Fellow Sailors,

The US Sailing Multihull Championship Committee is diligently working to stage the 2012 Hobie Alter Championship.

To date, we have held two nation-wide teleconferences (207 minutes total) with the members of the championship committee as well as the sub - committees. Laura Sullivan, secretary extraordinaire, has published the minutes of our meeting in record time.

The minutes of the USSA Championship Committee are published All Championship Committe Minutes

Minutes of our first meeting are published here! Minutes of first meeting (Pdf)

We are committed to keeping all multihull sailors informed of our progress so that you may remain current with the news as the work continues.

Due to the extreme cost of charter fees and limited Hoyt - Jolley funds, I must confess that the regatta format we loved, in honor of Hobie Alter and trophy craftsman, Gordon Isco, may have become impracticable, financially, but the names, engraved on the trophy, still carry our history, and thus inspire our efforts to sustain the perpetuity of the "Alter Cup."

Our committee is asking for you to bear with us during this trying time.

Sail with Aloha,
Bert Rice, US Sailing Multihull Championship Committee Chair

Thanks. Good luck, please keep us informed.

Yep... this is what informed will look like!
Last nights minutes are already in draft format...(god Laura is good)

If your official OD class email system does not get pinged... PLEASE push this out for us.

The survey team is working on survey... more as soon as possible. There is nothing easy in this process... trust me.

Good job all. This will not be the Ides of March.

FYI,

Minutes of Championship committee Thursday meetings are published here.

http://championships.ussailing.org/Committee/Meetings_and_Agendas/Spring_12.htm

Last weeks minutes were approved and will be posted shortly. Last nights Thursday minutes will be posted after approval next Thursday night....

The good news is that the MCC will not postpone the 2011 qualifier/2012 championship announcement.

Thanks.

Breaking news !

Mixed Tornado crew of Roland Gaebler and Nahid loose out to a kiddies boat sailed by two adult males !


From the AHPC facebook page (the others are surprisingly quiet these last days) :



DAY 8: The day started well... But straight after briefing the wind dropped out. Everyone is currently enjoying the warmth (~18 degrees).

The sea breeze is expected to fill in early this afternoon. Enrique Figueroa (PUR), one of the Evaluation Panel member, will be sailing one of the VIPERs with Brett. Good luck guys... enjoy the ride!!


DAY 8: Racing got underway by 1:30pm. Have not got a full report yet, but according to Brett's twitter he says.... "Great day on the water at the Olympic trials, we saw a sunny 8knts and the VIPER again stamped its authority on the course... 4 wins from 6"

Just had a skype from Greg...

Brett did sail with Enrique Figueroa (PUR), one of the evaluation panel... They had a blast. It took Enrique 2 races to get the feel of the boat, and then got all bullets in the last 4 races. This was not enough for the pair so they double trapped on spinnaker back home after the finish for that added adrenaline shot.

The Tornado had the Gaebler's on board, and won one of the 6 races.

I think that everyone has realised how mighty the 16 ft VIPER is!!!!

There maybe no racing tomorrow as many of the sailors will be heading off home.

end quote AHPC faceboo page


I admit that I'm enjoying this unashamedly as there has been alot of negative comments on the F16's from Tornado related sailors over the last weeks. In some cases they were totally disrespectful or clearly untruthful. It was way beyond normal PR. Lots of this did however happen on sailing anarchy etc and not on catsailor.

finally a picture that lets us directly compare the Nacra F16 with the Nacra 17 !

Measurements on the foto, with the F16 being 5.00 mtr long, shows the Nacra 17 to be 5.28 mtr or 17 foot and 4 inches. Lets round this off to 5.30 mtr to be on the save side. As such it is exactly a foot longer then the F16. The F18 class rule limit F18 hulls to 5.52 mtr overall. or about 8 inches longer.

The distance from the keel line to the mainbeam / rearbeam appears to be identical, about 47 cm or 0.47 mtr in front and 41 cm or 0.41 mtr in the back. That is a good amount of beam clearance and I suspect the boats will handle chop well in this respect. Also the the length of the hull behind the rearbeam is identical with boat boats. Could it be that crosssection shapes of the hulls are identical too ?

The overall length difference appears to be evenly divided over extra distance between the beams and a longer bow section. The F16 has 1.97 mtr between the beams and the Nacra 17 has 2.12. That means halve the overal distance, or 0.15 mtr, is placed in the bow section. The F16 has its mainbeam at 55% hull length from the stern and so too has the Nacra 17.

This picture pretty much says it all, I think. First off all, you really have to line the two boats up to spot the difference. Thank God for the differences in paint jobs (and sailnumbers) or they would have been impossible to tell apart in the ISAF trail pictures. Additionally, I see lots of foundation for the claim that the Nacra 17 is a Nacra F16 hull after it has been scaled up in length rather then a Nacra 20C hull scaled down.


Click on the provided link to see a larger picture.

Does someone else have good pictures of showing both boats simultaniously from the front. I would like to know if the Nacra's are the same width or whether the Nacra 17 is 2.60 mtr wide.

The same applies to the masts. From what I've seen it appears that both use the same length of masts, possibly the exact same section.

I venture that the Nacra 17 is fitted with a slightly larger mainsail or indeed 15 sq. mtr. + 0.15 * 8.1 mtr = 15 + 1.215 = max 16.2 sq. mtr. As the difference between the beams would suggest that 0.15 mtr is added to the boom length and possibly to the whole leech.

