Sunday, March 25, 2012

Sail Paradise Regatta 2012 (Southport QLD)

Here's a quick teaser clip from the ORMA 60 Team Australia at the Sail Paradise Regatta at the Southport Yacht Club.

More to come soon.

h

Sunday, March 4, 2012

New Capricorn Mk3 (F18) by PSA

The first photos of the new re jigged Capricorn Mk3. Not sure on the final name for the new boat but this will be found out in time.




Put together by Chris (Kringle) Caldecoat from PSA with some help from Martin Fischer. They have taken the old Capricorn design and given it a face lift for 2012.
Basically they have added 30mm down the middle to give some extra volume then moved both beams and the forestay attachment point aft 100mm.


Hope to see some sailing photos soon where we will give it a good run next to the Wild Cat to see how the proformance really is.



They have come up with some neat ideas that will be tested also within the systems on the boat. These we will go into after testing.

Wednesday, February 29, 2012

The Great Race 2012

The Records Tumble!!!!!!!!!
This year's Great Race attracted 61 entries from as far away as New Zealand, with a Kite Surfer jumping on a plane, Team Harken on the Hobie Wild Cat from Sydney and various yachts from Northern NSW & North Queensland all to complete this years gruelling 70km challenge.
Rigging per start
The weather was looking to do it's best to force the postponement, but with the strong wind warning cancelled and the winds and rain squalls easing it was on and looking to be a record breaking run.
There are 2 new times to beat next year: Team Harken taking the multihull record which fell from  2:57:18hrs Elapsed Time down to 2:33:32 and the Monohull time took a pounding from 3:44:48 Elapsed Time down to 2:39:58 by Steve Sherring in his foiling moth.
Up nice and close for the start

Jack Benson & Grant Pellew
A huge thank you to all the volunteers who gave up their time to help make this another successful race.
F18 Results below.
Full results here http://results.rqys.com.au/12-TGR.htm


BOAT NAME
CLASS
SAIL NO.
SKIPPER
CREW
Elapsed
Harken
F18
183
Grant Pellew
Jack benson
2:33:32
Punter
F18
AUS 25
Matt Horman
Luke McDonald
2:33:54
Sail Structures
F18
Aus 177
Malcolm Richardson
Jarrod Cooh
2:34:04
Ullman Sails
F18
AUS1484
Dale Mitchell
Jamie Leitner
2:37:08
Sneaky To
F18
1430
Warren Guinea
Adam Lahey
2:38:35
Nacra NQ
F18 Nacra
AUS 26
Mick Guinea
Viv Haydon
2:39:21
Uptown Girl
F18 Nacra
1244
Grant Warrington
3:15:33

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Fastways QLD F18 State Titles (Final)

The QLD Fastways F18 States Titles are now finished. It was a disapointing result in the end and had we been able to compete in every race we may well have won the event.  We missed 4 races with breakages and our worst race when we were in one piece was a 2nd. We broke two centreboards and in the last race tore the mainsail at the luff. Our results were: DNF, DNF, DNS, 1 ,1 ,1 ,2 ,DNF.

The first race was canned due to the weather while we had a good lead, the 2nd day we broke both centreboards and returned to the beach. A big thanks to Chris at PSA for the boards and my wife Katie for doing a lot of sweet talking to the courier companies, we had new boards arrive from Sydney with 10mins to spare for the next day of racing, we went out and won the two races for the day. The last day we had a 1st and 2nd and in the final race blew out the mainsail which meant we had to carry 30 points which hurt us big time in the final results.

Dale & Jamie

Mal Richardson

We had some great racing with the NQ Nacra boys who ended coming out on top. These boys were all very close in the results and it really came down to the last race to find the winner.

Thanks to everyone that helped out and the Southport YC who did a fantastic job running the event.

At the end of the presentation we pulled the youth club members to one side (along with some older ones) and had Katie Spithill do a talk to the members about all things to do with campaiganing and drive to get yourself to the top of the sport.

Final Results:

1st    Warren Guinea & Adam           Nacra Infusion
2nd   Dale Mitchell & Jamie             Nacra Infusion
3rd   Mick Guinea & Viv                  Nacra Infusion
4th   Mal Richardson & Jarrod          Nacra Infusion
5th   Grant Pellew & Jack Benson    Hobie Wild Cat
6th   Marty Webb & Kelvin              Nacra Infusion




Team Harken's #1 Fan

What was behind Grant and Team Harken's success today... Maybe the smallest cheer squad!

Team Harken's smallest & #1 fan Ellie O'Brien

Sorting out the ropes.

Thursday, February 23, 2012

QLD F18 State Titles Day 3

After a ruff start with day 1 being canned due to storms and day 2 seeing us missing all 3 races with two broken boards we have had a huge come back and are sitting in 5th spot after winning all of todays races.

I have to send out a huge thank you to Chris Caldecoat from PSA for sending us two new centreboards up over night and got us back on the start line today for the two races.

Last day tomorrow with 3 races that should be off shore on a true windward leeward course so should be good fun.


Mick Guinea & Viv



Results to follow soon.

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

QLD F18 State Titles

Day 1 of the Fastways F18 States was a very interesting day on the water, after a long delay with no wind we hit the water late to start a race in 8-10kts NE breeze. The race started with Mick Guinea & Viv taking the lead off the line but were quickly run down and over taken by the Team Harken machine. The fleet closed up at the back of Crab Island as a storm front came though and brought the tail endeds up to the leaders.
By the time the fleet rounded the last mark the storm front hit with full force that flatted half the fleet with wind gusts well into the 30kt range and lighting strikes that were felt by a lot of the boats. By this time the race commitee had made the call to cancel the race. So no results were scored.

Team Harken (Grant Pellew & Jack Benson) ready to go

Regatta site - pre storm
Three races tomorrow to try and make up for the lost races today.