2015 Chronicle #2 - Keil Week and Training for the F-18 Worlds

Time has been flying by here and it has been hard to find time for an update. Kiel Week is now over and we are half way through our two week training period for the Worlds.

The Venue

Kiel was the site of the 1972 Olympics hosted by Germany. We are sailing out of the Olympic Sailing Center and the apartment that we rented for the month was part of the Olympic Village. Our apartment is only a five minute walk from where our boat is kept on the beach!

Kiel Week

I have never experienced anything like it. When we sailed out to the race course there were literally more than a thousand boats sailing out and everywhere we looked you could see boats going out to race. The sailing area is very large and they have it divided into 10 sailing rings for the different classes.

Except for the first day we were assigned to “Delta” area, one of the rings furthest off-shore. For the first day we were assigned to the “H” ring which is just off the Olympic Sailing Center. This is also called the “TV” course because here there was full TV coverage of the races. We were on the course along with Hobie 16’s who they always started first so we would have to sail through their fleet.

In addition to all the racing boats, they had a tall ship parade and at one point we could look around and count more than 20 historic tall ships sailing.

Our first day in Kiel was spent rigging the boat for the first time and getting checked into our apartment. Seamus is doing a great job on getting the boat rigged into prime condition. It is great having a professional rigger on the team.

We had only one day to practice with the boat before the races started. The practice day the wind was blowing 20 to 27 knots and we were the only F-18 that went out.

Kiel Week Races

There were four days of racing with 38 boats sailing. We had our best performance on the first day which was sailed in light wind (5 to 9 knots). We had good starts both races and were able to challenge the leaders though not hang onto a top finish. We finished 8th and 6th.

Day 2 and 3 both had more wind in the 12-15 knot range. Our boat speed was a little off the pace and some starting problems resulted in four finishes in the teens (16, 18, 13, and 16). The final racing day was windier in the 15-18 knot range. We had one bad traffic management error at the leeward gate which could have resulted in a collision but didn’t and one black flag starting disqualification resulted in scores of 24, 25 and 43. The two worst scores were thrown out so overall we finished 16th out of 38 sailed boats.

Seamus and I are very glad that we had this regatta as a warm up for the Worlds and we know what we need to work on during the training weeks.

The winners of this event are local Kiel sailors who know the area very well and also were the F-18 World Champions in 2005 and have won Kiel Week 8 times over the past 10 years. The second place boat represented Greece in the Olympics and the third place boat represented Germany in the Olympics.

F-18 World Championships

More boats are starting to arrive for the Worlds but most of them will arrive during the next week. We should have more practice opportunities next week but the wind is forecast to become much windier (one day 30+ knots) and colder.

F-18 Worlds Schedule

Mon July 13 Practice Race
Tue – Wed (Jul 14-15) Qualifier Races
Thu – Sat (Jul 16-18) Finals
Saturday Evening Awards Ceremony
5 race days (3-4 races per day)

The first challenge will be to try to qualify for the Gold fleet which will be 3-6 races over the first two days.

Results Postings On-Line

While the racing is going on it will be difficult for us to keep you all posted but you can look up results daily at the following links:

http://www.f18-international.org/f18-worlds-2015/

Steve and Seamus