Here I am providing the latest news on our 2018 F18 campaign in Europe, Florida and the Caribbean.  If this is your first time to this section of the blog you may want to read from the bottom.

There is an article detailing our Cata Cup experiences with photos in the Chronicles section.

For full regatta results go to: http://stbarthcatacup.com/en/pages/Results-General_ranking/

October 20, 2018

On Saturday after the Worlds were completed eleven teams totally disassembled their boats so that they could fit into a forty foot container to be shipped to the Cata Cup in St Barths in the Caribbean. It tooks us about 4.5 hours to load the container in 90 degree heat and 90% humidity. Kudos to the Greek World Champions and the Spanish team who took the lead on loading the container. They clearly have a lot of experience. The F18’s were specifically designed to be 18 feet long so that there is room for two hulls end to end in a 40 foot container. That was looking ahead by the creator’s of the F18 box rule. The container was driven to Miami to be loaded onto a ship and is now on the high seas. I flew back to San Diego on Sunday to have three weeks at home before heading to the Cata Cup regatta - one of the best regattas in the world. The Cata Cup race days are November 15-18. I am not sure if I will have good internet coverage and/or time for blog updates but you can follow results at:

https://stbarthcatacup.com/en/ Note: This website does not work using the Google Chrome browser. Use Microsoft Explorer.

The Cata Cup does a very good job with press releases each day.

My teammate for Cata Cup is Michael Risoer who is Danish but lives in San Diego. We will leave San Diego on Saturday, Nov 10 and return late on Monday, Nov 19. There are 55 boats entered in Cata Cup with 5 American teams and 1 Canadian team.

Friday, October 19, 2018

It has been too hectic during the regatta for me to provide daily updates so I will now provide a summary of the final four days of the regatta. For the entire regatta the wind was from the east which resulted in very shifty, light and variable conditions. In order to do well in this regatta playing the shifts correctly and sailing in the greater wind pressure was key. Good boat speed is always important but playing the shifts was very important in this regatta. Due to the conditions the results were very inconsistent from race to race. There were cases where we were almost in last place and then worked our way to a respectable finish in the 20’s. On Tuesday for the first two races we had very poor starts but worked our way to 23rd and 28th finishes. In the third race we had a great start but finished in 41st. This race was in light wind 5-7 kts and at the leeward gate there were 20 boats arriving at the same time. I felt like I was sailing Snipes again with very crowded mark roundings. On Wednesday there was a little more wind and we had finishes of 38-24-26. On Thursday we had the best wind of the regatta with 10-12 kts for the first two races but then the wind died down. Though the race committee wanted to run a fourth race the wind did not cooperate and died. Our finishes were 37-29-12. Since this was the first regatta Bryan and I sailed together we were improving on our techniques each day and we were happy with the 12th. For the final day of the regatta the wind was again light with the plan for three races. In the first race we placed 33rd. We had a great start for the second race and were heading towards the favored left side of the course. Many people thought the right side was favored so there were only about a dozen boats with us. A very favorable wind shift came through and we had more wind pressure so we rounded the first weather mark around 8-9 place. Going down wind we continued to play the course well and by the finish we were in 4th place. We waited around another 1.25 hours for wind to develop but then the regatta was declared over. So we ended on a high note with the 4th place finish. The Greek “Red Bull” team had a resounding win and did not need to sail the last race. For the rest of the teams it was close but the US finished well with 3 boats in the top six. All the top boats used decksweeper mainsails. The top conventional mainsails placed 14th & 15th but because of the light winds for this regatta I do not believe the conventional mainsails were slower. We finished 23rd out of the 78 boats entered. Here are the results:

1. Greece - Danny Paschalidis / Konstantinos Trigonison on a Scorpion with 30 points

2. USA - Mike Easton / Tripp Burd on a Goodall C2 with 50 points

3. USA - Taylor Reiss / Matt Whitehead on a Goodall C2 with 53 points

4. Netherlands - Hans and Marius Van Damm with 55 points

5. Australia - Brett Burvill / Max Puttman on a Windrush Edge with 60 points

6. USA - Pete Melvin / Ferdinand West on a Nacra Infusion Mk III with 76 points

It is interesting to note that for the fourth place father/son team that it is the son that is the helmsman and the late 50’s father is the crew doing all the hard work. Pretty impressive! At the European Championships in Spain where the wind was very strong the Greek team was 1st, the Austrailian team was 2nd and the Van Damm’s were 10th.

