F18: BA Week 2013 Day 3

Images: Marcela Zapiola & Matias Capizzano. Saturday was a tough day, lots of capsizes and hard conditions with 20-25knots plus steep chop. Cruz Gonzalez-Smith & Mariano Heuser put their experience in these conditions to take the lead from Ian Rodger & Tomas Volker that were first when the day started after 4 races last weekend in 5 knots and a 5th in 11knots flat perfection. Currently in 3rd place Juan Pablo Sucic & Juan Copani, two guys coming from Monohulla that grabbed the pace of the F18 in an impressive way.

20 F18s racing and many didn´t manage to come, including one of our Nacra 17 crews, Carranza-Blando. We expect a major fleet hopefully for our Nats. 
Also great to have the new generation already performing, with some youth talents that are taking the torch from us , the +40 guys: Pablo & Tomas Volker, Juan Martin & Juan Cruz Benitez, Yago Lange & Juan Krevisky are among some talented 420 , Laser & 29er background sailors, some with an AC Youth already in their backs, two of those ‘veterans’ are now campaigning 49er for Rio, Aragonés & Terrab. And a special mention to Esteban Daneri, 56 and crewing for 20 something & 420 WC Pablo Volker, they are 4th right now.

Lighter winds expected for today. Last weekend I had some awful embarrassing starts touching committee boat, being left out at the boat end, left in irons two times and basically out of pace in 5knot conditions.
In the  5th and last for the day a 10-11knots breeze came in over a flat perfection course, I managed a somehow decent start and we ended 3rd just passing boats like in 6th gear, enjoying the ride while pushing to score a first reasonable position in this event for the crew & boat I had. That race conditions were so good that I went thinking Who needs foiling anyway?? Truly an awesome feeling after some months out of the water.

Yesterday in 20-25knots we had two pin end port starts, behind the fleet but to the favored side. We were 3rd going downwind to the finish line when we had a slow motion rookie gybe capsize… my crew wanted to kill me! ha! and he was right. Next race, same port start , 4th at second upwind mark  for a comfortable finish and I almost took the offset mark to the club…! Another waisted race…
But after not sailing/racing for 4 months I’m more than  happy with the speed in any condition, no excuses whatsoever.

Racing my friend Gonzalo’s Phantom, boat review on Tuesday. If I manage to nail the starts and reduce errors we’ll score some additional top 3 for sure. The goal is to reach Arg Nats in good shape. I will need less ‘keyboarding’, plus less  Cat & Alu Tailer building and  more sailing though…

No F18 Gallery available yet beyond published above. Event Gallery by Capizzano here
Event Website at semanadebuenosaires.org.ar/
20 Boats, top ten below. Full results at  https://www.semanadebuenosaires.org.ar/Popup.aspx?Id=1558