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Zhik Flying Tiger Winter Series - Lake Lanier (Atlanta, GA)
It was a cold weekend
November 23-24 when the initial weekend of the Zhik Flying Tiger Winter Series
took place on Lake Lanier north of Atlanta, GA.. Renegade is from Lake Lanier
and the other two boats (Unleashed and Toy Tiger) were from the 1dSailing
Academy in Canada, about a 1,000 miles north. During the warmer months, the
guys from 1dSailing Academy all race together on Lake Ontario on a turbo'd
1D35; but when the snow starts to fly, they look for warmer climates to keep
sailing and this year decided to bring their Tigers to Lanier. Both the
Canadian boat teams were supplemented by some great LLSC talent. The Winter
Series comprises five weekends: * Nov 23 and 24 * Jan 11 and 12 * Feb 8 and 9 * Mar 8 and 9 * Apr 5 and 6 The regatta series is hosted by Lake Lanier Sailing Club. The first week had three boats on the line for an exciting weekend of close racing. The two out of town boats were right at home in the chilly weather after making the long trek down from Canada.  Saturday was marked with a relatively strong breeze, holding in the teens and gusting into the 20’s throughout the day. The crew aboard Renegade were able to use a clean start to get a lead they wouldn’t relinquish in the first race. The second race was taken by the group aboard Unleashed. Renegade and Unleashed traded first place in the next two races. Unleashed was able to win the next two races to close out the day. The crew aboard Toy Tiger closed the day with two seconds. After day one, Unleashed sat in first by four points over Renegade who was two points ahead of Toy Tiger. Sunday brought some of the wind conditions Lake Lanier sailors are used to. It was very light and the shifts were huge and came often. Unleashed was able to play the shifty conditions to another bullet. The race committee decided that the conditions only warranted one race. Unleashed was able to take the first weekend. A good time was had by all both on and off the water. The racing was closely contested and the party was friendly. The next weekend is set for January 11 and 12. Hopefully there will be a few more boats on the line, but if not it will still be some great one design racing. |
Prowler is WIRW Super 30
"Prowler" with Kirk Leslie and crew won the "Super 30" Jesse Carr Trophy at Whidbey Island Race Week 2013.
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FT10 North Americans: Tight Racing After Two Days
 RC has been great with the race course management, very fair courses. Results After 2 days of Racing: Sail Boat Skipper Yacht Club 1 2 3 4 5 6 Total Pos 9 Justice John Harrop SDYC 1 1 4 1 2 6 15T 1 USA 49 Ruckus Eric Schlageter Anacapa Yacht Club 3 3 2 5 1 1 15T 2 USA 33 Mile High Klub Phillip Infelise Alamitos Bay Yacht Club 5 2 3 3 5 5 23 3 11 anarchy scot tempesta sdyc 2 7 6 4 3 2 24 4 8 ABACUS Timothy Chin SGYC 6 4 7 2 4 4 27 5 72 NastyR Robert Wilson CorYC 7 6 1 8 8 3 33 6 54 Niuhi Paul and Julie McPherson SDYC 4 5 5 6 7 9 36 7 19 occams razor neil senturia sdyc 10/DNC 10/DNC 10/DNC 7 6 7 50T 8 62 Jelani Clive Daem SGYC 8 8 8 9 9 8 50T 9 |
My-Tai Wins Juan de Fuca Race at Swiftsure 2012
Another impressive win at the Swifsure for "My-Tai" CAN31, skippered by Daryl Homan. First to finish and first on corrected time. See full results.Owner's Daryl Homan reports back to Bob Perry, the boat designer:
 Juan de Fuca Race Latest Results by Race Finish PositionsStarted: 26th 10:51:00; Distance: 79.70nm; Scoring: TOD; Postponed: Yes
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The great "E" adventure of Team Abacus
 The CREW:
The Ohio connection - Kris Zillmann (Abacus main trimmer) invited
her elementry school mates Mike Rushing from Los Angeles and Warren
Richter from APS to team up for the race. And these folks happen to
be seriously great sailors.
The Abacus regulars were Colin Delaney (Bow), Sean Davis (Trimmer),
Laura Andersen (Pit), Kris Z (skipper and chief of catering for this
race) and Tim (the owner and past class president).
From the GRIBs, it was looking to be a medium to long race, with
routing projections from 17 to 24 hrs earlier that week. We were looking
at Bluewater (free SW), Sailplanner (trial version) and PredictWind
(free version). Two of the three routings told us to go way out (like 50
miles out -- "are you nuts Tim?" they all asked) So the team was ready
to slug it out. Plenty of food, water, 48 cans of beer, 2 big bottles of
rum, boxes of snacks.......It was kind of ridiculous to show up at the
start-line with a full-sized crew, boat sitting way way lower than the
float marks (Fortunately I vetoed bringing the BBQ to make ribs or we
would have sank!!) next to Plankton (Viper 830, past winner) with crew
of 3 as well as Anarchy with a more much more reasonable looking crew
weight. Of course we were smoked at the start, in fact, we were almost a
minute late (this part is classified).
