Adrian and Jesse take F16 world title on the Falcon!

Newport, Rhode Island

From June 23 to June 27 the F16 worlds were held at Newport, USA. There were 4 days of racing scheduled. 29 boats appeared on the starting line: mixed teams, youth teams, single handlers,... a mix of configurations typical for the F16 class.

Our Falcons were sailed by teams from all over the world, including Australia, Switzerland and of course the USA.  Below our report on this event.

Adrian Fawcett & Jesse Dobie, Australia: "The venue for this Worlds was fantastic. Newport is a place all sailors need to visit. Friendly people, lots to do and see and really great sailing conditions. We did lose a day due to unstable wind but Mike the PRO still managed to get in 13 races."

During the practice race the teams experienced the challenging conditions of the race course. Matt McDonald, USA says: "It was a very interesting race course, each race the course was different with changing winds and current throughout the day. Reading the course and adjusting to it was really important."

Racing started on Tuesday in challenging conditions with winds up to 20 knots. From the start it was close racing, especially between the top 4 teams. Adrian: "The Falcon definitely has a different feel to the F16 that we are used too. The helm is balanced and light, and it can be pushed extra hard without fear of pitch pole, especially interesting on the windier days like Tuesday."

Wednesday was as sunny day but the winds were a little lighter, which was to the benefit of the lighter mixed teams. Andi Lutz, Switzerland, sailed with Tim Bohan. They were 2 men so one of the heavier teams. "Wednesday the wind was a little lighter and we started to feel it. The lighter teams really accelerated and the Aussies hauled ass! On Tuesday the first racing day, there was more wind and we, the heavy guys, had great speed."

On Thursday the wind was really unstable and Mike, the PRO, decided to cancel racing for the day. Ideal to explore the area. Andi: "we took the opportunity to check out the Newport Warf. It was great to see that many yachts and racing boats! The American VOR70 Team was there and the Spindrift (former Banque Populaire V) the 140 foot trimaran."

On Friday, the last day of racing, the top 4 was well ahead of the rest of the fleet but only a couple of points apart, so the racing was really exciting! Andi: "Friday final day, we all decided to sail more races and we started earlier to sail 5 more races, to make up for the lost races on Thursday. The wind was quite good. Altough still a bit lighter with 10-14 knots."

Adrian & Jesse, leading throughout the event, kept their act together and their better boat speed enabled them to stay on top, the Aussies were crowned World Champion!

A world title for the Falcon F16, an acknowledgement for everyone who has supported us!

"This is the first World title for the Falcon, thanks to Adrian & Jesse! It is no coincidence we manage to win the world title now", says Matt, designer and builder of the Falcon F16. "After winning a couple of World titles in the early days of the class with the Blade, the class started to grow and attract new builders. But even in these challenging conditions we kept following our strategy of supporting the base, the weekend sailors and investing in them, in youth and giving them the perfect boat to mix it up with the pro-sailors sponsored by other manufacturers. And now, 5 years later, we see the strategy is paying off. Across the world Falcons are winning local races, national titles and now a first World Championship title. This attracts the more professional sailors to look at the boat and make it their preferred choice as well. Sailors like John Casey, Tripp Burd and Michael Easton, the Glasers, etc putting their effort into our boats is just great and is the cherry on the cake to refine the Falcon F16 to the refined racing machine it is today."

After taking 3 national titles end of 2013, the Falcon is on a roll in 2014 with a 2nd and 3rd at Eurocat this year and of course winning the world championship. Gill from TheBoatshop.be says: "I can't wait to sail the F16 Europeans in France this year. The Belgian youth teams have proven to mix it up very well with the European top and we will also have a European top-sailor on the Falcon for this event. More on that in the coming weeks!"

Happy new year, highlights 2012 & Falcon F18 launched...

We wish you a fantastic new year, good health and lots of sunshine and great sailing!

The start of a new year is a great moment to look back to the past year. For us it was a great sailing season with lots of racing and great results for the Falcon F16.

Some of the highlights

The start of the season traditionally is Carnac, France. At the buoyracing the first Falcon finished 4th in tough conditions. The last day the raid was sailed, there youth team Hendrickx/Bols finished 3rd overall!

At the Open Belgian Championships at Oostduinkerke there were 3 days of racing to decide on the Belgian Champion long distance and buoy racing. Also there we were topranked with gold and bronze in the buoy racing and a first place for us in the raid!

Not only in Belgium we had great achievements. In Switzerland and Italy Falcons won the Bol d'Or and took 2nd place at the Italian championship F16. In Florida Falcon youth sailors Jeremy & Sam qualified for ISAF youth worlds. Also there was the battle for the US F16 Nationals. Matt & Gina McDonald took second place and Sarah Newberry and John Casey convincinly took 1st! They are now training for their 2016 Olympic campaign. Support them here:  http://www.usamultihull2016.com

 Canadian Olympic team training on the Falcon

The season in Belgium was closed with the Belgian Youth nationals, with 42 participants a succesful edition! In the F16 class Falcons took 1, 2, 4 and 5.