Full results are available at: http://www.regattanetwork.com/event/14553#_newsroom

More information is available at: http://www.f18-international.org/

Monday, October 15, 2018

We have had a hectic week getting ready for the Worlds in Sarasota which ended up with 81 boats registered from 14 countries. The week of preparations included watch the track of hurricane Michael go up the Gulf luckily sparing this part of the Florida coast but doing devastating damage in the Florida panhandle region. We feel for those people who also included some families of our competitors. We only saw about 35 knots of wind on Wednesday with some scattered rain showers to interfere with our boat rigging and training plans.

Most of the big names in F18 racing are here so it will be a great competition. Brett Burvill and Max Putman had an adventure getting their Windrush boats from Perth, Australia to Florida. They drove across Australia and then had the boats and trailer shipped to Los Angeles. They were held up by US Customs for a few days and then drove straight across the US for 2,700 miles (4,100 km) in 47 hours to make it by last Friday to assemble their boats. They finished 2nd at the heavy wind European Championships in Spain in July and have now taken a 1st place in the first race of the Worlds here in Florida. We sailed only one race today because of light winds at the class minimum of 5 knots. After the first race the fleet waited 1.5 hours for the wind the come up in the hot and humid Florida weather before the race committee sent us back to shore. The second place team was the Greek Red Bull team and third by the Van Damm father/son team from Netherlands. Bryan and I faired poorly placing 51st in this race picking the wrong side of the course for the first leg. We did catch a lot of boats on at the top of the first leg and the first downwind but then last many at the last turning mark. The last turning mark and the finish was amongst the most hectic I have ever seen with about 20 boats rounding the mark at the same time going to the finish line. There are still about 12 more races to go so plenty of time to improve. For the tomorrow the R/C has set the starting time one hour earlier since there has tended to be more wind earlier in the morning. We are sailing on the inland waterway but may go to the Gulf on Thursday to race if there is sufficient wind.

Tuesday, October 2

After 2,600 miles (4,100 km) of driving we arrived at Sarasota Sailing Squadron for the World Championships. We are the first team to arrive other than two containers of boats have already arrived. The container with 9 boats from San Diego is due to arrive on Friday. There will be about 85 boats from 13 different countries entered in this regatta including Australia, Argentina, Chile, Canada, Finland, Denmark, Netherlands, Greece, Hungary, Great Britain, Italy and Spain.

September 23, 2018

Alida and have departed San Diego heading for Sarasota, Florida with the boat in tow. We are going to take 10 days to drive the 2,500 miles (4,000 km) visiting tourists sites along the way. First stop will be the World Heritage site Carlsbad Cavern National Park in New Mexico.

Tuesday, September 18, 2018

Highlights and Statistics

Now that we have returned to the US and competed my fourth summer of racing in Europe it is a good opportunity to reflect on the highlights and share some of the interesting statistics:

Best Overall Venue:  Gaeta, Italy for Italian Championships for being located in center of a historic and beautiful city with awesome pizza, good wind, great comradeship from the competitors

Most Ideal Wind Conditions:  Lake Como, Italy for Nacra F18 European Championships

Most Competitive Regatta:  European Championships near Barcelona, Spain with 72 boats

Worst Weather During a Race:  Kiel Week, Germany first day when major squall hit

Best Long Distance Race:  Ouddrop, Netherlands with 15-20 kts wind and interesting course

Best Results Day:  1st day at Nordic Championships at Hanko, Finland with 2-1-1-1 finishes

Total Regatta Days:  32 over a period of 15 weeks

Total Races Sailed:  85 (average 2.7 per day)

Boats raced against across all regattas:  216 (some a multiple regattas)

Weeks spent in Europe racing F18’s by Matt Morris since 2013 as my primary teammate: 25 weeks (almost 1/2 year!) - thank you Matt!

Distance Traveled by Car:  17,500 km (11,000 miles)

Greatest Distance in Single Day:  1,150 km (700 miles) from Gaeta to Germany

Total Hotels Visited:  28 (average 3.3 nights per hotel)

Most narrow roads for driving with the trailer:  Lake Garda, Italy having to manually back trailer down a mountain road

Worst Driving Day:  Autostrada, Italy with truck hitting boat and getting flat tire (2 incidents)

New Friends Made and Old Friendships Renewed:  Too many to count!

