F18 Argentina: Racing for Los Angeles Worlds 2012

Part of the ARG fleet was racing on fri, sat and sunday for the first qualyfiing series for Los Angeles 2012.
Almost 10 boats are willing to participate at this next World Championship. We also have several crews from Chile and Uruguay already preparing themselves to go. So John, you’d better have some rents boats available for us, or some parking space for the container.
The guys are checking which is the best alternative.

This first qualiying was won by Juan Faustín and Lucas Gonzalez Smith, with a solid performance on quite tricky light conditions with waves and strong current. Followed by Cruz G Smith and Mariano Heuser in 2nd and Sergio Mehl 3rd. Sergio saved his mast by a second as it was going down while he was launching at the ramp.
This is the 4th time Sergio’s shroud anchor point fails, and we have like more than 10 same situations on the fleet here, really strange thing. I think the tough conditions here are responsible, in any case, having more than 10 (all brands) mast down on the same failure is not that common.
I think they need to equipe the boats again the the famous ‘toggle’ used by Hobie in the past.

I sailed/raced again after 3 months, the elder sailor of the fleet called me again to helm, and we have a really good event considering zero training, we were 6th among 14 boats, just behind the top guys that train 3 days a week,  with some Pros and Olympics hopes included.
We managed to lead several windward marks, like the last race, but on tactical errors on my behalf due to strong current and lack of training or just plain simple errors, I couldn´t defend the lead at last downwind leg and ended 4th, situation repeated on several races, giving away 3 to 4 places on the last 100-200mts! Quite inconstant helming on my behalf, for ie the first races were 12,10, 5,5 with a capsize on the 1st one with 6knots downwind!

But my crew stood the test, high demanding crewing due to technical conditions and 4 races on friday and sunday… so hat off again to Esteban Daneri, being 54 and sailing at top level, even supporting my ‘demands’ as a helm,  all proof of his temper and guts. And of course his brand new MKII helped a little, really good boat.
We will try to train more in the future to give the top guys a run for their money. 

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