Launch of the new Falcon F18

Ofcourse we are looking forward to the next season when the newest in the Falcon family will be introduced in Europe: the Falcon F18. Matt McDonald inroduced with the Falcon the only US built F18 and clearly sets a new benchmark in quality for the F18 class. The US debute was in California were 2 Falcon F18's raced in the F18 worlds in Long Beach. Everyone was impressed with both the new features and the built quality! In sneak preview below already some pictures of the F18 in action! More information to come second half of January on our new website!

Want to see more of the F18? Check our Facebook page

Winter promotions at TheBoatShop.be

Eventhough we are not sailing in Belgium, we're full force preparing the new sailing season. If you place your order for a new boat before end of January 2013 you take advantage of our special winter promotions for both the F16 and the F18! Call or mail us for more information!

Raid West VVW Heist

Each season our club organises 2 raids (long distance sailing with a night on the beach included). The first one is Cat Raid East, direction The Netherlands and the second one is Cat Raid West, direction France.

We didn't join in on the first one and for the 2nd one we only had the time free on Saturday so we decided to do half of the Raid. We started on Saturday around noon and we sailed until lunch time at around 2 PM. We had a lovely lunch break on the beach of Wenduine together with another 13 boats!

Me steering :-)

 After lunch 11cats sailed on towards France. We sailed back to Heist, together with 2 other Falcons. Anton and Mathieu sailed with  BEL 777, recently bought, so new to the boat, Simon and Filip (one of our Youth Teams) sailed BEL 333 and Gill and I sailed our BEL 666.

Like always (boys and their toys) everything has to be a competition. So we picked some buoys we had to round on the way back and we made it a race! It was super sailing. Great conditions, Southerly (offshore) winds, so flat water, enough wind to double trap upwind and to trap with the kite up. And the sun was out most of the time. Truely great! We enjoyed this afternoon of sailing. Right before we had to cross the harbour of Zeebrugge (large port with lots of freight traffic, big container boats!), we ended the competion and waited to cross the harbour together.

What do you think of our new spray tops? (Thanks Gina!!!)

Once the harbour crossed, Gill and I decided to switch places and I steered the rest of the way home. A very cool upwind track, cunningham (downhaul) full on, Gill sheeting and the pink girl (thanks Matt & Gina!!) holding the stick :-) Awesome! I loved it. It was sooo easy. You really feel when the boat is trimmed correctly. The rudder felt so light, I could hold it with 1 finger. Very important for a girl ;-)

Tradewinds 2012 - Florida Keys

How we wish we could have sailed this event in the beautiful Florida Keys! Next year maybe...

This event was an awesome showcase for the Falcon F16.

Matt & Gina were there and wrote this great story about the event:

By Matt McDonald

Tradewinds 2005, I attended with the first US built F16 (US Blade).We had about 4-5 boats and were assigned to the slow boat small course.

In 2012 the F16 class was the winner of the Carlton Tucker trophy for the largest class in the regatta. Add to that prestige, with the F16 event being both the Olympic development team qualification and the US youth multihull Worlds qualifier. 25 F16's registered to race and some of the country's top youth teams and multihull racers got on F16s to race this event.

This event was the brainchild of Leandro Spina, the US development coach and Jamie Livingston , the US multihull youth manager. 

As there is not a boat currently selected as the next Olympic multihull, they were instrumental in pushing US sailing to select the F16 as the youth and development boat so teams can move forward with training and associated programs leading up to 2016 in Brazil. Working closely with this group, Falcon Marine set up 5 brand new stock boats to teams looking to enter into the Olympic fray. 

3 mixed teams traveled to the event with us, all of who were sailing with each other for the very first time. 2 youth teams came with us as well.  All 5 of the teams were sailing a Falcon F16 for the very first time.

After a very hectic few days of assembly, tuning and going over the systems on their new boats all the teams hit the water for the first day of racing on Friday. 

This event of course attracts teams in a huge variety of boats from all of the country coming for some winter sailing and of course the lure of the event being the F18 as well as other classes mid-winter championship. 

What a great site to see all the boats and especially the huge fleet of F16's on the beach and heading out for the start with a big mix of Blades, Falcons, Taipans and Vipers. After all the build up for everyone, it was a pretty big disappointment to have such a beautiful site, nice weather and then no wind for Fridays scheduled day of racing. A few hours floating around, some swimming and lot of people catching up with each other on the water racing was finally abandoned for the day and the traditional Tradewinds scattering could begin.