Wednesday, September 12

After leaving Hanko Matt and I spent one night in Helsinki and did a little touring of the city.  We did a walking tour on Tuesday morning before heading to the ferry terminal.  It was interesting seeing the presidential house which was the location of the Trump-Putin meeting three weeks ago.  We then took the ferry back to Travemunde, Germany.  The ride was a little rougher than the trip to Finland but we slept very well.  Next we take the boat back to the farm in Denmark to put away for the winter and will visit with the Kuesler’s again.  Over the winter I will be deciding whether it is time to sell the boat or to charter it for next summer events.  On Saturday Matt will fly home and then I will follow on Tuesday after visiting with my cousin Frank for a few days and cleaning up the car.  I will have only four days in San Diego before Alida and I depart for Sarasota, Florida towing my boat to compete in the F18 World Championships.  But we will be also making a vacation of it stopping at several tourist locations along the way taking 12 days for the trip.  Unfortunately Matt cannot sail with me in Florida but I have Bryan Paine signed up as my teammate.  Bryan is a very strong F18 sailor and coach, and has the additional advantage of being raised in Sarasota so is very familiar with the wind conditions there.  I will continue blog updates once we are closer to starting the World Championships.

Sunday, September 9

After we woke up we looked at the Windfinder.com weather forecast which said the wind was going to be under 5 kts all day (which is the minimum wind for F18’s to race) so we thought we might have a lot of waiting and then race cancellation.  But when we arrived at the sailing facility there was a good wind around 10 kts and a large thunderstorm moving over the Baltic from Eastonia so there was concern on whether we would race because of the lightening risk.  But then the R/C made the decision to send us out for our 10:00 start.  When we got to the race course there was 10 – 13 kts of wind for the first 3-lap race.  We were focused on staying in front of Leff which we did for the first lap but then he passed us downwind and was ahead at the final weather mark.  On the last downwind leg Leff went to the right side of the course so we went to the left where we found more wind.  We were able to beat him in 3rd place while he finished 4th.  Mikko continued his streak of 1st places but had too many points from Friday to be a contender to win the regatta.  On the second race the wind was a little lighter so conditions were more difficult.  We managed to race to a 2nd place finish while Leff had a 4th place and Mikko had another 1st.  Going into the last race we figured that we did not even have to finish to win the regatta but we were still racing hard.  We had another good start and were second around the weather mark but as we were reaching at a good speed to the off-set mark a puff hit us and while we were getting ready to set the spinnaker. As a result we ended up capsized.  It was a little embarrassing as the fleet sailed by us.  Once we righted the boat we continued the race trying to catch some boats.  We managed to catch four boats to finish around 10th, but this race became our discard race and the 5th from Saturday was added to our score.  In this final race Mikko again placed 1st with Leff in 2nd but we managed to win the regatta by one point over Leff.  This was a very hard fought battle with four boats in the top.  Mikko managed to eke out a 3rd place over Lars from Sweden by 1 point with an unusual wind shift in the last race which dropped Lars back.

HSF (Hanko Sailing Federation) conducted a very nice awards presentation where the top three teams we awarded Nordic Championship medals.  Mikko and his daughter Kirsikka were the top Finish team so they received the Finish National Championship award which consisted of a broken F18 Wildcat daggerboard with the winner’s names inscribed.   They were both then tossed into the bay with all their clothes.  Matt and I were holding back so that they would not give us the same treatment.  We also gave a Mission Bay Yacht Club burgee to HSF and received theirs in return. 

There are a lot of pictures and videos of the regatta posted at https://sailpix.fi/formula18-nordic-championship-2018/ 

We are easy to find with the red helmets and white shirts.

Saturday, September 8

We have now competed two days of racing in the Nordic Championships.  The weather has been incredibly warm for us which is great since we just came from Italy.  There are 16 boats entered representing three Nordic countries – Sweden, Estonia and Finland and we are the only non-Nordic country entered.  The first day had good wind running from 13 kts to gusts of 18 kts and we had four races.  All the races except the first one were 3-laps so it was a lot of work for the crews.  Unfortunately both Estonian boats dismasted before the first race, so they had to drop out of the regatta leaving 14 boats to race.  The first race was won by Leff Dahl from Sweden who won the 2017 F18 Raid World Championship and also beat Ryan Hopps and myself at the Sandham regatta in Sweden last year.  A Raid is a long distance race over multiple days with multiple legs.  We came in a close second to Leff so figured that he would be our prime competition for this regatta.  The wind stayed strong and there were multiple capsizes and other mishaps that set boats back.  Leff and ourselves battled it out for the next three races with us winning in one race only by 2 seconds.  We won the final three races and Leff was second in all of them so we were leading at the end of the first day by 2 points. 