A similar reasoning (bow + 0.15 mtr) puts the jib at max 4.09 sq. mtr. compared to 3.70 sq. mtr. of the F16 when it is assumed that the same mast is used.

Of course, the hull length say nothing about the spinnaker being used, so that can still be of any size between 17.5 sq.mtr (F16) and 21 sq. mtr. (=max allowed under Texel and ISAF rating without additional penalties). 18.5 sq. mtr seems most likely however when taking into account the 6% additional hulls and usage of the same mast.

I don't think that that will help much in the way of performance as luff length is the more dominant factor here. That may only increase when they are using a longer mast on the Nacra 17.

Anyway, does anyone have more dependable data or pics that allow us to compare the two directly.

Wouter

Boat width: 2.59m
Boat length: 5.25m
Carbon mast length: 9.10m
Curved foil length: 1.8m
Main sail area including mast: 16.25m2
Jib area; 4.0m2
Spinnaker area: 18.5m2
Boat weight: 142kg

That what is interesting they raced the viper as a mens team not the required mixed team. I thought I read were the Gabler’s were not allowed to race as they were over 140KG specification and had to adhere to the trails evaluation specifications.

Also while nice for viper they won won races with Enrique Figeroua sailing you forget to mention that the Tiger won the races when he was steering. So maybe it may not just be all boat but the quality of guy holding the tiller.

I think some balanced reporting maybe better for all so we understand what is really happening.

Sorry to hijack an already hijacked thread

are you sure about the 9.10 mtr mast ?

That seems almost impossible with a total sail area of 16.25 sq. mtr.

Let me explain where I see a problem.

nacra F16 rig => 8.5 mtr maxt , 8.1 mtr luff and distance between beams 1.97 mtr.

total mainsail area 15 sq. mtr.


Now take a 0.6 mtr taller mast and therefore 0.6 mtr more luff length. Additionally, the spacing between the beams is increase by some 0.15 mtr. Both these elements place the new mainsail area at 15 + 0.6 * 2.12 + 1.5 * 8.6*0.075 = 17.24 sq.mtr. where is is assumed that both rig have a squaretop of the same percentage.

This is off course logical as a 9.1 mtr tall mast is what the F18's have combined with a very similar spacing between the beams.

anyway,

punched then numbers you quoted into the (ISAF) SCHRS rating system

it produced 0.984

compare this too the F16's at 0.989 and F18's at 0.966

Basically, on specs alone the nacra 17 is estimated as 19 seconds per hour faster then the class spec F16's and 66 seconds slower then the F18's.

Of course this system doesn't take account of lifting foils.

Thanks for the specs.

I WANT MY THREAD BACK...

(not that I haven't hijacked a thread or two!)

But ..trying to figure out what two hundred cat sailors (filled out the survey) and the 300 silent majority (old nixonian political term).... is ... uh... maddening...

Makes you surly when my buddy Wouter starts the hijack`

BTW.... Help me out.... what do you think the term elite sailor means?...

What should a single championship event be about when you have Wave to Tornado sailors in the survey.

for instance... Is the winner of the Wave NA's an elite sailor?
Is the winner of the F18s NA's an elite sailor?

If there were 50 waves and 50 f18's... does it make a difference?

Then you are officially asking for public input?

These are public meetings.... I personally listen to anyone with something to say on the matter... I have been somewhat surprised that nobody comments on the minutes... they do reflect the progress and we work very hard on them.

The Silent Majority that I refered to.... got more then they expected with ol Dick Nixon ... and perhaps.. not what they wanted.... Being silent has some costs.. so... Speak now or hold your peace! Send me an email... private message or start a discussion.

The only way this works is for a consensus to form!

US Sailing MHC collected the survey... It will be published shortly.. Before you look at the summary...consider the overarching questions. I am looking for the insights the sailors have. Think about what's the meaning of elite Sailor and WHAT is the proper balance....before the survey is released.

As Bert announced... Provided boats are no more... Clubs with a fleet of cats don't exist. So, we are in the world of BYOB.
Examples of BYOB championships are:

Woman's keel boat championship BYOB with charters..every two years.. OPEN. J/22 (36 boats)
US Disabled Championship... BYOB... OPEN. (lots of divisions)
What will Multihull championship look like?

I don't comment on the minutes because it's a work in progress. Imo, any serious comment is premature I'm just glad someone is working the problem and trying to build concensus and interest among the rank and file.

Personally, I don't like the term "elite". Imo it has a pejorative ring to it unless it is accompanied by a truly impressive resume that includes high achievement in international competition. I would limit elite to those with Olympic or World Championship medals.

"What will Multihull championship look like?" I'll restate my opinion of what I hope it will be. A large open regatta, run on at least two different courses: one for us partiers one for the serious sailors trying to win the Alter Cup. The "Cup" fleet should rotate among the several different classes, possibly coinciding with that years national championship.

Pete,

There's no need to twist things around. Just because this site isn't "official" doesn't mean we don't listen here.

Mark is on the committee and is asking for your opinion. You are free to give it or not.

Having said that, thanks for your input. I'm just one vote, but I do happen to strongly agree with some of your points, and they do reflect a lot of the opinions that came through in the survey.

Mike

So where do we stand? Anything new?

Minutes are now sorted out and posted.