A-Class Arg Racing Dec 2017
Past weeks we’ve been racing As with part of the local fleet, 3 different weekends where we completed 10 races including a Long Distance. Yesterday was final day but a strong offshore breeze which set for a reach course back & forth forced us to cancel the start procedure. It was strong already but increased too much few mins before starting.
As a measure yesterday Santi Lange broke his Nacra 17 mast while sailing in this strong breeze, apparently no capsize, on Saturday on similar conditions but a bit less an F20 also broke mast but after capsizing.
On the A-Class racing we had Brewin’s D3 vs some experience F1 guys, also a rookie on his new D3 and some older A14s/Dna 2013 / 2015.
Mehl on the 2017 World Champ Exploder D3 dominated but the F1s got some bullets and close performance, still Sergio is the most trained guy here, also a contender F1 , Julito Saubidet) got equipment issues in some races races.
I sailed an A14 standard sail and J/Z. Upwind truly handicapped, but not much downwind to my surprise.
I managed to get races from the F1s and a D3 though. In the overall I finished second but results is anecdotic as not all participated in the 10 races plus some others couldn’t show up. Still happy to put hours and preparing for the racing off season to upgrade the A14 with Z15s plus a DS with boom. (Jan&Feb we have few or none regattas on vacations, but Mar del Plata Sailing Week)
Brewin’s D3 and other standard one showed great stable flights, Mehl was flying high and super smooth. In March we will start racing again , we have around 10-14 boats willing to participate.
The owner of the second D3 had an A-Class debut with +15 knots & waves, the guy is an experienced F18 sailor, but either way it was an impressive first day of racing for him. I assign part to the stable / easy going D3 platform.
Foiling upwind for the leader payed only with breeze above +12-14knots.
Lots of fun participating in A-Class regattas, super dynamic and challenging when the breeze is on.
DS vs Standard sail was a match indeed in super light winds, I left the World Champ D3 in the dust… but only downwind , 5 knots of wind at the a long distance mid stage, later 2 knots more came in and the same D3 which was 3km behind put the Turbo mode on and almost won that race coming from miles behind. So its really no contest aside the foiling as the lighter crews were leading that race with DS sails. It is super proven concept in the A-Class.
In the F18 as reported past weeks, light wind hurt a bit to the DS crews, but it was their first regatta, a bit more practice and they will defend themselves better in future calm weather regattas to disappear later when a bit more breeze is on. (This analysis always taking same level of crews)
As a wrap up, you can enjoy A-Class racing with any good condition boat you can get, put hours on the course and when you nailed every bit of boat & course handling go for an upgrade.
New devels are making life easier in terms of handling providing better more stable flights without compromising performance.
A combination which is truly tough to achieve.
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Busy pasts weeks sailing/racing F18s & As, cutting the F18 DS, two new boat projects, some retrofit for one of my beachcat clients and a new coastal rowing design for my brother. Thus the low rate of posts in the period.
Next weeks I will go out to shoot local Nacra 17s MKII crews , will try to get some good footage along detailed platform / foils pics.