Viper went low, Anarchy went high, we were just left to pick off
the J105's, J109's and the odd 10R to get air in the middle. Looked like
that for the next hour or two until Anarchy went Code zero up high to
pick off the J120s that started with us but on the outside line and the
Viper put their reacher or may be zero up below and ahead of us, both
boats owing us 6 secs a mile. We responded with our secret weapon (lol) 5
year old EP Gen 1 "OOPS - cut too flat" AP kite and made it work,
successfully fending off a bunch of J120's dropping down on us from the
high road. We watched Anarchy dissappear offshore in the haze as they
switched to their new Ullman runner while we had to wait till the righty
came to us before we could put up our 2011 new Dave Hirsch designed
North runner because we did not want to sail towards inland.
The patience paid off when the righty came, we were in control.
It was 250 earlier in the day going to 270 for a long time and then kept
going onto 330(?). That put the Viper into the "danger" zone near the
Coronados Island (at first "danger" was meant to describe no wind
zone after 8pm but the tragic end of the Hunter 376 that wasrun over by
a ship gave it even more evil meaning). We thought we may even have
seen the big ship involved but we were not sure. It also appears that
the righty may have put Anarchy out too far out at that point in the
race and perhaps made them gybe in into dead air (??). All we know was
that we stay sailing on same gybe (heading at times with COG of
220+) until we almost abeam to Ensenada 50+ miles out (yes a five followed by a zero),
punctuated by a couple of "holes", especially one that made us shift
down to a jib for a couple of hours before sunrise. At sunrise, we put
runner back up and were on port gybe surfing in at 10 kts+ at times
to encounter Misfit (1D35 mod) crossing our bow ahead by about a mile.
We used them as a performance gage and after they gybed in, we regybed
to stbd and crossed behind them by same distance. Luckily they were
there, we saw them hit "too soon Lagoon" (North side of the Todos Santos
Bay) and start to slow. That confirmed our original plan to bail South,
so we kept going south towards the Todos Santos light gybed in with
pressure and surf to hit the "express lane". After some really masterful
sailing by the Ohioans, with Kris & Warren switch-hitting on the
helm, we found the finish line at Coral after almost 26 hours of racing
and shared the finish line with Timeshaver (a J125 that started 10
minutes before us).
Results -- Overall corrected 2nd place behind Medicine Man (MAXI),
Class win (Sprit B PLUS ahead of entire Sprit A class of J120s by >90
minutes), Fastest overall corrected for 1st time race entry. Overall Corrected: MAXI 97777 MEDICINE MAN 20:00:25 23:26:40 FIN |
2012 FT10 North American Championship
 El Cordova Hotel is the official championship hotel with a special rate reserved for FT10 racers.  |
FT10 State Championships held by RANSA
Saturday Feb. 24th, 2012 - Sydney, Australia Great Racing , 3 Windward Lewards on Saturday, 1 Passage Race on Sunday. Reasonable Breeze, Saturday 7 - 10 Knots South to South East with 30 Degree Swings Sunday 7-10 Knots NE relatively steady sea breeze Great Fleet, 8 Boats with another 3 expected for Nationals in three weeks time. Ophir, second outright, very solid all weekend other than first race where they seemed to have lost their way. They reckon they will be back in the Nationals and so they should be as current National Champion. Hello Tiger, third Outright, had a great but close win in race 1, then in race 2 picked up the top mark on the first lap, cleared it, but took the anchor line with anchor with them, and proceeded to carry it with them for the rest of the day. Yes they did think they were a bit down on speed , but it was a good find back on the dock after day one when one of the crew went for a swim and came back with an anchor in his hand . It was duely presented to the race officials but no consideration for redress. Without an extra Cat7 anchor in Race 4 they were too good for Balmain Tiger down wind and recovered from a 2.5 min defecit at the Top Mark ( Many West , Manly East ) to beat Balmain Tiger home by 20 seconds after 2.5 hour race.  Balmain Tiger, First Outright, always the bridesmaid, but not this time, had a great weekend enjoying its new found Up Wind speed with saw it lead at the top mark on 8 of the 9 upwind legs. Down wind speed was not as good as some of the others, but hopefully will be addressed before Nationals. Shere Khan , Forth on Scratch and first on Handicap. Were close all weekend but not able to get onto the podium for any race. Ten8ious, Second on Handicap , great to see this new boat in the fleet getting it together Representing Middle Harbour. Maybe some of those A10's might grow a Bow Sprit and big Red Kite. These guys pushed all day and were on the podium for one of the Windward Lewards. Sabre, Third on Handicap, great to have this boat back in the racing fleet, very solid job all weekend