Saturday morning broke gray and with the windows rattling in the rental, it was obvious that we were not going to be suffering from the lack of wind that killed Fridays racing. With gusts coming through in the mid 20's as the teams rigged and more than a few boats upside down heading to their respective courses there was some obvious nerves with a few of the less experienced teams in the fleets. The experienced racers headed out with grins.

I was spending the event on a coach boat and got an unique (for me) view of the racing and some great lessons from Jay Glaser on sail shape, tuning and trim. Watching the first few races it was really apparent which teams had been practicing and sailing together as the gusty conditions and busy course made teamwork pay some huge gains over the new teams. John Casey and his new crew Sophie Shultz had to retire from racing after the first race when she was hit in the eye with a trap handle. The top 4 remaining teams though quickly separated themselves from the rest of the fleet as the racing continued. 

The highly practiced team of Taylor Reiss and Matthew Whitehead split up to run coed, but their time on this boat and the coaching they have had was evident in their holding the first 2 places for the day. Following closely at the end of Saturday were the 2 Falcon teams of Pease Glaser / John Williams and Mike Easton / McKenzie Wilson.

Sunday broke with a little more sun, but very similar forecast for the weather. There were a few casualties from the weather conditions to the less experienced or prepared teams but a strong contingent headed back out to finish the battle. JC and Sophie made it back out luckily with nothing worse than a black eye. With a bullet and the rest 2's they won the day on Sunday to restore their hurt pride from the day before. With 5 races now under their belts the newly formed Falcon teams began to figure out their teamwork and the boat and showed a lot more consistency around the course. 

Despite a rather nasty pitch pole and a messed up spin pole, with some quick on water fixes the team of Pease and JW worked their way into second place for the regatta and finished with a bullet in the last race. Mike and McKenzie continued to sail faster and consistently to finish third. The team of Sarah Newberry and Matthew Whitehead started the event sailing extremely fast, especially in the bigger winds early each day and their skill and team work paid off giving them the 1st place title in the F16's for Tradewinds.

Many youth teams traveled to this event to vie for the coveted US spot at the ISAF youth multihull Worlds. 2 of those teams raced Falcons. Jeremy Herrin and Sam Armington came down from the Sarasota Sailing squadron, where their coach Brian Paine has been working very hard and has put together a great youth multihull sailing program. (Brian was racing an F18 with another youth and many of his other team members were in attendance on other boats as well.) 

The other Falcon team of Ben Brown and Luc Lisi traveled all the way from Northern CA for this event. For both teams this was their first time racing on this boat and it was just the second time that the team of Ben and Luc had ever raced a spin rigged catamaran. With almost all top 10 finishes and consistently the top 2 youth boats in the event, the Falcon teams took 1st and 2nd in the youth qualifier. (Jeremy/Sam 1st and Ben/Luc 2nd)".

All the pictures of Tradewinds can be found on our Facebook page.

John Casey was also there and you can read his experiences about Tradewinds and getting his youth sailor chick a black eye :-), on Sailing Anarchy (scroll down the page, article "cat crowd").

New hydrofoil from Hydrosail called the "Osprey"

While we are still hibernating here in Europe (it's getting colder this weekend!), sailing in the USA is full on.

Here is a cool video from Adventure Online TV of a new hydrofoil from Hydrosail. The Osprey Hulls were built by Matt McDonald from Falcon Marine.

Enjoy!


Osprey Hydrofoil from Adventure Online TV on Vimeo.

October 2, my birthday!

My birthday weekend was unique, celebrating in sunshine, bikini and 27°C.

To start my weekend I had the day of work on Friday and we tuned our Falcon a bit, just relaxing on the beach, no wind to sail unfortunately.

Saturday there was a bit more wind and we went out in the late afternoon. I steered and managed to get some speed in the boat. It was cool to practice the manoeuvres with this little wind. We ended the day with some nice spaghetti made by Caroline at VVW Heist. And then off to party in Brugge.

On Sunday we organised a little apéro on the sandbank of Heist. One of the last times we could "enjoy" this sandbank since next year we will be moving to our new location, further along the coast, with hopefully no more sandbank in front of the club! Drinking cava in the middle of a sandbank with fellow sailors, how cool is that!

We took our Falcon so the others could use it as a landmark to now where we were located :-)

Once the tide came in we drifted back to the beach on our boat, very nice!

 

In the afternoon we relaxed some more on the beach and Sonja and me even went on a little "ride" with the Banana, very refreshing. Sour muscles the next day tough, haha. We ended the day with pizza and drinks at Maarten's caravan with Filip, Mathieu and Renke. Had a great weekend!

F16 Worlds France 2011

This was a great event and we are sad it is already over. We had a very good time, a lot of fun, met very cool people, had nice drinks and dinners and above all we had some great sailing. Not always great results, but most of the time we enjoyed ourselves on the water.

There were alot of nations present at this first F16 World Championship: Australia, Belgium, Brazil, France, Italy, The Netherlands, Switzerland, United Kingdom and United States!

