Edge'ing Around Rotto

The two Harken equiped Windrush Edge F18's doing a run around Rottnest Island in Perth WA.

This could end up being the Aussie version of the 'Round Texel' Race over in NED.
I love the idea that if it was run i would travel over to do it with my boat. There is talk of the next F18 Nationals (2014) being held in WA so if this was held around the same time it could work well.

To the Windrush boys, keep up the great work you are doing over there.

Sailor Spotlight (Mick Guinea & Viv Haydon) F18

I would like to introduce the two newest members of the Team Harken Racing crew.
From Townsville Queensland we have the F18 team of Mick Guinea & Viv Haydon.
Down the track Mick is going to send a few photos of tricks and tips for the Nacra Infusion F18 but if you see him on the beach up in Queensland go up and say G'Day and he will be more then happy to talk boats and even sell you one.
Below is a little insight to what makes them tick.

Harken Sailor Spotlight

Name: Mick Guinea & Viv Haydon

Age: Mick 30, Viv 21

Home Town / Club: Townsville Sailing Club

Class: F18, we also race on Wayne Millar’s MBD41 “Zoe”               

Years Sailing Class: 5 years in the F18 class

Favourite song: Mick: Pockets by Powderfinger. Viv: Hard Sun by Eddie Vedder

Favourite food: Mick: Chicken Parmy. Viv: A good steak

Favourite Place to Sail: Cleveland Bay Townsville

Most Rewarding result (where & when): Winning our first Nacra F18 Nationals together this year in Adelaide and 10^th in 2011 at Texel in the Nacra Worlds.

Why this class: The F18 is a high performance boat where you can race, and compete, against the world’s best sailors with a big budget.

Funniest moment on boat: The look on Viv's face at Texel last year, when in big waves and 25 knots I got washed off the back but continued steering whilst trying to barefoot water-ski back to the boat.

Who do you sail with (training partners): We have a big fleet of F18s in NQ currently, so we are regularly sailing against many boats, however we train mostly with Dale Mitchell from Airlie Beach.

Why Harken: The highest quality products that work and the constant innovation of new products.

Favourite Harken product: The 10:1 mainsheet system we use. (HC7668 & HC8454)

Goals: In the short term we are aiming for a top 20 finish at the F18 worlds at Long Beach, to defend our Nacra National title and a top 3 finish at the F18 Nationals.

Closing Comment: Multihull Sailing is about to boom again over the next few years. With the Nacra 17 in the Olympics, the AC cats and the Extreme 40s there is so much interest in the sport at the moment. I encourage everyone to get out on a Cat of some sort and get involved – you wont regret it!

Viv & Mick @ the Townsville Sports Awards

I have to say I do like Micks closing comments, it is very true that multihulls are going to become a bigger part of everyday life for sailors worldwide. We all need to embrace it and enjoy the ride.

Welcome to the team boys.

Zhik Winter Regatta (Wangi - 9-10th June)

The Wangi RSL Amateur Sailing Club will host the Zhik Winter Regatta on the 9th & 10th of June, 2012.

Eligible Classes are: OKs, Impulse, A Class Cats, Moths, Flying 11s, Tasars & 29ers.
Entries will be taken at the Club on the 9th of June.

Follow the links at the end of this article for the Poster and Notice of Race for this event. These are also available under the Regattas menu.

http://www.wangirslasc.yachting.org.au/

French A Class Catamaran Nationals

Last weekend the French Nationals were sailed in La Rochelle in almost perfect sailing conditions.

9 races in 5-18 knots.

The overall event was won by Chris Field who sailed very sharp and consistent. Harken team sailor Jack Benson from Australia was second, Arno Terra was third and Micky Todd fourth.

Jack was racing with the new ARC mast and a radial Brewin, Arno was using an ARC mast and an Ashby Stratis sail and Micky used his own sail and a Fiberfoam.

Arno & Jack @ the top mark

But the new 'French' Champion is Thiery Boisbouvier, second Luc Cantineau and third Antoine Koch. Yann Baglin and Luc hurt their score by getting a blck flag in the last race.

The top four French were racing their brandnew DNA's (The new DNA's now come with a Harken fitout)

Arno says he found out that the new longer curved boards are really quick downwind in the waves. It was really easy to keep the boat on the boards and I could sail faster and deeper than most others despite my weight.

Micky Todd

It was good to see how well Luc and Yann were going despite they picked up their boats only one week before the event. They were fast upwind and outsailed the other French downwind in a breeze.

The teams now head up to Garda for the Europern championships where other Harken Racing members Steven Brayshaw & Steve Brewin will meet up with Jack to compete also.

Good luck to the team sorry I could not make it up there with you.

For more infomation on the Harken fitted DNA's look here DNA Cats

Capricorn MK3 - 1st sail

The brand new Capricorn MK3 hit the water for the first time on the weekend. Not a great deal of wind but for a first time sail the boat felt pretty good on the water.

More photos to come soon.

ORMA 60 Video

Finally had time to sit down and go though the footage that I have from the sailing we have done on Team Australia the ORMA 60 tri.
Hope you enjoy it.

Brisbane to Gladstone Race 2012

The 2012 Multihull Solutions Brisbane to Gladstone Race started on good Friday and saw the previous race record fall in the early hours of Saturday morning. The previous record was set back in 2004 by Raw Nerve (18 hours 55 minutes 9 seconds).

Team Australia

After a slow start coming out of Moreton Bay Sean Langman's ORMA 60 trimaran Team Australia found the breeze to open up and put the throttle down and at the halfway point Skipper Sean Langman and crew had a good hold on the record after completing the initial 154 nautical miles with an average speed above 22.5 knots.

The boat was sitting comfortably on 26-28kts with a top speed of 32.8kts. It takes a lot of skill and personal precision by the entire crew to achieve this, there were a high number of sail changes along the way but the workload diligently expressed by the crew, who had little time to enjoy the record breaking ride as they sailed at breakneck speed before their quest faced a serious challenge when the wind lost its intensity after they weathered Lady Elliot Island.

Team Australia's 8 person crew comprised of skipper Sean Langman, his 18 year old son Peter, female International match racer and multihull skipper Katie Spithill-Pellew as tactician and international sailors Josh Alexander, Mitch White & Grant Pellew and also Ben Cormack and Aaron H.

Peter & Sean Langman

Team Australia finally crossed the finish line off Gladstone’s Auckland Creek shortly before 3.30 am to complete the course in 16 hours 28 minutes 21 seconds, 2 hours 26 minutes 48 seconds ahead of the previous record.

The interesting measure of overall performance when Team Australia outpaced her high 1.500 handicap rating to also win the race outright by 26 minutes 57 seconds from the Peter Wilcox skippered Mojo .914 and the Bill Donnelly/Gary Saxby helmed Boss Racing .988

The mighty rocketship with fire works in the background

Final results:

Line Honours:
Team Australia (Sean Langman) 16-28-21
Boss Racing (Bill Donnelly / Gary Saxby ) 26-01-23
Mojo (Peter Wilcox) 27-31-30
Chill Pill (Wayne Bloomer) 29-51-51
Foxy (Shane Russell) 35-56-42
Attitude (Allan Larkin) 39-54-57
Renaissance (Mike Hodges) 41-21-02
Rushour (Drew Carruthers) 42-07-41
No Problem (Ray Hobbs) 42-44-06 9.

OMR:
Team Australia 24-32-31
Mojo 25-09-28
Boss Racing 25-42-39
Chill Pill 28-07-55
Foxy 31-33-35
Renaissance 32-20-10
Attitude 33-07-24
Rushour 34-07-25