still had a great time. It is so rare that we have a great bunch of sailors in one place. I mean very supportive and easy going while still having strong competition. I even hit the GYC's Commodore's new 4.9 very hard with the pointy end and they want us back next year (as hard as we hit I thought I'd lost the first six inches of hull, but only had a couple of chips in the gel coat - strong boat). Can you beleive it!? My hats off to Gulfport YC and Tampa Bay Catamaran Sailors, Inc. All races started on time and were run very professionally.

Thanks to Big Ed and Beth on the chase boat (setting marks, etc.) He had a great time and even got in some fishing.

Thanks especially to Chuck and Mavis Harnden for coming from the east coast, Kirt Simmons and Geert Ruesing from Arkansas and Holland respectively, and Rick White and Stan Woodruff from Key Largo. Eight boats out of 15 in the country. Looks like more may be coming too.

Jennifer and Seth will do well down south. They do need some heavy weather practice though. However, if it gets below 6 knots Jennifer will give all of them a good run for their Kevlar!!!!

Thanks again to GYC and TBCSI.

Michael Crawford

USA #213

Well done everyone. I am so pleased that the first Taipan Nationals were such a success.

Congratualtions Mike & Carter for taking out the Title. A pity you can't join us in OZ - Maybe we will see you down here some other time .

We will be thrilled to have Jennifer & Seth join us in January. Please contact me directly so that we can finalise plans.

Regards Helen

"I can’t attach the complete Sailwave results since the Forum software limits you to TXT, GIF or JPG. "

I can host the results on the Sailwave site if you'd like me too. Send HTML to [email]colin@sailwave.com.[/email] This is an open offer to anybody else that needs to get results for *any* event onto the web.

Regards,
Colin J
www.sailwave.com

Congratulations Mike Hagen and Rich Carter !

Good luck Jennifer Lindsay and Seth Stern !

Ofcourse I would love to have the HTML race results and put them up on the Formual 16 website.

And I have one more request :

Can anyone of you give us a run down of the races. A little rapport like the one with the RTI race would be great !

Again congratulations.

Wouter

Gulfport November 9-10 – US Championships, Taipan 4.9 Sloop

A few of us set up our boats on Friday, with three boats already rigged from the GYC. Kirt and Geert came in about 2:30 in the afternoon and Chuck and his wife made it a little later that night. Rick came in late I suspect.

Saturday started with steady 10 knots from the east south east. We did a 4G and spent 1 hour 25 minutes on the course. All had good starts and then Mike and Carter powered away. We all sailed sloop. The course was long at approximately 2 miles across Boca Ciega Bay (just guessing). Lots of wind shifts to play and some boat chop to negotiate.

The temperature was a perfect 80 degrees with the water about the same. Sunny too. The second race was more out of the south and the “A” mark was set up close to a seawall behind a few condos. What a difficult time trying to get around that sucker. I chastised my buddy Big Ed for placing it there, but he said he was just following orders from race committee. It did make for some challenging racing though.

The last race was a slow one, but in the end I could see the onshore breezes kicking in (a benefit of being in the second half of the field!). We were ready for it and powered up from downwind run to reach in a few seconds. We went across the finish line about two seconds behind Michael Coffman and his wife Theodora for third place. We then had a long run back downwind to the GYC when all was over. I didn’t go, but heard that the night out in Gulfport was great with a 10% discount at a local eatery. Gulfport has some real funky places close to the GYC.

Sunday was south wind at 10 knots with three races run. Still trouble with the condos on the south side of the bay (changing wind speed and direction). Also, had more difficulty with powerboat chop. We had great starts all weekend, but blew it on race one with an over early. The pin was way downwind and I didn’t see it (my fault).

Race three was fun until we ran into the back of the GYC’s commodore’s new 4.9. He hit the “C” mark and proceeded to do a penalty turn right at the mark. I assumed instead that he would clear the mark and turn between “A” and “C” somewhere. I was readying the boat for upwind and was just hooking up for wire work when I looked up to see him sitting dead in the water 20 feet in front. Ron was skippering at the time and we had no time to react. We hit him square in the rear crossbar three times before we finally stopped. It was a hard crunch and I thought there would be major damage, but was surprised to find only small missing pieces of gel coat. Wow!

The boat is very fast for a 16 footer and has a lot of things that you can adjust to go slow or fast. I haven’t quite figured out the fast part yet, but have the slow part down pretty good.

Sorry about lack of race details, but my memory is fading.

Michael Crawford USA #213