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Five F16s attended last week's Eurocat regatta in Carnac. This event saw over 200 catamarans competing in both round-the-cans racing and a long distance raid. See below for a full race report.
This international catamaran sailing event had 5 F16s racing in the C1
class. Most of the boats arrived on Wednesday April 30. There was lots
of wind that day and nobody went on the water. The boats got fully
rigged and were ready for the start the next day at 3PM. Weather
forecasts looked OK and predicted a decrease of wind over the weekend.
Day 1 (Thursday May 1) still started windy, but it calmed down in
the late afternoon. The F16s raced in the C1 class (all boats with a
rating lower than 107). There were about 40 boats in our fleet. Other
boats: a lot of Mattia Esses, some Tornado's and 2 FX Ones.
The 5 F16s present were: John Alani (UK, Stealth), Hans Klok (Holland,
Blade), Paul Warren (UK, Blade) and MarkP (UK, Stealth). These 4 guys
all sailed one-up throughout the whole event. Number 5 contestants were
Gill De Bruyne and Kathleen Vandenbulcke (Belgium, Blade). The first
day ended after 3 races, from 3 o'clock until 7 o'clock.
The next day the long distance raid was scheduled. This is a very long
and beautiful run, with lovely scenery. Hans put in a very
respectable 36th place (out of 158 finishers), and Paul was very pleased with
77th in this fleet. The results don't include boat type, but the
majority is the very strong F18 fleet, and the single handed F16s are
giving them over 2% on handicap.
Everybody enjoyed the long distance race, as the large fleet meant
there was always someone nearby to race. The conditions were light but
consistent, mostly just shy of trapezing conditions, and then dropping
off at the end of the day. Paul: "I found that upwind, when not
trapezing there was absolutely nothing between me and the F18s around
me, but once up to single trapezing I had a slight edge. Downwind I
found it was definitely possible to make ground on the F18s, but in
these conditions the boats are very close."
On Saturday there were only two races, as the decent breeze seen in
the first race died very suddenly half way through the second race.
Paul missed the start of the first race due to a series of objects
forgotten on the beach. This did mean that he had an excellent
spectator seat for the end of the first race which saw Hans Klok finish
second on the water, beating three of the four Tornados. A very
impressive result in conditions that weren't obviously favourable to a
1-up F16: the Tornadoes were twin wiring upwind, and the course
included a couple of reaching legs.
The last day, Sunday, racing was cancelled, due to a lack of wind. The final results are now available.
These are not yet totally correct. Hans Klok got 2 DNS (1st and 3rd
race). He protested and they posted his results (19 & 16) but
apparently they didn't add them to the end results. So overall he
should be 14th we think (and first F16).This was a fun event and a good
meeting place for the beginning of the sailing season. It was nice to
see the other F16 sailors again! On to the next event...
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