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

Interview with Riley McDonald, 14 year old Falcon skipper!

You all know Matt McDonald as the builder of the Falcon, the latest light weight Formula 16 catamaran, based in Florida. But do you know Riley, his daughter? Let us introduce her.

Riley is sailing with her dad for almost a year now. She is skippering and doing a very great job! She is young, ambitious, light and the perfect skipper together with her dad as crew on the Falcon. We tought it was about time to have a short Friday afternoon interview with Riley.

Can you tell us how old you are right now?

14 yrs. old

How did you get to know sailing?

Well, my dad is a great sailor and he taught me everything I know.

What do you like about sailing?

I love meeting new people and setting new challenges for myself.

What do your friends think about that?

Oh, they love it and they support me and they are very proud of me.

How long have you been sailing the Falcon with your dad?

Almost a year now.

Tell me what you like the most when you are sailing?

The rush of it and at the same time the relaxation.

You are helming the boat and your dad is crewing. That must be a nice feeling that you can tell your dad what he needs to do?

Well, I wish I could tell him what to do, but he doesn't really listen very often :)

What did you think the first time you got on such a big and fast boat?

It was amazing and I didn't want to get off.

We heard you got a call by one of the heads of the youth sailing program and you got an invite to train with the youth girls development program? That’s awesome! When would you be starting this training?

Hopefully I will be starting this summer, but who knows. I'm really excited though.

Any tips or tricks for other young girls who are thinking of starting to sail?

Go for it and sail with someone you can trust.

When is your next race?

Kelly Park River Regatta, May 28 - 29th.

You did very well on the last races: finishing first on Saturday and Sunday at Charlotte Harbour: great job! What was the weekend like? Good winds?

Decent wind and it was fun, but GYC was more my type of wind. Spring Fever was really fun, light winds and frustrating at times. I need a lot more practice to race in that kind of wind because I really need to pay attention to the wind shifts.

What do you like the most: sailing upwind or sailing downwind?

Sailing downwind because it feels easier to me.

Your mom is also a very good sailor, do you ever sail with her too?

Nope.

Thanks Riley for taking the time to answer these questions! She is the future. Starting young on a high performanca multihull, aiming for the best and still having fun!

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!



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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

We are back!

Ok so I admit it has been way to quiet over here. No excuses just apologies :-)

Winter is far away already since we had such lovely weather in Belgium the last 4 weeks. Sunshine, warm temperatures and a good breeze for sailing. So let’s go for a quick recap of our start of the season so everybody is again up to date!

First of all I would like to introduce you to Arnout & Klaas Viktor.

These young Hobie 16 sailors are going to sail a Falcon F16 for us this season. We are very excited to have this young talented guys sailing the Falcon. We already had 3 training sessions with them and they rock. They mastered the boat very quickly and they are able to get the maximum out of the boat. This weekend Arnout will be sailing the Paascup at VVW Heist, unfortunately not with Klaas but with a stand-in crew. We will be there too and we look forward to see how things will run along the race course.

We have also been very busy with TheBoatShop.be, unloading containers and putting Falcons together. This weekend we delivered the last Falcon in Belgium, in Oostduinkerke. We showed him how to rig and derig and Gill took him along a test ride. Next day we already got a text thanking us and he already went out again on his own and he had a great ride and was very happy. We love to hear this feedback! Test sails were also on the agenda this month. We had a very good turnout and lots of nice feedback and interested people.

Last Sunday we had a training sessions with Harry Michel Peeters and we learned a lot. First of all we learned the next day where to find our muscles :-) Ouch beginning of the season and lots of tacks and gybes made us feel old the next day. We practiced starts, we tacked 10 times in a row each time Harry Michel blew his whistle and we did a race to finish the day of training. Afterwards a debriefing to let us know where to improve. We are ready for our first race of this season: the Paascup at VVW Heist, this Saturday. Let’s hope for a good turnout and perfect weather (sun and wind!).

As of now we will be back soon with lots of updates on our racing season. Stay tuned!

We wish you all a Merry Christmas and a happy New Year!

To all our readers: we wish you happy holidays! May 2011 be filled with good health, cool sailing trips, lots of sun and nice winds! Gill & Kathleen

 

September and October activities

So what have we been up too in September and October? It’s been very quiet here, luckily because we have spent a lot of time on the water. Those last 2 months also mark the last months of our season, so we had to sail. Winter’s here now, so time for a little write up. After that: 4 months of thinking about sailing, looking at video’s of sailing, dreaming of sailing,… in between doing some other winter stuff: mountainbiking, climbing, cooking, reading and renovating our house a bit more.