We had several boat types all trying as hard to win this event: AquaRaptor, Blade, Bimare, Falcon and Viper. There were a few one-up sailors too, fantastic job done by them, I couldn’t do it, I need the extra pair of hands on board!

Gill and I and Matt & Gina travelled to France on our National Holiday, July 21, we arrived late at the Falcon House and we needed some coffee to wake up the next day. Luckily it was a sunny day and we enjoyed rigging the boats up on the beach of the lake and we even went out in the late afternoon for a sail. We immediately found out that the yellow buoys mean that there is a shallow. Unfortunately we found out too late, so rudders clicked out and the spi had to be doused immediately, quick quick! Luckily we didn’t touch the daggerboards and we made it out of the shallow quick and without damage. Back to sailing the lake! Matt & Gina were fast with the kite up. Gill and I felt immediately that this would be a tough battle, they sailed away from us, unbelievable. We decided that beating them once during the entire race would be a cool goal for us.

On Saturday we had our boats measured, this took a while and in the mean time we just hung out at the beach. Weather was not really fine, some rain, not much sun, but other sailors were arriving and we had fun seeing familiar faces back and meeting new faces.

That evening we took everyone to the house and Paul & Ann and Geert & Joanna installed themselves in the other bedrooms. In the mean time we had new visitors: from lush Switzerland: Andi & Martin and Sandro & Philip. We invited them to camp their tent in our backyard together with Marc, Mandy & Johannes from Germany. Camp Falcon was born! For the whole week we stayed with 14 sailors in one house, crowed but very cool! We had breakfast together (Andi was our breakfast delivery guy, he apparently liked the French bakery a lot?!) and in the evenings after diner we could unwind a bit in the house, talking about sailing, sailing and sailing and our stories of that day.

Sunday morning we had a very interesting clinic, given by Matt McDonald. He talked about general upwind – downwind settings and trim. And then he added some very useful information about sailing on this particular lake of Maubuison, looking out for the wind, seeing the gusts, taking benefit from the wind changes. Everybody was listening intently and we all made mental notes of things not to forget while sailing. In the afternoon we could already test our new learnt capacities by sailing the Practice Race. Started at 3 PM, 1 race of 2 laps. We didn’t do well. Matt & Gina did but decided not to finish since finishing a practice race could mean bad luck later on…

Monday morning was the first day of the real F16 Worlds, start at 1 PM, bad weather, no sun, a lot of gusty wind, a difficult day to sail. But we managed ok. We sailed a 12 and a 15, very happy with that.

Unfortunately we had to retire from race 2 since something broke on our spin halyard. We raced back to shore (a long way), repaired the halyard and raced back. Ouf just in time for the start of the 3rd race. In the mean time we found out that Matt & Gina retired from racing. While back on the beach we saw Matt but no Gina? They were racing to the finish line of race 1 and they had a gust hit them, they pitched, and then it felt like they hit something and they went over. Gina fell into the daggerboard (we all know those hurt!) and Matt fell on top of her. Gina was in a lot of pain and couldn't stand on her leg. Luckily the club had a doctor present and they immediately took care of Gina, put ice on her big bruise and told her she tore a muscle so she had to rest for the rest of the day. So no more racing for Matt & Gina. They were really sad, coming over from Florida to sail and already been stopped after not finishing 1 race, there are better stories. So much for not finishing a practice race for good luck… We hoped Gina would rest well and be ok for the next days of sailing!

The other Falcon teams were happier with their first day of sailing. Paul & Ann scored a 16, 15 and 12. Andi & Martin a 9, 10 and 9. Marc & Johannes a 26, 22 and 20 and Geert & Joanna a 19, 16 and 17.

On Monday evening we had the country diner with some specialties of the participating countries. The drink Chris Sproat & Georgina Burk brought had a lot of success: the James Bond cocktail: Vodka-Martine with an olive, great! Hans Klok from Holland brought some candy, with anise in it, but well this wasn’t loved by everybody (remember the taste!?).

The social program of this event was well worked out. We had the country diner, an official dinner (with yummy duck), a pasta party and some cake with the price giving. We enjoyed hanging out at the club a lot although next time a bit less program could work ok also, so we could go out more and see the surroundings of the club. We only ate in 2 restaurants and we didn’t get to taste the lovely looking paella the Maubuison market proposed!

Day 2 of the Worlds and good news: Matt & Gina are back, yiha! Gina still feels a bit sore and her bruise is turning all kind of lovely colors, but she is able to sail. Instead of Go Pete, Go Gina! They score an 8 in the last race of that day, fighting their way back to the top. Geert and Joana also scored an 8 that day, in the first race. Andi and Martin are the more consistent good sailors right now, they scored a 11, 7 and a 15 today! It is difficult sailing on this lake, very shifty and gusty, you have to look out for the wind and tack and gybe a lot. Don’t just sail to the mark in 2 or 3 tacks like we are used to on the North Sea races!

