F18 Argentina: San Isidro Labrador 2018. Krevisky & Benitez 1st

Some official pics from the regatta pics results by Jorge Cousillas / El Ojo Nautico,  as informative material mainly , as Im wainting a response from the photograher to send some HD ones.
Info on the three major open F18 events this year : F18 Worlds , Europeans & Archipelago Raid —
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 This past weekend we had two great days of racing here in Buenos Aires. Like the old good time, we put 20 boat on the water, with at 5 rookie crews. Together with the top guns using the latest DS sails, it was an excellent combination of what we’ve been saying about attracting back the old guard with updated equipment and still getting new sailors onboard.

Perfect wind conditions for Saturday & Sunday, around 12-15 knots with only the last race held in 5 knots which made for a super close finish.  Agustín Krevisky & Juan Martin Benitez (Phantom F18 / 1D DS / boom) won over  Pablo Volker & Sergio Mehl (Exploder Scorpion F18 / Mischa DS / boom) over the line, within a 1mtr gap in the last race, a win meant the event for any of them.

Third place overall for Cruz Gonzalez Smith & Mariano Heuser (Infusion MKII / 1D DS boomless).

It was the first regatta in Arg where all the top guys were using DS, and results showed how close it
was. On Saturday Cruz & Mariano scored two bullets, while Krevisky & Benitez two of their own.
Volker & Mehl were getting used to sail again and took the day to get some coordination towards the next day.

Sunday perfect Northerly with some small chop, first two races were all for Volker & Mehl, they got the needed trim and pace and were untouchable in the breeze, for the last race they made a tactical mistake and almost got the calm wind master Krevisky, now sailing with 2016 WChamp Crew  Tigre Benitez. Agustín had no issues sailing the DS in 5-6knots as when he dominated with the standard rigging in those conditions, like the Arg Nats 2017 held in calm weather mostly that he won with Billy Lopez Segura with std top square sail past November vs some top crews already with DS.

Local talent
So it was a pretty even race all in all, for the top three. As always I like to remark about our top sailors, imagine the level we have here when Cruz & Mariano, that I can objectively affirm are top 6 sailors in the World only on their 2017 Worlds position, finish in 3rd place on a local regatta.
Watch out for Krevisly & Tigre Benitez  and Volker-Mehl if these crews attend to Europeans or Sarasota Worlds, the intention is there to join Cruz & Mariano on their annual World touring.

Boomless DS debut
4th place for Hernan Salerno & Andres Grimaldi (Phantom F18 / SI std) and in 5th place and really good result for Fran Venetucci & Agustín Ross. I handed them a brand 1D boomless DS 1 hour before the racing started, helped them a bit placing the omegas on the tramp for the added spi crickets and their were off.

Performance for them vs some other good Infusion crews sailing std sail was noticalbe, scoring some 4th & 5th only behind the most experienced crews also with DS.
The interesting aspect was it was a boomless DS, thus no investment on curved boom & gooseneck for those who were worried on added costs.
It was a 5th place out of the box literally within a 17 registered boat fleet (as we had more on the water).

Boom & DS
On the boom no boom discussion, I have my own preference, but bullets distribution noted above showed it lays down to actual racing.
Is important to remark though that a boom will also help you to achieve a better mast rotation.

I got a call Friday 9pm to crew for my good friend Charly Bohn, thus we raced again on his Phantom F18 with the DS custom cut I made this summer.
Placing was always behind the top 9 crews, and well ahead of the rookies, as Charly is also on his 2nd year in the F18 and 2nd regatta as helm (I’m no Stephan Dekker crewing neither.. haha) , but I can affirm again that the re cut DS from a standard square top sail works really good. Which is another point against those complaining on added costs (when we all know that top crews buy new sails every year almost no matter the trend cut design in place at any given time..)

Rookies & two Fleets
We have many rookies sailing this weekend, it was nice to have new faces, lots of DNF on their laps timing but we will implement  from now on an A & B fleet , and will also score those unable to follow or complete the course in the assigned time limit.
This will put numbers on their score sheet, and will give newbies an additional incentive to continue racing and improving.

F18 Formula
Happy to see the IF18CA now going forward, we had some uniformed “no change” motto stubbornness past years (look how cool & efficient are F18s these days, post Mischa Scorpion/DS 2017 Title) , but now there is a clear path again and you can see from this regatta how allowing controlled development withing the rule box will keep the top guys involved and will continue to attract new members.

When you have so many performance alternatives, the F18 with latest DS devels has become attractive once more. Many of the top guys are selling their current top working F18s, to go for the new Infusion MKIII epoxy convertible for instance, an scenario not seeing here since 2013.  This will put their former used boats on the market at good costs.

A cycle that is the core of success Formula & Box Rule devel classes. To be clear once more, no one wants to fly race in the F18, but anything within the box rule should be allowed without further useless discussion.

Top Ten:

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Photos by Jorge Cousillas / El Ojo Nautico / Club Nautico San Isidro.: