F18 Worlds 2017
We have started our project in August of 2016 when Dany Paschalidis and Lolo Bianchini sailed the German and Italian Championships together at Lake Garda. They won it, and that regatta and testing gave us a good point of view about the sails, where we are and where to go.
During the winter Dany was in St. Barth with Gustaf Dyrssen, they continued testing the sails together, meanwhile Brett Burwill and Gav Colby did the same in Australia. Later Marco Radman, Luca Cioni with Bolsena Yachting joined our team on a Wildcat.
At the end of the winter Mitch Booth joined together with Bernardo Benitez.
The 2017 process has started in mid/late February. I have got the 3rd model of the Scorpion Exploder F18 from Jakub. I continued where we finished in winter, first modified the shape according to the feedbacks and started to run CFD analysises for different conditions and different setups, changing the shape, run again and again…
The first tests started in late March in Calafell. After a while, we have felt that something is not ok with the mainsail. But blissfully we did know exactly what is it.
I have written about some changes and details here.
After the Kieler Woche, we have made the final conclusion, let’s change mast. The original mast was very soft, but only on the top part which realised the power of the sail. Found that the existing new sail performed very well on Wildcat and Phantom, so definitely a stiffer mast was needed. Jakub helped us with new mast sections, which were delivered to Denmark, the F18 Worlds.
We had a debrief with Dany and Kostas in our office, and with the other through email. Dany was talking on phone, and just got heard a sentence. “I do not know what Marton did with the kite, but its faster than last year”. So I guess the feedback is good about the kite.
About the regatta. It was the most exciting and closest Worlds I have ever seen. Our two top teams, Mitch-Ruben and Dany-Kostas were competing for the podium. The Booth Family won a race, and was standing on the second place before the last day.
On the last day huge fights the top, our guys 4th and 5th.
Mischa won with 52points, 2nd and 3rd are with 70-70 points, Mitch-Ruben: 72 points, Dany-Kostas 72 points as well. Unbelievable!
full results are here
On my side I am happy with these results. I got very good feedbacks about the sails and its speed from the teams and from other competitors as well. The guys were very fast upwind and downwind were smoking like hell.
Got some really good mentions on cat sailing news:
“Good to see Mitch racing with Ruben again, they were second overall after R7, same for Danny Paschalidis & Konstantinos Trigonis. great effort for them towards the Title being new to the boat and racing together in the F18. It was too close for them also with lots of work and devel involved previous weeks, all worthwhile work done with Marton Balazs / 1D sails. Hope they continue to race in the Class.” (http://www.catsailingnews.com/2017/07/f18-worlds-2017-vallensbaek-mischa.html)
“Danny Pashcalidis & Konstantinos Trigonis (Scoprion Exploder / 1D) didn`t appeared in the top three updates today, but I knew they were near: 4,10,4 to complete a really good qualifying series for them racing together in the F18 for the first time along the new boat. Yesterday we got a report from them with feedback on the platform/sails, and they were already happy and learning to sail the boat. Told them that still all was open and now they are in good position for the Finals. Having these guys in the Class is good news, and good vibes.Having them along the Booths racing what Jakub & Balazs delivered its really incredible”
(http://www.catsailingnews.com/2017/07/f18-worlds-2017-vallensbaek-day-2.html)
After the regatta, we have launched our decksweeper mainsail immediately, some are around the Globe for testing. I will make a new post on this devel during the next weeks.
You can find more photos here.