Wednesday, day 3, the sun is out! Finally nice weather to sail. But the wind is so tough to read well. While Matt was struggling reading the shifts Gina told him that this is normal. You know the shifts are in French, so we don’t understand them! Hahaha! I don’t remember if this was our bad day or not, probably not but anyway on Tuesday or Wednesday we had a very bad day, not a happy boat, not a happy crew, not a happy skipper, a day not to remember. So we are moving on. Best results on this Wednesday were a 5 and 6 for Andi & Martin! An 11 for us and a 4, 8 and a 12 for Matt & Gina.

The 4th day of racing on Thursday was again a very lovely day to sail, it is so much nicer to sail with the sun out. We scored a 7 in the first race, adrenaline rush! This was a great day, we felt so good about this. Everything was right, we took the right shifts, boat speed was brilliant and we rocked :-) Matt & Gina did very well today, they scored a 6, a 5 and a 13 and were already ahead of us in the general ranking without having sailed the first 3 races! While the sun was out we decided to gather all the Falcons after the racing and shoot a cool movie while sailing with the kites up. We are still working on making the final cut, so stay tuned for a cool movie with 5 Falcons (we were the film crew while sailing our Falcon). The different spin colors make it a really nice colorful movie!

And then it was already Friday, the last day of the F16 Worlds. We had to get up at 7, ouch, racing started at 11 that day. But damn we should have slept a bit longer because there was no wind at all. It was a very warm sunny day tough, so relaxing and waiting on the beach was the back-up plan. Just when Ann and I had decided to go swimming in the lake the signals were made: racing is on, leave the beach. Hurry hurry to put the wetsuits on and of we go. Only 1 race of 3 laps was sailed this last day. We scored a 15, right behind Andi and Matt who scored a 12 and an 11.

Final results can be found here: Results F16 Worlds 2011 France

Falcon results:
9 – Andi&Martin – SUI1
14 – Matt&Gina – USA208
15 – Gill&Kathleen – BEL666
17 – Geert&Joanna – NED237
21 – Paul&Ann – GBR207
29 – Marc&Johannes – GER002

After the price giving we went out to eat at a nice ocean view restaurant. We had a big menu with great food and nice Rosé wine. The racing was over, but the holiday still had one great evening left before we had to drive home. Thanks to everybody for making this a great event, we enjoyed it very much and we hope to see everybody again at a next Worlds or other event!

F16 worlds day 4

Conditions were super today for sailing! Pretty steady breeze, nice double trap conditions for the second and third race and a nice sunshine and warm weather.
Water on the lake was super flat and allowed everyone to power up their boats to the maximum.

Top 4 boats having a heavy battle today. Bundock secured his win already today with again 2,1,2.

The one up boats were not in advantage this day with the heavier wind. Hans Klok is securing his first place among the one ups.

After day 3 with 2 teams finishing top 10 everytime (including a 4 and 5) also day 4 was a good one for the Falcon teams. Again 2 to 3 boats finishing top 10 every race.

Everybody is having great sailing and party at the club. Wonderfull times!

F16 worlds day 3: Falcons are on fire

Great sailing conditions today. Moderate winds, a bit higher as yesterday, and finally the sun is out. Everyone is enjoying la jolie France.

The racing is getting a lot more mixed today as all the teams are getting used to the shifty conditions. Falcons are moving up in the ranking and everyone is doing good.

Andi Lutz keeps improving his results and is making the pro guys having a real run for their money. With a 9,6,5 he is moving up to 8 place with a tie for 7.

Also Matt is back in the game (12,8,4), really matching the pro teams.



Andi chasing olympic sailor Carolijn Brouwer

Ourselves and Geert are battling to get closer to the top 10 again, and keep up with the Van Helden sisters.

The one-up teams have their own race, with Hans Klok clearly leading that fleet, with a 10th finish as best result, even Greg couldn't match his speed the day he sailed one up.

Tomorrow will be another interesting day on the water for sure!

Texel racing > Texel Dutch Open and Round Texel

We finished first MIXED multihull and first Belgian team in the Texel Dutch Open on our Falcon F16! We are very pleased with our 19th place out of 68 top competitors. This was a very high level racing field, with again strong winds, crowded starts and huge waves. A more detailed report of our week in Texel will follow this week.

In the mean time have a look at the results of the Texel Dutch Open and enjoy all the action pictures taken by Thom Touw and Boot in Beeld.

This is our favorite image of the week, thanks to and copyright of Thom Touw! This is a picture we will buy and print for our living room :-)

Woooooosh

Splash! First capsize this season with Kathleen!

What a weekend we have had. This is the windiest I probably have ever sailed in my life.

