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

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.

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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.

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