On Saturday they started the first race at 10:00 am and the wind was much lighter than Friday running around 8-9 kts most of the day.  Four races were run, but the light conditions made the sailing difficult especially because of the waves left over from the night before.  We struggled around the course and had finishes of 4-5-4-2.  For the last race the wind increased a little which helped us significantly.  However, Leff also had to work hard for finishes of 2-4-5-3.  Mikko Raisanen (Finland) and his daughter had an excellent day today with 3-1-1-1 but were handicapped with two races yesterday. They missed two of the races due to a broken spinnaker pole.  Mikko has been our “sponsor” who helped us with our ferry arrangements and made it easy for us to attend this event, so we were pleased to see him do well.  Lars Linder from Sweden is currently in 3rd place and had a good day today.  We were surprised to find ourselves still in 1st place overall after today but only by 1 point so it will all come down to the final three races scheduled for tomorrow.  One race discard has already been applied to the scores with no more discards available.  The wind is forecast to be very light tomorrow with the first race starting at 10:00 am.  We have made some adjustments to our spreader rake to give us more power in our sails for the light wind race tomorrow.  All the boats in this regatta have conventional mainsails except for Mikko and ourselves who have the decksweepers.

Friday, August 31

We were happy to get back on the water and all predictions were for good steady wind. The first race was in 8-10 kts of wind and we were off to a quick start.  We did well around the 2-lap course and finished 5th.  We were glad that our repair was holding up nicely.  For the second race I tried to start near the committee boat but the whole fleet was trying to do the same so it was a very bad start for us.  At one point after the start I felt that we were in last place but it was a long 3-lap race so we worked on catching up.  We worked our way through the fleet and finished 6th in this windier race.  For the final race of the day (also 3-laps) we had a good start around the middle of the line.  The wind had picked up to 12-14 kts which is ideal for us.  When we tacked onto port tack we appeared to be in good position with most of the fleet under us.  After a long port tack leg where we put the bow down and focused on speed in order to be one of the first to receive the right shift, we were in first place rounding the first mark with the fast Italian boat right behind us.   After staying in front of them for the downwind leg we split tacks on the second upwind leg, and they got an advantage on us by going right early  . As a result, we rounded the weather mark right behind them. For the rest of the race we were trading tacks and gybes, but they were able to stay ahead so we finished 2nd.  With six races sailed they now discarded our DNF from yesterday so score wise we moved into 10th place.  It is important that we get at least three more races so that there is one more discard.

Saturday, September 1, 2018

The day started with extreme thunderstorms over Gaeta early in the morning.  One advantage to us was that the power in our apartment building went out which caused all the internet modems to reset restoring our WiFi so now we can update our blog!  The rain stopped by the time we reached the club but the wind was very light.  The R/C announced that we are going ahead with the long distance race up the coast about 8 miles.  When we got to the start line the wind was only about 5 kts with disturbed seas left over from the storm earlier.  We had a mid line clear air start but the boats that were able to tack to the right had an advantage at the first weather mark which we rounded in about 10th place.  We then sailed towards the cliffs of Gaeta with the castle on top.  We were very close to the cliffs heading to the second mark which was also upwind.  It was slow going with the light wind and we had to constantly adjust the sails.  We managed to round the second mark in 6th place where we set our spinnaker.  Then we had the long downwind leg to the north following the beautiful coast line which went from rugged cliffs to sandy tourist beaches.  It was very hard to predict where the wind was stronger but we managed to get some good breaks and rounded the furthest mark in third place with the next boats very close.  As we were going upwind again we had to decide whether to head further off shore or stay close to the shore.  At first we headed further offshore and were doing very well but the 4th place boat headed towards the shore and was doing well there so I decided to stay with our closest competition.  Turned out this was a mistake because later the wind filled in off-shore first so both boats got us.  The R/C shortened the course at the next mark and called the finishes with us in 6th place and told us to go to shore.  Because the wind stayed light there were no further races that day.  Overall we now moved up to 9th place but all depends upon getting another discard race.  Tomorrow is the final day of racing with 2 or 3 races.