Saturday morning I left the beach in Heist with one of the youths that would sail another Falcon during the Gaastra F18/F16 race held that weekend. It was already quite windy (about 20 knots) but not too gusty. Once on the water I put the boat downwind and handed over the tiller.

We sailed about 5 minutes without the spinnaker, so Philip could get used to the boat (he normally sailes a Hobie16 or SL16 and was on the Falcon for the first time). Then we pulled the spinnaker and I got out on the wire. Almost immediately he popped the hull up and we were blasting away! What a guy and what a boat, first time on a high performance boat and sailing it to its potential from the first time. I cannot think of any boat where that is possible!

We passed our neighbouring club, hosting the event, at full speed. Some time later, after an upwind leg we beached to prep the second Falcon. Conditions were good, but at the upper wind range....

About an hour later I launched again, this time with Kathleen, to head out to the racing area.

By the time we arrived at the starting line the wind had gone up to about 25 knots with gusts to 30. We started the first race together with the F18's and were racing with 3 other F16's.

In our first upwind leg we had difficulties to keep the boat up to speed. The high waves caused the nose to be blown away each time so I had to correct each time with the tiller. That was slow!

As 2 F16's had gone over we still managed to get first to the upwind mark, with a single handler following in second!

Also on the first downwind leg we needed some time to get a constant speed. 2 gybes later we were ready for the second upwind tack of the race. This time we moved our weight more forward on the boat to keep the nose down and pierce through the waves instead of going over every single one of them. Now we were really getting powered up. Everything was sheeted to the max. We had no more sail, but a wing :-) It was really flat.

On the second downwind we were also able to get the speed in the boat sailing the gusts and surfing the waves. By the time we reached the gate we had built a nice lead on the second F16. But unfortunately in the last gybe disaster struck :-), we went over! By the time we had the spinnaker in, the boat up and did a small upwind leg towards the gate as we drifted, the solo F16 had managed to sneak just in front of us to finish. Second place. The youth team made a second capsize and didn't finish that race.

By the time they gave the start of the second race the wind reached 35 knots. Sailing upwind now felt more like flying and boats were tipping over everywhere. All of the F16's decided to come in together with most of the F18 fleet. Only 8 boats finished the second race.

Great stories were told that evening and great pictures were shown!

The second day is short. Wind was blowing again 30 knots. F18 former world champ Coen de Koning decided to go out without his jib!

On the first start we were with about 12 boats. Clearly a starboard start but also tricky to do so. We went conservative and did a port start...and got hit by a starboard boat, a Hobie WildCat dug his nose into our hull.... End of racing. Luckily only some cosmetics and no structural damage! We managed to get back safely to the club and enjoyed a nice sunny (but very windy) afternoon on the beach.

Well next week we'll be on the water again with a 3day regatta! Stay tuned!

Gill

Falcon sailing @ Bala Open, UK

Paul & Ann, fellow Falcon sailors in the UK participated in the Bala Open this weekend. They had a great time and sailed a bullet in the first race. From then onwards tough it started blowing very hard and racing was postponed. The next day they ventured out again to find even more wind an gusts. But I'll let Ann tell her story herself below! (she posted this on Catsailor, I took it over here)

It is a great story to read! I hope Ann doesn't have to many bruises from all the capsizing!!! :-) This story reminded me of the video they shot in Zandvoort (Global Challenge 2007) with a camera on the mast of their Blade F16. I dug it up and here it is for you to see for the first time or to rediscover viewing this great video before!



----
This year we arrived in Bala in the light – much better than darkness for squeezing the boat over the stone bridge to get to the water and the campsite. It’s pretty tight, only a couple of centimetres gap each side. We arrived to a friendly welcome from Bala Cat Club members and then found Rutland A sailors Dave and Gordon enjoying a lazy evening – so set up camp and joined them.

Saturday morning was sunny with a stiff breeze, so we put the boat together and looked forward to the event with anticipation. There were 21 catamarans signed up to take part – great! The first race started promptly at 12. The wind was great for us, and we were third round the upwind mark close behind Gordon on his A, and one of the local crews on an F18. The rest of the lap was a tussle between us and the lead F18. We finally got them on the next upwind. We kept the lead through the second lap, but the wind was building and we saw several boats retire. The third lap was hairy – the wind was stronger and still building. There were capsizes all over the course. We managed to stay the right way up, but didn’t push it. We won the race! An excellent start for us and the F16.

Unfortunately, after lunch, the wind was still too strong to sail safely, so racing was postponed, then postponed again, then finally abandoned for the day. We enjoyed a couple of drinks and a meal at the pub.

