Belgian Nationals

After the first international race in Carnac, now the first national race to measure ourselves against the other Belgian teams.

In total there were 2 titles to win this weekend. The title of Belgian Champion buoy racing and the title Belgian Champion long distance.
Buoy racing was held on Thursday and Saturday, on Friday a long distance race was foreseen.

Show sailing for the sponsor :-) (Christophe Colpaert, Falcon, RBSC/McDonalds).












After the KYC race last weekend we knew what to expect and made sure we were well rested to start the weekend. The meteo for the weekend predicted light and shifty winds, so we prepped for some long and nervous racing.

Day 1 - buoy racing
On the first day 3 races were sailed in, as predicted, light and shifty winds. A lot of current on top of that made tactics extremely important but difficult at the same time.

BEL 111 upwind

We were immediately in the groove and got a good start with about 5 teams in the first race. Throughout the race we managed to get the correct shifts and the 5 got away from the pack. 4 F16 of which 3 Falcons and an F18. In the 3rd round Falcon BEL 222 and the F18 with Anouk & Gilles managed to get away and they finished 1st and 2nd. We were chasing them closely behind but hit a bouy. After the penalty we were still comfortable in 3rd position, but too far away to fight for 1st or 2nd place. Falcon BEL 111 was fighting for 4th or 5th and had to settle with 5th in this race, but well in front of the other F18 and the F20.

Front of the fleet - 3 Falcons, 2 Wildcat

In the second race our start wasn't good and we quickly got caught in the middle of the pack. The 2 Falcon Youth teams got a good start and where battling with the F20 throughout the race. The wind had picked up again and BEL 111 knew where to find it first, finishing well in front of the other teams, BEL 222 was OCS so their great performance didn't pay off this time ...

By the third race most of the teams had found the correct trim and racing was getting closer too each other, with positions changing all the time. On the downwind we lost some ground again, while gaining a lot on the upwind each time. As the wind was still light it was difficult to make the choice to go for pressure or just go straight down to the gate. I guess we didn't make the right calls on the downwind :-)

BEL 222 gybing for the gate

By the end of the day, after 3 races, we managed to be in 3rd position dues to 2 OCS of other teams. BEL 111 in first position. The performance of our youth teams has improved a lot thanks to the intensive training in the RBSC/McDonalds youth team.

Day 2 - long distance
Less competitors during the long distance race or changed configurations. Friday was not an off day for everyone, meaning in our case only 2 Falcons at the start. The race started light again in about 5 to 7 knots, but surprisingly the wind picked up to about 15 knots gusting to more after about an hour into the race.

Long distance start

Our start wasn't good and we were 8th at the upwind mark. After that a downwind run. We managed to catch the first shifts of the building wind and got into 6th at the second mark, less than a minute behind 3 F18, the F20 and the second Falcon.
A long 2 sail reach led us through a gate and 2 buoys. First boats we catched up with were an F18 and a Falcon. Philip sailed with his dad on this occassion and was steering and sheeting. Not used to this we over took him on the reach.

About 1,5 hours into the race we tacked sailing upwind to the coast again. The last races our upwind speed has been awesome and here again we got the trim just right. Building speed in every gust we managed to overtake an F18 leaving just an F18 and F20 in front of us.

Back at the coast we had to return to the starting area on a spin reach to start our second run. Double trapping in these windy and gusty conditions made us feel our boat is 2 feet shorter than the 18. We lowered the risk and single trapped only. The brothers Proot over took us again so we were in 4th by the time we finished the first round.

After about 2 hours into the race we started for the second time the long reach which had become almost an upwind leg. The wind had now clearly built to about 15 knots gusting to 20 and we were able to depower the best giving us the best performance in speed. We overtook the brothers Proot again and went chasing the other 2 boats in front of us.

In the last upwind leg we almost caught up with the F18 and F20 and were about 1 minute behind.
For the final spinnaker reach the wind was even too much for the F18 to twin trap meaning we didn't loose ground anymore here.

Finished third and a rating helping us getting 1st place meant we became Belgian Champions long distance, with Spilleboudt (Wildcat F18) in second, Philip and his dad in third and Proot in 4th.

Day 3 - buoy racing part 2
Final day of the Belgian Nationals.

With low winds again, down to 5 knots, the race officer made the call to go out and race. Happy to be able to drop our worst score but at the same time worrying if we would be able to get some quality racing in.

Eventually 2 races were finished in conditions that were sailable. The finishing order of the 2 final races confirmed the performance of the teams of the first day so the actual scoring didn't change too much. 1st Philip&Gaetan (Falcon), 2nd Proot (Wildcat), 3rd Arnout&Klaas (Falcon), 4th us and we were first mixed team!

Finally big respect to all the youths, coaches and parents that joined the event in all classes! And ofcourse a big thanks to SYCOD for the great races! All winners below.