Sunday, September 2

When we arrived at the Gaeta Yacht Club we were surprised to see very dark thunderhead clouds to the east in the mountains heading towards us.  Naturally the R/C was not going to send us out with this dangerous weather.  We waited for several hours for the weather to clear and then the R/C sent us out for the first race.   The wind was still from the south due to the thunderstorm so they set up the start line very close to the port of Gaeta so we had a beautiful backdrop.  The wind was dying very quickly as we worked our way up the first weather leg.  We were not in very good position heading downwind so we were glad when the R/C cancelled the race because the wind was down to 2-3 kts and there was a very large wind shift.  We then waited for about an hour for the thermal wind to take over out of the west so the R/C had to reorient the course.  In the first race at one point we were in 5th place but then lost two boats downwind to finish 7th.  The second race was similar with us in 5th place approaching the finish line when the spinnaker halyard blew out so the spinnaker fell in the water.  We quickly retrieved it and sailed to the finish line losing two boats so finished 7th.  We knew we did not have much time until they started the next race so we capsized the boat so that Matt could swim out to the top of the mast and lead the spinnaker line back.  Turns out either the ball or knot we used to tie the spinnaker on blew out so Matt tied a good bowline and we were ready to go for the last race.  Luckily the water was warm so it was not an a problem to go for a swim.  In the last race we did better being in the top of the fleet but finished 5th.  So we sailed a total of 10 races so there were two race discards to eliminate our DNF and DNC scores of 27 points each from the first day.  We ended in 6th place just outside trophy range.  The 5th place boat was only 2 points ahead and 4th place was 3 points ahead so there had been many opportunities in the regatta for us to do a little better which would have put us higher. 

It was a thrill to sail where I had spent six wonderful months living as a 12 year old youth.  The location is beautiful and in general the wind was very good for racing.  The Gaeta Yacht Club (GYC) did an excellent job  running the regatta and we exchange yacht club burgees during the trophy presentation so there is now a Mission Bay Yacht Club (MBYC) burgee hanging at GYC.  We also had great support from some American ex-pats living in Gaeta.

Monday, September 3

We got up early because this was our biggest driving day of the whole summer because we have two days to drive to northern Germany to catch a ferry to Finland for our final event – the Nordic Championships.  Our goal was to drive 770 miles (1,100 kilometers) to get to southern Germany.  This also turned out to be our worst day on the road.  All was going well until around 1:00 pm when we were just north of Florence while I was passing a large LKW truck doing about 95 km/hr (60 mph) with trailer that the truck swevered into our lane and hit the boat on the trailer.  I saw the trailer swevered drastically and then straighten out behind me.  Heart ponding I pulled in front of the truck and then started slowing down.  Since there was not a good emergency lane to the side we decided to keep going.  The truck signaled to us that he would follow us to the next exit where we had to pay the toll.  He got through the toll plaza faster then us so once we had paid he had disappeared and we thought that he ditched us.  But then shortly thereafter we found where he had pulled over in a safe spot and will pulled up right behind him.  I was expecting the see major damage to the starboard hull but as I walked back was amazed to see that there was no damage to the hull.  We were carrying our beach wheels on the back of the boat upside down ad the truck had hit the beach wheel hull cradle chipping of the edge and cracking it but it is still functional.  It is an easy part to replace with a cost of only about 150 Euros.  The truck had one of his left front corner panels blown off which I am sure is much more expense to replace but still not too bad.  We exchanged insurance information with him implying that I was at fault but I clearly saw him cross into our lane just as we were completing the passing maneuver and I was not yet ready to move over in front of him.  So it will be up to the insurance companies to figure it out but we are so grateful that we can continue with our summer plans and the boat and no one was hurt in this incidence. 

So we continued our trip a little behind schedule.  When we were past Verona heading towards Austria through the Brenner Pass around 7:00 pm with Matt driving we heard a bang and then the trailer started acting up.  Matt immediately pulled over into the emergency lane and I looked out and saw that we had blown the right trailer tire (which had passed a government inspection two months earlier).  We then decided to keep moving with the trailer to get to a safer place since an exit was a short distance away.  Luckily we have a spare trailer tire but then discovered that we did not have a correct size lug nut wrench since the one for the car was a different size.  We could get four of the five nuts off with the tools we had but then Steve had to go for roadside assistance.  The Italians were extremely helpful and Matt and the Italian helper got the new tire on within minutes of their arrival to assist.  Steve had to stay at the toll plaza because they would not let him walk back towards the freeway.  So Matt drove the rig to pick up Steve and we were on our way again but very delayed.  We had already cancelled our hotel and decided to drive through part of the night and sleep in the car.  The rest of the evening went well and we crossed into Germany around 1:30 am on Tuesday.  This was very advantageous since there was no border crossing wait that can run several hours during the day.   We then slept at a rest stop until daylight to continue the trip.  Tuesday’s driving was very straight forward especially compared with Monday’s and we arrive in Travemunde Lubeck to catch our ferry in plenty of time.  We had a nice German dinner and then got in line to board the Ferry around 10:00 pm for a 3:00 am departure.  It will take us about 30 hours to get to Helsinki, Finland where we will arrive at 9:00 am on Thursday.  The regatta starts on Friday.