Gill started September of by participating in the RBSC extreme. His report is already on here. All I did that weekend was sailing our Falcon alone with Gill’s dad as my crew and getting tangled in a kite surfer just as we went trough the surf… ouch. No damage, but a lot of shouting and swearing! Sorry! After that I had a nice upwind sail and I was looking forward to head back with the kite up. If it weren’t for Gill’s dad who hadn’t rigged the kite correctly… hehe. It was a nice day out nevertheless!

On Sunday I went sailing with Wim Deca on his Nacra Infusion. We sailed towards the Dutch border to catch up with the guys from the Extreme but we didn’t see them. How should we have known that they were already on the other side of the coast watching the new wind mills from the Thorton bank. We managed to catch up with Gill and Manu tough just as we were both getting back in. Cool!

On my birthday, beginning of October, we decided to participate in the RBSC club championship. Best birthday ever! Not! There was sooooo little wind, very boring, and so not our kind of weather. Humph. We didn’t sail well that day and weren’t happy with each other on the water. Luckily RBSC knows how to throw in a good party and so that day did end very well with yummy food, cava, friends and music! The next day we were supposed to go out for a cruise to Cadzand to have lunch over there. But it was hauling! I think we hit almost 7 BFT. Wind was inland so flat water, but way too gusty to get there safely. So we hung out on the beach at VVW Heist instead.

In October we sailed a lot, we had such good weather the first 2 weeks, with a lot of sun, temperatures near 20°C and good wind. We went to Cadzand for a sail + lunch date, we had some training in front of our coast to practice our tacks and gybes and we finetuned the boat some more, getting ready for the last race of our season… in Germany! We were invited by Marck Kühn to sail the Brombachsee regatta on the 23rd and 24th of October, so we decided to take a long weekend and enjoy some German sailing. Report of a great weekend will follow shortly.

RBSC Extreme 2010 - the longest ever

As the last 2 years also this year I sailed the 3 days long distance race RBSC Extreme with my sailing partner Manu on his Nacra Infusion F18.



The last 2 years were really fun and the weather forecast (3 days of 15 to 20 knots) promised for some great North Sea sailing.

At 10 am 12 cats started of towards the first gps waypoint, first of the many to come.
This year the organisation prepared no less then 220 waypoints to guide us along the Belgian and Dutch North Sea coast and Ducth inland waters.

Keywords of the first day: 15 to 20 knots, spinnaker sailing, speed.
In less then 6 hours we covered 70 miles or 130 km! Meaning we ended at the end of the first day just below Rotterdam in Hellevoetsluis.
We had a day of ups and downs with a 1rst and a 3rd, but also with a couple of 7ns...

The warm up of the second day was Rondje Tiengemeten, a yearly long distance race held by the sailing club Hellecat. By 12 we finished the round and were ready to go through the lock out to the sea again. 5 hours of upwind sailing were waiting. Luckily the wind went down to a nice 15 knots after the first hour, so we returned from survival mode to racing mode :-).
We steadily finished around 5th position, but felt we improved during the day as we got more used to sailing with each other.
Finally we ended up at the Roompot in Holland, 110 km from where we started this morning.



On the last day we had no idea what the organisation had still up for us. We were just 2 hours from your club, but imagined they wouldn't just let us sail in like that.
What a great last day we had. After a couple of normal legs, we started of for a 10 mile upwind leg. The whole fleet was very close to each other then entire time. Every 15 minutes the fleet crossed each other, everytime anxious to see if positions had changed. Finally we were able to finish 2nd in this leg, with a finish at the Thorton bank, where they are installing an offshore windfarm at the moment.



Once there we headed back to shore a 17 mile leg! What a great spinnaker run!



I'll still upload the original gps track we sailing if I'm able to download it.

This was the longest extreme we had sailed up to know. The organisation each time knows to surprise us and we'll be competing again next year to defend of final 5th position!

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.

F16 Europeans - Day 5

Day 5, last day, and a very important day for us. With our performance yesterday we managed to loose our 7th place, and were now in a draw with Chris Sproat. He was 8th, we were 9th and place 7 got taken by Paul & Ann on their Falcon. So Chris was nicely sitting in between 2 Falcons :-)

It was the decision day for us. We were only separated with 1 point from Paul and on a draw with Chris, how cool a racing day this would be!

But the weather gods decided the decision was made and it rained and t-stormed all day. So at 15h the decision was made: no more racing. So there it was, the F16 Europeans ended with a non sailing day. But we do not complain, we had a fantastic week, with really the best sailing we ever had. Such a great scenery, nice weather, 12 races, sun, great people to hang out with. It was all marvelous!

The club organised a perfect regatta and it ended with a perfect price giving with prizes and food and drinks, offered by their sponsor, Ferrari. The winners of this event are the very young Australian "kids": Jason Waterhouse & his crew Lisa. Congratulations!

Full results on the F16 website.

Stay tuned for a picture and video blog, following soon!