F18 Argentina: BA Week 2024

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All images Claudio Cambria / YCA / SBA 2024.

F18 Argentina Semana de Buenos Aires 2024

Three days of racing were scheduled for this BA Week Edition, the biggest annual multi class regatta in South America. On Friday we had to wait on the water for wind to enter, finally we could complete two races. On Sunday a light NorthEast with chop and 1 trap were the conditions to race four more.

Agustin Krevisky & Juan Martín Benitez won five out of six to grab yet another local Arg regatta. Juan Pablo Sucic & Tomás Ferrante second, and World Champ helm Pablo Volker sailing with cousin Dante Volker finished third overall.
The other top International Arg crew Cruz G Smith & Mariano Heuser could not participate on Cruz becoming a father last week.

Racing with my son
All top three teams racing Scorpions / 1D. The first non Scorpion platform was mine. I raced with one of my sons, Tomy, 14yrs old who was sailing Optimist two weeks ago. We had a first regatta in September, and he adapted pretty well, with few hours on an F18, less racing one. He is already to tall & heavy for Optis either way so I told him to upgrade directly to F18.

Local youth Classes in Argentina are 29er & 420. No local Nacra 15 fleets. I wouldn’t recommend to do that direct pass to any kid, physical strength and height of course are a key factor to analyze. Also we are going progressively with winds limits, but he has shown no issues handling four races a day this weekend.

Safety is a factor, and of course we wont be racing in conditions were wont feel confident. The idea is for him to learn and have fun sailing cats. I think he had a good experience, and of course imagine coming from an Opti to the F18 speed , double trap and 21m gennaker!
He did a great job, super proud of the kid, mainsheet handling was natural, in fact we could have done even better if I would have nailed more starts. We are sailing a Phantom F18 with a Nacra 2011 jib, a repaired but good overall shape 1D main and Landy spi. We have good speed already, and of course we need more hours to refine handling, transitions and else.

In the end was a great experience, already looking forward to race the Arg Nats in December.

We wont reach to sail the local built Arg Scorpion. Hernán Salerno and his son sailed it in this regatta, and we are validating the construction, doing structural tests and else to the very first hulls. All going well till now, more testing and fine tuning coming.

Below full results.