John
Casey and Dalton Tebo win the Buzzelli multihull regatta on the Falcon! Well
done guys!
John
Casey's write up on his blog:
Flyin’
on the Falcon
Last
weekend was the Buzzelli Multihull Rendevous, a huge multihull event with
classes such as the Stiletto, F-Boat Trimarans, Waves, Wetas, and of course our
portsmouth A fleet, which included some F18s, F16s, Randy Smyth’s Scizzor
trimaran and us. Since I sold my Nacra MK2 last week, Matt from Falcon Marine
let me borrow his F16 Falcon. Thaaaank You Matt!
The
regatta started on Friday with a 35-mile distance race from Sarasota up to
Tampa and back. We were a little late for the start, but on the close reach in
10-20 knots of breeze, the F16 took off upwind, bouncing over the waves. I was
impressed with how much power stayed in the boat during the lulls even though
Dalton and I weighed in at about 330 lbs. The double trap reach was so much fun
we didn’t want to turn around. In the first half of the race we passed everyone
but Randy’s trimaran. After the turn mark we gained until we were almost even
with the tri that we gave a 12 minute lead to, but that was as close as we got.
When the wind backed off the light wind designed Scizzor left us in the dust.
Saturday
was bouy racing and with a 10-15 knot cool northerly we were excited to get out
there. The Falcon performed really well again, outpacing the F18s around the
course. Upwind, the helm was light and the Falcon accelerated quickly in the
puffs instead of tripping over itself like many other designs. The 12:1
cunningham worked well, and the Glaser mainsail flattened out evenly. I was
again surprised with the amount of power the rig created. We were able to hold
the upwind line of the F18s in lighter breeze, and could hold a higher line as
soon as we single wired.
Downwind
I didn’t know what to expect. When you first look at the Falcon, since it
doesn’t have much freeboard and even less bow, it looks like it might be prone
to pitchpoling. Well, when we were on the boat and looked at the hulls from
above it’s a whole different story. There’s plenty of volume in those little
hulls. Even in the 15 knot puffs we were never close to putting the bow in, and
actually the crew never went behind the rear beam on the trapeze. The volume
and flat section between the bow and front crossbar worked well to keep the bow
up and spray flying. We were grinning like crazy downwind! In the lulls the
F18s did have a little deeper line, but when it was breeze on the Falcon was
gone.
Sunday
was light and tricky, so there it was more about being in the right place than
how fast the boat was. However, when we were in boat-to-boat situations the
Falcon shined even when it was single trapeze conditions. In the end, the
Falcon performed marvelously to give us a victory with six points to spare for
the weekend!