Sunday morning looked more promising, a nice breeze, perhaps a little more gusty than Saturday. Unfortunately, the wind kept building again. By 11 when the racing was due to start, several crews had decided not to go out. Paul and I decided to go out and see. It was certainly gusty! We had an average start, but were doing well upwind. The course was different to Saturday though, and on rounding the mark, it turned out there was not enough water to get the kite up, so a gybing/raising mess ensued and resulted in a capsize! Damn. We were dangerously close to the shore, so getting the boat up and away without damage was a bit fraught. Just as we were getting going, we capsized again through a gybe. Again, far to close to the shore. We’d lost a lot of time, but decided to carry on since boats were going over all the time, and we might make up some ground. We limped down to the downwind mark, rounded and got ready to get back into the groove going upwind. It was impossible. The gusts were crazy, the wind shifts were almost tacking us. It wasn’t fun any more. We decided to call it a day to avoid breaking the boat or us! Only 5 boats finished the race. Racing was abandoned for the rest of the day. We dropped to 5th place.

Monday morning we decided to start early, hoping the wind was lighter, and we’d get some races in. The conditions were similar to Sunday, perhaps a little less, but still with fierce gusts coming through. We decided to go out and see. We nearly didn’t start since we had a few failed attempts at bearing away until the gust had passed! We had a terrible start, but kept going. Managed to almost complete the downwind leg of the first lap until a gust hit as we were gybing. Despite being almost dead downwind, we did an almost perfect pitch pole! Both hulls buried, a nose dive – complete turtle! Both unharmed, we set about righting the boat once more. Again we started drifting towards the shore, and had to call the rescue boat for help. He grabbed the spin pole to try to pull us out of danger. It snapped. But we were saved from the rocks. We limped back to shore just as the race was shortened and sailing abandoned again. Only two F18s finished the race! Bacon rolls were most welcome.

So, we came 4th out of 21! And were rewarded with a box of chocolates – more for giving it a go I think! First place went to an F18 crew from Glasgow St Helens who had managed to keep their boat the right way up all weekend, and one of only two boats to finish all three races.

Despite the lack of sailing, it was a great weekend. Wonderful hospitality, great company and plenty of sunshine. And some great capsize and righting practice! Thanks Bala Cat Club - we’ll be back next year!

Ann and Paul

Club Championship @ VVW Heist

Stress!! Being the title defender sure brings the nerves into the game. This game should have been played last week but since we were faced with Force 7 winds on that Sunday the Championship was postponed to this Sunday.

After getting back from a great Raf Verhaeghe Challenge at Oostduinkerke on Saturday night we decided to rig the Falcon on Sunday morning. Start of the race was scheduled at 1PM so with our newly mastered fast rigging techniques we could put the mast up on Sunday and still be ready in time to start the race.

Predictions were Force 3-4, South Westerly and rain. Wind speed and direction perfect (flat seas!), rain not so much. But still after lap 1 of race 1 we were happy it started to rain. The first lap started in very low winds, very stressful, so we were happy a rain cloud passed over so the wind could pick up again. It is so much more fun to be able to trap out with 2 than to just sit in on the hull. We got first at the upwind mark and could immediately hoist the spinnaker. Gill was so focused on doing it right tough that he immediately decided to gybe of to the sea where the bigger winds were. But hey wait not so fast, you forgot to take the spreader mark. Ouch. I didn't notice it, and neither did Gill. It was only at the second lap when we did take the spreader mark, Gill noticed we didn't take it the first time. Oh no, no way back now, not taking this mark meant that we got a DSQ for this first race, altough we finished first. Sh*t! :-)

Even more stress from then on, since we really needed 3 more races so we could get one reduction. Thanks to the racing committee (they were really fast!) we did manage to pull of 4 races that day. And all 3 next races we scored a bullet. Fffew. We were very happy to take the title after all that stress!

We were again very thrilled with our boat speed and power. We found the right settings! Everything went very smoothly. Altough we have found some more points to focus on. We noticed that we loose speed during a gybe, so we'll have to practice to maintain boat speed after gybing.

The day ended with us receiving the very nice trophy for the second time in a row and a nice Fajitas dinner at the club.

Right now we are taking a holiday from sailing. We are going to explore the beauty of nature in Sweden and after that Gill will be ready to sail the RBSC Extreme again, with Manu Proot (who came in 3rd at the RBSC Diamond Cup, congratulations!). After that our next big race will be the Club Championship at RBSC Duinbergen. We are very much looking forward to that since we want to compare our new found skills and speed to the very good sailors Patrick Demesmaeker, Vincent Thierry, Jan Verlinden and Wim Deca. Exciting!

Raf Verhaeghe Challenge 2010 @ SYCOD Oostduinkerke

The Raf Verhaeghe Challenge is a 2 day race in Oostduinkerke that has been on our "want to do" list for ages. Finally this year we could schedule it and we were really looking forward to it. Unfortunately the weekend before the weather gods didn't cooperate so our Club Championship @ VVW Heist was postponed to the Sunday of the Raf Verhaeghe Challenge! Dilemma...

