C-Class, Hydros training by AD Images

by Editor · Published September 2, 2013 · Updated May 24, 2019

All Images courtesy Daniel Schmah / AD Images www.adimages.ch – Hydros has the strongest sailing team for this C-Class Cup edition. The Canadians are the current C design & sailing experts as they showed against Ashby & Spithill in 2010, Steve Clark is the long Time Guru by definition, and Cammas is maybe the best all around catsailor in the World with a solid design expert group behind, but Besson-Lagarrigue & Heemskerk-Tentij are simply the top two handed Catracing crews in the planet right now, add to that the Hydros.ch technology background to close an almost perfect racing package. Mischa Heemskerk reports on team status:

“We are foiling at 7knots of wind downwind and above 11kn upwind. Foiling gybes are still in the process. We have made a step plan on how we can work to have a foiling gybe. It is a complex maneuver to manage, plus the risk of damaging our light boat and wing so close to the racing schedule.

The coordination of the lines is the challenge cause we only have 4 hands on the boat and two of them are busy sailing it.
Our flying on the C has the same stability as TNZ when we set all the parameters at the right setting. Our engineering team did a great job designing and balancing this boat. It takes us very little time to set her up in stable flight and keep our heads out of the boat on the race track.

Flying the C compared to the A: It is great to be able to do both, cause what I have learned on the A I use on the C and vice versa. The biggest difference is that in the A I can balance the boat even more with my weight and control the flight that way. The good thing on the C is that we can adjust the rake of the board according to the wind strength with the extra hands.

We also had an accidental impact test on our wing with a capsize and turned this into valuable knowledge on how to proceed in the event of a capsize. We were happily surprised with the minor damage due to the capsize and saw that we can finish the race after it.
Further planning for the coming weeks is making lots of hours on the water and two boat speed testing and racing. Refine our maintenance protocol for the boat and wing as well as refining maneuvers.