Thursday, August 30, 2018

The first race day for the Italian championships are upon us with 26 boats entered.  About five of the boats were also at the Lake Garda regatta three weeks ago so we know that many of them are good.  Also a few of the boats were at the European Championships in Spain in July.  There are about 10 decksweeper mainsails within the fleet.  The forecast was for 11-12 kts of wind coming up as a thermal breeze.  The first start was set for 1:00 but of course in Italian fashion we did not get the first race going until about 45 minutes later.  It was a light breeze about 8-9 kts.  We got a good start around the middle of the line and had clear wind.  It took us a little while to tack to the right side of the course which was predicted to be favored. This was due to other boat traffic.  Once we tacked we had good wind and speed, but could see that the boats that had tacked first had an advantage.  We arrive 5th at the first weather mark for the two-lap race.  On the first downwind we were able to gain starboard tack advantage and move into 4th place by the leeward gate and then held that position to the finish almost catching up to the 3rd place boat.  Next race was set as 3-laps and we had an excellent start.  Now the wind speed was around 11-12 kts with good double trapezing conditions.  Our boat speed was excellent and we tacked towards the right side of the course at a good time.  On the lay-line for the weather mark we were able to lee-bow the leading boat coming from the right and lead by about 50 meters at the first weather mark.  On the downwind leg the boat behind us was slightly faster and got us by the leeward gate.  He went to the right gate mark and we went to the left.  Within 30 seconds after we were sailing close hauled at full speed we heard a loud bang and Matt let go of the mainsheet seeing that our leeward (starboard) diamond wire had broken and the mast was no long supported.  By Matt letting go of the mainsheet and running into the boat to grab the mast, he saved the mast from breaking, but it also sent Steve dragging in the water on his trapeze wire.  We immediately dropped out of the race and were focusing on saving the mast from breaking.  We quickly took down the mainsail.  There was an American 25 foot sailboat with a retired Navy man watching the races and we first tried to have him tow us in but it did not work so one of the race safety boats towed us which took about an hour (or so it seemed).  During the entire tow Matt was holding on to the mast to give it some lateral support so it would not break.  Luckily the regatta is being run out of a boat yard with a rigging shop so they made us a new wire and we installed it this evening so we will be ready for the races tomorrow.  If we have at least nine races there will be two throw-outs so our two bad scores from today can be eliminated.  Todays scores were 4-DNF-DNC with a total of 58 putting us in 19th place out of 26 boats. 

Friday, August 24

Matt and I have been in Croatia for the past five days.  Unfortunately Matt came down with a stomach virus so the first few days here were not that pleasant for him.  He is now fully recovered and ready for our next regatta.  We were in the small town of Tisno on the Island of Murter which is about an hour's drive north of Split.  This is a beautiful area with many small islands off the coast.  We intended to sail our F18 here but found restricted launch ramps and a lack of good sailing wind.  So the boat stayed safely on the trailer while we rented a rib power boat to cruise around the islands for one day.  We are now on our drive towards Gaeta, Italy to arrive on Sunday.  Next Thursday, the 4-day Italian Championships will begin on the Mediterranean Sea with around 30 boats expected.  Steve lived in Gaeta during his childhold for six month in 1967 while his father was stationed on the flagship of the US Sixth Fleet.  Gaeta is still the homeport to the Sixth Fleet's flagship (but is a different ship now) so it will be fun to sail by it (if it is in port).  We should be able to have a few practice sailing days before the event.  We have only two more regattas before we both return home in mid-September.

Friday, August 17

We are never sure what the wind will be like at Lake Como when we arrive at the sailing facility and today the wind took longer to come up but a nice thermal driven wind developed around 1:00 so we started the first race around 1:30.  With such a late start we knew there would only be an opportunity for two races since there was a 3:00 pm time limit for starting any new races.  The first race was perfect conditions with the wind around 15 to 16 kts.  We had a good start and then lead around every mark playing with the faster Carbon 20's even rolling a carbon 20 after our spinnaker set when they were having trouble with their spinnaker so finished with a solid 1st.  The final race was very similar with us leading the F18's the whole way and even having to dodge a capsized Carbon 20 at the offset mark where we set our spinnaker.  We even won the race to the boat ramp so were the first boat out of the water which is very important to be able to get your boat quickly loaded back on your trailer for traveling.