with a crewlargely inexperienced to cut and thrust of Windward Lewards, were much more comfortable in the passage race, but still looking for a bit of speed. Flying Brandy, continued its great improvement, did not do itself any favours on handicap by running second in the first race. Looked good all weekend and starting to get it together. Fortune of War, w  ell some one needs to bring up the rear of the field, but these guys will do a lot better with some more experience in their crew leading to better sail handling etc, the boat is faat but not for long enough in any one race.The State Titles are a great warm up for the Nationals which will be held in three weeks time as part of the Sydney Harbour Regatta. We are expecting 3 additional entries from Sophia, Sigurd and the Pittwater Boat, Tiga. That will be a very competetive fleet of 11 boats. With 2 others prefering to play outside of the Tiger field. Its not too late for Likatiga to come down from Qld and show us how good he is in One Design , or the two Melbourne Boats or the three WA boats to jump on a trailer... Lets make it a real serious Nationals. Results: 1st - Balmain Tiger - 3,1,1,2 2nd - Ophir - 6,3,2,3 3rd - Hello Tiger - 1,7,6,1 |
FT10 East Coast Championship March 2-4, 2012
 6 Tigers are registered for the FT10 East Coast Championship March 2-4, 2012 hosted by the Pensacola yacht Club. Here is the list of entrants as of Feb. 21st, 2012:
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Doublehanded Three Bridge Fiasco - Centomiglia
The FT10 Centomiglia finishes 13th monohull overall, out of 334 entrants, at the Doublehanded Three Bridges Fiasco, in San Francisco, California. With our start at 10:13:30, and looking at the tidetech/pressure-drop charts it was clear clear that clockwise was the way to go. I decided that only if blackhaller looked like a parking lot, we would have gone straight to red rock. It was a typical fiasco start, just enough wind to stay near X fighting the dying ebb. We started right on the clock, and we could see boats rounding blackhaller, so we hoisted right after the start and headed west. We were a bit surprised when we saw the eight ball tacking toward red rock. For a moment we thought about following them, but the tidetech chart were clear so we stuck with plan A. We stayed outside where there was a bit more pressure, hearing over the radio of boats having trouble with Anita rock. We passed a lot of the early starter, and rounded blackhaller in light air, but still moving. We doused and once tacked the pressure kept increasing, and with the help of the building flood we got quickly to Racoon. It was a bit light and fluky in the strait, but we did get to the other side. Heading toward red rock, we stayed on the tiburon side. The spear and the other FT10 had caught up with us in the strait, and were ahead but still within reach. We rounded red rock clockwise, while the other Tiger went counter clockwise. We were focused on making sure there were no boats below our jib, and we were totally surprised by the FT10 coming toward us on the high side, a few feet from our port. I wavered a bit on the helm (we were port tackers) and we heard them calling protest, so we took our 360, jibed and hoisted the spi. We carried the spi a bit longer than the others, and that got us in the middle of the bay. After a bit of light air, it was good pressure after the chevron dock all the way down to the bay bridge on the east side of TI, reaching with white sails.  At the coast guard station it was a giant parking lot... It was THE parking lot... We noted that there was a small blue spinnaker that was making progress south of the whole group that was bobbing around the shoreline of TI. We hoisted at the bridge and it helped getting south of all the parked boats. We kept pressure in the sail most of the time, and slowly but steadily we kept making progress passing 50-80 boats... There was a bit more pressure once back to the bay bridge, even if coming forward of the beam. We have an amazing small flat spi, made by quantum for heavy air, that can be used almost as a zero when it is light. We kept the spi up and we crossed to pier 39 with wind always forward of the beam doing 6-7 knots while the boats behind us were still struggling with the parking lot south of TI. Once pier 39 was cleared, we bear off and run to the finish. We didn't hear many finishers calling over the radio, so we were pretty happy. Right after crossing the finish line we saw the eight ball coming toward the finish line, from the west, we turned around and saw yucca behind us and that was when we realized we had done a good race. It turned out we were 3rd in the DH sportboat division, and 13th monohull to finish... not bad at all! Thanks to tidetech for the detailed chart, it makes so much easier to come up with a strategy, especially in a race like this with a unique combination of strong currents and light winds. Fabio Maino - FT10 Centomiglia - USA 15 |
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