Belgian Champions C4 buoy racing

Belgian Champions C3 buoy racing

Belgian Champions C1 buoy racing

Belgian Champions C4 long distance

Belgian Champions C3 long distance

Belgian Champions C1 long distance

Photo credits: RBSC/McDonalds

KYC race and Belgian Nationals @ SYCOD

What a great month May has been to us so far! Great sailing and great results for us and the youths.

The month started in Carnac, France where a large group of Belgian youth teams from VVW/Protest and RBSC/McDonalds attended the racing including 2 teams on Falcons.

The weekend after we got some training in to prepare for 3 weekends of racing in a row.

Last weekend we sailed the KYC race in Koksijde.

Only one day of racing in Koksijde in windy conditions, dying towards the evening. We managed to rig our spinnaker wrong making us return to the beach and missing the first race. Luckily we got in 4 races so we could drop one!

As in Carnac also here a lot of youths showed up giving the adults a run for their money.

And in difficult conditions (big waves and dying wind) Philip&Gaetan managed to get into first position by the end of the day!

F18 team getting second!

C3 youth having a blast

BEL 111 heading for first place!

Our own performance was up and down making us finish mid fleet the first day. Upwind speed was good, but on the downwind our wavesurfing wasn't as good as the other teams. :-)

We would have loved to take some revenge the next day but all we got was sun (which wasn't too bad either :-) ).

As a lot of the C1 teams were the same ones competing next week for the Belgian nationals it was a good indication we needed to perform at our best to get higher up the rankings....
Photo credits: RBSC/McDonalds

Eurocat Carnac 2012

Eurocat is the first big event in Europe and is not to be missed. Unfortunately this year we really did not have any luck with the weather conditions. Of the 4 possible days of racing, only 2 days went trough. On Saturday the C1 class sailed 3 races and on Tuesday the long distance raid was scheduled.

We arrived early to practice and train together with the youth teams. Next to the 3 Belgian teams there was also a Swiss and French team competing.

 Friday
First day of sailing was on Friday and was a training day with Sebbe Godefroid. Focus was on practising starts as in a 60 boat fleet getting a good start is extremely important. While training we found out that winter had not done us any good :-)!















By the end of the day we did some small races in nice and sunny conditions.

 Saturday

Saturday we went out at 13h to go racing around the buoys. It took the race committee some time to get the (difficult) course into place, but eventually we were able to sail 3 races in great conditions. Wind built from 15 knots to about 20 knots for the last race. Little to no waves made for some very fast and cool spinnaker runs regularly reaching 18 knots of speed.

Race 1 can be considered a practice race for us... :-). Bad start and trying to find our way around the inner/outer loop course. Our first race didn't seem to end, especially because we had to finish 3 times to do it right! Shame on us!

Race 2 and 3 was a lot better, with an 8th place on 60 boats in the last race! Good starts and great speed both up- and downwind. The last race we even beat Darren Bundock upwind and stayed ahead the whole time. Just before the finish he managed to pull one of his many tricks out of his sleeve and got ahead! Well done Bundy ;-)

Also for the youths and Swiss it was a great day! One team finishing continuously in the top 10, the other youth team and Swiss finishing within the first 16 boats.

3 Falcons in persuit of Falcon 111 battling with the top 5

Overtaking the F20

Hot at the top mark!

Sunday and Monday
Heavy winds made Sunday and Monday a day for 'tuning' by the Falcon teams. Some visiting of the surroundings and kart racing filled the day.

Tuesday
Finally some racing again. The race committee decided to to a short version of the raid instead of a second day of buoy racing.

I switched Kathleen for Maarten who crewed with me on the raid. Conditions about 15 knots with some lulls towards the end of the race.
At 10h30 we took off for a bit over 2 hours of racing with 300 other boats.

We got lost in the middle of the pack at the start giving us no opportunity to sail in clean air. After some 5 or 10 minutes we managed to get clear and could start catching up.
Maarten did the mainsheet and I needed to get used to this. Especially in the reaching parts (about a third of the race was 2 sail reaching) I needed to grow confidence in Maarten doing the main while I beared away in the gusts to gain speed and sail deeper. But it paid. Having 2 hands on the main in these reaching parts is definately faster.

One of the reaching parts. Team 111 clearly ahead of the pack

Next to the reaching parts the first part of the race served us with a long upwind leg. We got the boat in the groove sailing faster and higher then most of the boats around us. We have been working on mast settings lately and copied this to the other Falcons racing. All of them had the same experience the boat was sailing high and fast! Great improvement.

The second part of the race was a downwind with some reaching to finish off with. On the spinnaker run the wind started to go down a bit and we didn't anticipate fast enough to this. Some of the boats we passed on the upwind overtook us, luckily only a couple and not all of them :-) !

BEL 666 in 'raid configuration' :-)

Again great results with the first Falcon team finishing 3rd F16 after 2 Olympic level teams!

Tuesday - 16h
Late, but we decided to drive back yesterday instead of today. Mainly to be able to write this lovely report, but also because we like our bed more than the one at the hotel!