We couldn't keep away from our Club Championship, moreover since we were the title defenders. But we also didn't want to stay away from the Raf Verhaeghe. So we decided to take it all and sail the Raf Verhaeghe on Saturday and the Club Championship on Sunday. This meant of course that we would need to trailer the boat to Oostduinkerke on Friday, set up, sail and then on Saturday evening break everything of again and trailer back to Heist. Let's say we now know how to rig and de-rig our Falcon very quickly :-)

We are very happy we chose this option, because we had a great weekend. We really feel we stepped up our level again. On Saturday we scored a 3, a 3, a 5 and a 4 and ended 4th overall after day 1. Our boat speed was amazing. Boat handling is also getting better and since we bought a TacTic compass we now also start to play the wind shifts more. So overall we are still improving :-)

We had 4 races in different conditions. The first 2 races we had high winds (force 4-5) and going upwind we faced long waves. Race 1 started with a pin end favored start line so we started on starboard and we managed to cross the fleet! Great feeling. We would have been 1st at the upwind mark if we got the mark right, but we had to make 1 extra tack. This put us in second position at the upwind mark. A short spreader and a quick spin hoist and than off to the gate. We had to do 3 laps each race and since there was a lot of wind we really were totally beat after race 1. But we were also very happy since we finished 3rd! The French Black Moon sailors, Joel Lefèvre & Erwan Griziaux, called our Falcon "la bombe", how cool is that!

After the races Gill took interested sailor Bert Desmet along for a test sail on the Falcon. Bert was really impressed with the boat and back on shore we also had some more interested people checking out the Falcon and asking questions. Very nice!

The day ended with a tasty paella served at the club and a good night of socializing with the SYCOD sailors. Great bunch of people!

The final results of the 2 day event are not yet available. As soon as we receive them I'll update this post. We also have some nice pictures shot on Saturday, so I hope we'll get them too.

How many meters of bungee go in a beach cat?

Today was our first sail out on the sea. How do you call those watery things? Waves? Damn. Forecasts for this weekend were different on every site. Some predicted force 3 other up to force 6. Well it turned out to be a force 4 rapidly going towards 5.

We had a very nice hour of sailing to get used to the rougher sea conditions again. Only one sparring partner out there, our Blade in one-up mode.

Back on the beach we decided not to go out again in the afternoon and did some fine tuning of the lines on board.
I must say the Falcon comes well equipped and had a clean tramp to start. But I thought it could be even more tidy :-)

We've been spending 2 hours tying bungees, undoing them, cutting them too small, re-doing them,... Finally all the bungees are there. Right length and right size as that is equally important!

I hope we'll be able to have another sail tomorrow to test it all out!

How many meters? I'm guessing 18...

Spring is in the air...

The sun is finally shining again in Belgium! And that sure feels good. We are counting the days to go back on the water again. Next Saturday, March 6, our new Falcon F16 enters the Antwerp harbor and from there it will be transported to our house in Ostend. Let's hope the container transport goes well. And than we can finally touch our new beauty :-)



In lack of real sailing we are already planning carefully where we will attend and how much we will sail this spring/summer. Our first race will be in Belgium, on March 27 and 28. Like last year we will be attending the Season's Opening on Lac l'Eau d'Heure (inland water, so no waves and easy winds should make for a nice wake-up event). We hope to have some practice before the race, so we will be already there as from Friday, to give our new Falcon F16, his/her first run.



I am also really looking forward to the first big international event, Eurocat Carnac, which will only be 3 days this year (2 days of buoy races and 1 day long distance). We'll be there for one whole week to enjoy the beautiful environment and to be prepared real well for the fierce international competition.



And then there is also the F16 Europeans, which will be held at Lake Como this year. For a whole week around July 21 (our Belgian national holiday) we will be sailing in plenty of sunshine, tasting excellent food and partying with alot of F16 sailors, woehoe!



So in short lots to look forward to and ofcourse we will keep you updated!

Is it a plane?

We're back from our first weekend sailing. A detailed report and some pictures will follow. But a great time was had by all!

When we unloaded our Blade at our house there were 3 little children passing by and I overheard following story:

Kid A: wow look at that, is that a plane?
Kid B: no no no! That's a car!
Kid C: no not a car, it is a very large canoe!



Ha very funny, kid c was almost right ... it's the coolest catamaran ever, ours! :-)

RBSC Extreme

No regattas/races this weekend... It has been a long time since we had no sailing planned at all during the weekend, but we'll have plenty things to do.

Next weekend I'm sailing the RBSC Extreme on a F18. Extreme = 3 days of GPS cat sailing.



Start on Friday around 2pm, finish around 8pm. Saturday we'll be sailing from 5am till 8pm and Sunday from 7am till 2pm...

Goal for this regatta: crossing the finish line on Sunday!



I hope we don't get too much wind, but if there isn't enough, you're allowed to paddle!!

Gill

Less common competition...

M20





Viper F16



Eagle 18HT