The awards ceremony was at 6:30 pm where we were a little surprised to be informed that we were not eligible to get a trophy since we are not from a European country.  The regatta was classified as the European Championships and not as an "open" regatta.  Everyone acknowledged that were were in first place but instead of the trophy we were given a pasta gift box and the 2nd through 4th place winners were given the 1st to 3rd place trophies.  Afterwards there was a very nice Italian dinner and we had a lot of fun sitting at the Dutch table who all are very friendly and speak good English.  Tomorrow morning we head to Croatia.

Thursday, August 16

Today we had awesome wind in the 13 - 18 kts range for all four races.  The first two races were repeats of the previous days and we did well with two firsts.  In the third race we had a poor start and suffered disturbed wind from other boats for most of the first leg to the weather mark.  We were well back among the F18's probably in 5th or 6th place.  The reach leg at the top of the trapezoid course was again awesome with us reaching boat speeds over 20 kts where we always passed boats or increased our lead.  We worked hard the rest of the two lap race and finished in 3rd place.  For the final race of the day the dutch boat called the weather leg tactics perfectly so we ended up in second place.  Overall we are still in the lead by a good margin so that due to the discard races we don't even need to sail tomorrow to win the regatta but of course we will sail for the enjoyment.    There should be at least two races and maybe three on the final day.  Friday evening there will be a formal awards dinner.  We will be packing the boat onto the trailer before the dinner so that we are ready to hit the road for Croatia on Saturday morning.

Wednesday, August 15

We woke to clear blue sky and no threat of thunderstorms.  Even though the wind prediction was for light 8-12 kts of wind I though we might have a chance of a good thermal wind to develop and I was right.  The first two races were in 8-12 kts of wind and the final two races were in 18 kts of wind which made for a wonderful day.  In the open classes fleet there are 7 Nacra carbon 20 foiling boats but surprisingly we are staying very close to them.  At one point one boat was up on full foils going downwind and we were holding even with them under spinnaker.  The first three races were fairly straight forward because it was obvious that the left side was favored which side of the course to go up.  Using good starts and boat speed we obtained finishes of 1-1-1.  For the final race we had two Carbon 20's starting right above us so we had very disturbed wind and were going slow.  We could see our F18 competitors move out on us.  Matt managed to find a break in the boats to weather of us so we could tack into clear wind.  Once we had clear wind our boat speed was working very well for us and we rounded the first weather mark as the first F18 and still amongst the Carbon 20's.  From there we sailed to our final first place for the day amongst the F18's.  Hopefully tomorrow is a repeat wind wise and we can complete four more races.  Only two races are scheduled for Friday, the final race day.

Tuesday, August 14

Yesterday was supposed to be the first day of racing but we had periodic thunderstorms throughout the day so we were never allowed to go on the lake.  It was a very frustrating day waiting around for the races.  Because of the lack of races they moved up the planned start time for Tuesday to noon.  When we arrived on Tuesday everything was looking good for having races but in lighter wind.  We were the second boat to get on the water which was a big advantage given 85 boats trying to launch from a single boat ramp.  The course is a trapezoid typically used for World Championships with only two starts. The 30 boats which includes Nacra Carbon 20's, F18, F17, F16 and a few other off sizes all start together but get scored separately.  There was a separate start for the Nacra-15's which includes one boat from the US (Houston Texas).  During the racing today we were typically up with the Carbon 20's which means we were going very fast.  The races were held in 8 - 12 kts of wind with the wind dying on the last race.  Our boat speed was very good and we had some good tactical duels so ended the day with finishes of 1-1-1.  The wind was dying so they cancelled sailing the last race planned for the day.  The second place boat is a Nacra MkIII sailed by Sven Lindstadt and his wife with finishes of 2-3-2 and a dutch team in in third with finishes of 3-2-3.  There are still three more days of racing and they have called for us to start earlier again at noon tomorrow.

