Eurocat Carnac - Day 4 (04/05/2008)

Today we didn’t race, no wind.

We finished 17th out of 41 contestants. Not bad, but we aimed for a top 10 place. So we’ll have to practice some more. Especially flying the kite needs some more training. Not so much for Gill, but for me, because I tend to get scared whenever he’s flying the hull too high with the kite up. I think this is because I have had so many bruises and pain due to stuffing the boat in a wave, while flying the kite. I shouldn’t worry too much, because when we get the hull out of the water, there is way less chance of stuffing it. So the more I do it, the more I – hopefully – will get over this fear…

Hereby a link to the end results. End Results C1

These are not yet totally correct. Hans got 2 DNS (1rst and 3rd race). He protested and they posted his results (19 & 16) but apparently they didn't add them to the end results. So overall he should be 14th we think (and first F16).

There were also 5 Mattia Esses sailing I think and the first overall was a Mattia.

It was fun and a good meeting place for the beginning of the sailing season. It was nice to see the other F16 sailors again! Up to the next event…

Eurocat Carnac - Day 3 (03/05/2008)

On Saturday there were only two races, as the decent breeze seen in the first race died very suddenly half way through the second race. Paul missed the start of the first race due to a series of objects forgotten on the beach. This did mean that he had an excellent spectator seat for the end of the first race which saw Hans finish second on the water, beating three of the four Tornados. A very impressive result in conditions that weren't obviously favourable to a 1-up F16 - the Ts were twin wiring upwind, and the course included a couple of reaching legs.

Eurocat Carnac - Day 2 (02/05/2008)

The long distance! We made it! We were on the water for 6.5 hours. That is very long. The first part went ok, we still had some wind. There wasn’t enough to trap, so we got to sit a lot. After we rounded the rock, the long kite run began. But then the wind slowly decreased and we were only moving very very slow. Finally we finished at 6.30PM and we managed to get back to the beach safely. What an experience! It was a beautiful day, we ate our lunch on board and we got to see some lovely scenery. We did screw up somewhere and only finished 148th.

Eurocat Carnac - Day 1 (01/05/2008)

Today started windy, but it calmed down in the late afternoon. We raced in the C1 class (all boats with rating lower than 107). I think there were about 30 boats in our fleet (correction: it turns out there are 41 participating boats in our class). A lot of Mattia Esse’s, some Tornado’s and 2 FX One’s (don’t know if it’s the Extreme version or not).

We are with 5 F16’s present. John Alani, Hans Klok, Paul Warren and MarkP all sailed one-up. There were 3 races done. We went very fast upwind, but downwind we always lost some places. I think we finished overall in the middle of the fleet.

We raced from 3 o’clock until 7 o’clock, all I want to do know is eat and sleep.

This morning we also had an interview with a journalist from the French sailing magazine “Voile et voiliers”. She went with Gill on the Blade, crewed and steered. After that I got on board and she made a lot of pictures as seen from a Zodiac. So we will have some very nice pictures of us sailing. We sailed together with a Spitfire for this shoot. They were also a mixed team. The Spitfires are well presented here, and they have their own start on the same rounds as us. The F18 class is the largest class here. They are divided in 4 groups and are moving between groups.

Tomorrow we have the long distance raid scheduled. This is a very long (100 km) run and I am still doubting if I’ll go or not. It will depend on the conditions tomorrow and the social pressure, I guess. I hear it’s a beautiful run, with lovely scenery. After that we have Saturday and Sunday left for racing, but predictions are there will be less and less wind.

Live at Eurocat Carnac - first impressions (30/04/2008)

It’s raining!

There will be 5 F16's racing in the C1 class. We had some difficulties registering because we aren't an ISAF member. Only the Stealth was on the list. But finally everything came trough and we’re game for the next couple of days of sailing.

We had lots of wind today. Nobody went on the water. Boat is fully rigged. Start tomorrow at 3 o'clock. Weather looks ok. Wind will decrease towards the weekend.

Right now the sun is coming out again so we are gone for a drink on the beach.

Cheers!