Next up are some races at the West Coast with the Belgian Championship as most important one!

Bye!

First race of the season, Paascup 2012

Always very exciting to head for your first race of the sailing season. Even after all those years racing, I still feel nervous right before a race. As soon as the 5 minutes starting sequence begins tough, the focus is back.

Our club (with a new fantastic location this year, check: www.vvwheist.be) always aims to hold the very first race of the year and all the sailors always hope for nice warm spring weather. This year we got lucky! Sunny and not too cold. Hip hip hurray for a drysuit! We even had a nice turnout of both C1 (F16 and F18 cats) and C3/C4 boats (Hobie 16 & Dragoon). In total 14 boats, very good for a race this early in the season.

Wind: 3-4 BFT, NE, small waves. Temperature 12°C and water temperature 8°C, chilly. 3 races with 2 laps each for the C1 class. Traditional triangle with Start, Upwind, Dogleg, Gate, Upwind, Dogleg, Gate and Finish. 

Short races made us very aware of the fact that we didn’t train enough during winter. But this way we never felt the cold! It was very exciting to race with 3 other Falcons,  3 youth teams who are all very ambitious, very energetic and very keen to win. Furthermore they all just had a one week training with coach Sebbe Godefroid. Gill was confident we could beat them because of our experience, I wasn’t so sure. 

It made for a very close game between the 4 of us, switching places, looking over our shoulders a lot to see where the others were. Also Annouck and Gilles on their F18 Wildcat were to be held an eye on, especially in the downwind runs. 

After 3 races these were the results for the C1:

1/ Falcon Youth Team 111 – Philip Hendrickx & Gaetan Bols

2/ Falcon BEL 666 – Gill De Bruyne & Kathleen Vandenbulcke

3/ Falcon Youth Team 222 – Arnout Victor & Klaas Victor

4/ Falcon Youth Team 333 – Anton Coppens & Filip Olyslaeger

5/ F18 Wildcat – Annouck Phillipron & Gilles Tas

6/ F18 Cirrus – Ivan De Pauw & Luc Maertens

7/ F18 Wildcat – Annelies Bolle & Wim Braeken

Falcon Youth Team 111 did an excellent job, sailing their sail number: 1 – 1 – 1. We stuffed up in the last downwind of race 1 ending with a 4. Last 2 races we sailes a 2 and 2. We had a great time on the water, with lots of excitement, lots of to do’s for this season (for me: be quicker, don’t fiddle so much before going out in trapeze, don’t enter the boat on your ass! (use your knees), get the kite up quicker!....) and a nice barbeque and party in our new club afterwards. And 2 large bottles of Duvel to celebrate! J

We have made a movie about this race, with our new Go Pro, very cool to watch, we’ll post it on here soon!

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.

Falcon crash at Hiram's Haul, Florida

This is really something you don't want to experience yourself, ouch!!! From 3:30 onwards:

John Casey and Dalton Tebo win the Buzzelli multihull regatta, USA

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!

Oktoberbokaal Hellecat

We have been very lucky with October's weather. The last 2 weekends we sailed each Sunday 4 races at Hellevoetsluis, Holland and each time we had the sun as our perfect companion.

The first Sunday (October 16) we had very light winds, very shifty conditions but nice sailing.
Last Sunday (October 23) we only slept for 4 hours before we had to get up to race and the sun made sure we had enough energy troughout the 4 races :-) It was a good 5 BFT when we started race 1 and it dropped and shifted a bit during race 3, but for  race 4 we had good steady winds again.

The Oktoberbokaal consist of 4 Sundays of sailing in October on nice protected (i.e. FLAT!!) water in The Netherlands.

The first Sunday we didn't participate because we were accompanying our VVW Youth Teams at The Veerse Meer (also in Holland). So after 2 sailed days we are happy with our 8th place overall. Can we make it to place 7 after next Sunday's last day? Weather forecast looks promising, sun and a 3 to 4 BFT breeze, nice!

Overall results can be found here: http://www.hellecat.nl/wedstrijden/uitslagen/2011/oktoberbokaal23102011.html

Youth weekend Catclub Zeeland

Last weekend we joined the VVW Heist Youth team on their trip to Catclub Zeeland for the Dutch Dragoon Cup. Located at the Veerse Meer we were happy to coach the youth sailors a bit.

We also took our Falcon and Emile took his Blade so we took the 2 F16's out for a sail on the Veerse Meer. Gill has been talking alot about how cool it is to sail here, so I had to try this. I don't think it's really my thing, I was stressed knowing that there are alot of undepths and that we therefore risked of hitting the sand with our daggerboards.

On Sunday we went out again and I got used a bit to the location and was more at ease. We had a great weekend, only downside was the weather. It rained all weekend. But the great hospitality of Catclub Zeeland and the great group of people made it a wonderful weekend!

More pictures from us sailing at the Veerse Meer will follow!