Sunday, August 12

We have now been in Gravedona on the west side of Lake Como for three days.  Lake Como is in the Italian Alps just south of the Swiss boarder.  Two years ago Matt and I also raced on this lake but sailed out of a different town on the east side of the lake.  On Friday and Saturday we had two great days of practice sailing in great conditions.  The wind was a perfect 11-14 kts with blue skys.  On Saturday we sailed almost the whole distance of the lake first going upwind heading south and then had a fantastic hour long spinnaker run back up the lake.  Today we were supposed to have a practice race but the weather did not cooperate so there was no sailing today.  We had virtually no wind and a little rain until they cancelled the practice race but then off course the wind started up.   We are already to go for the first day of racing tomorrow (Monday).  We have about twelve F18's at this event which consists of only Nacra catamarans of all the sizes.  The largest fleet is the Nacra 15's sailed by youths with 55 boats.  Thankfully they will be sailing on a different course so traffic management won't be a problem.  There are about 30 of the other types of catamarans and F18's are the largest of that fleet.  There will be five days of racing with 14 races scheduled with a maximum of 4 races per day.  The wind forecast for tomorrow is light with more wind in the later afternoon so hopefully we will get three races sailed.  We are seeing many people from when Matt and I sailed this same event two years ago and many people are happy to see Matt again.

Sunday, August 5, 2018

We arrived in Campione del Garda for our next regatta on Tuesday late afternoon.  We first had some excitement on finding the facility since this is a new venue for me.  The GPS mistakenly directed us to go up a very narrow mountain road and I missed the sign that said it was only 2.2 meters wide (and our trailer is wider than that).  Only a short distance up the mountain we had to stop because cars without trailers were having difficulty getting by each other (in opposite directions).  There were about 10 cars trying to get down the mountain and they were very upset when they saw us saying in multiple languages that it was impossible for us to go up this road.  Then there were also 10 cars backed up behind us so we first had to convince them all to back down the mountain.  Then I started to back the trailer down the mountain but found it impossible to do because of the curves and how narrow the road was.  We finally figured out that we had to unhook the trailer and manually back it down the mountain.  We got about 10 people to all help controlling the trailer down the hill while I followed with the car.  Matt managed to herd this international group to get the boat safely down the mountain.  Near the bottom it was wide enough to rotate the trailer around and then hook it back up to the car.  Luckily we found our correct route and destination shortly thereafter.

On Lake Garda there is typically a strong morning wind from the north that dies between 10:00 and noon.  Then the thermal wind typically kicks in from the south around 1:00 pm. 

On Wednesday we rigged our boat and were set to go for a sail with other German F18 friends in the midafternoon but there was no wind.  We all decided to go for the morning wind on Thursday and agreed to be sailing by 8:00 am.   We did pretty good by being on the water at 8:30. The wind was already up around 15 kts and kept building while we were out.  By 10:00 it was gusting over 25 kts which is unusually strong.  At 11:00 we were ready to go back to shore where all the other boats had already gone when a German boat came back out and told us that another German boat was missing so we embarked on a search for them.  We searched one side of the lake without success and did not notice that the other search boat found them on the other side of the lake.  They had taken shelter on a beach waiting for the wind to die down.

Most of the 21 boats for the regatta had arrived by Thursday afternoon but there was not enough wind to go sailing again.  The first start was set for 1:00 on Friday, but there was not enough wind at that time so we did a shore postponement.  Finally, around 2:30 the R/C had us sail out to the race course and they quickly got a race started in light wind around 7 kts.  It turns out this part of the lake is very similar to the northern section where it is very favorable to sail to the far right close to the huge cliffs for more wind and a favorable wind shift.  We had a good but very tight start near the right end of the line and had good boat speed.  There was an Italian boat that was port tacking the fleet but could not make it in front of us without us changing course, so we yelled protest at him.  We continued and then tacked to the right following the Italian leaders.  We managed to round the weather mark in 6th place and held that position to the finish of the two-lap course.  The wind almost completely died near the end of the race, so the finish was very tight.  After a short wait the R/C cancelled further racing for the day and set Saturday’s racing to start at 8:00 am so that we might have better wind.  Thank goodness we are living right at the sailing facility so that we do not have far to go to get the boat ready.

I went through with the protest and the Italian protest committee of three people was very professional.  We won the protest, so the offending boat was disqualified, and we moved into 5th place.  There will be one race discard after 5 races, so he has already used his up.

On Saturday the wind was up for our 8:00 am start but in typical Italian fashion the first race did not start until 8:30 at which point there was about 15-20 kts of wind.  Since the morning wind is in a different direction than the afternoon wind, we had to learn which side of the course the locals favor.  We sailed three races in the morning with the wind declining so that by the third race it was lighter wind in the range of 8 to 11 kts.  We struggled all around and had finishes of 9-6-8.  Then they sent us to shore for a lunch break and then sailed a final race in the southerly wind around 3:00.  This race was very shifty, and we were on the wrong side of every shift so found ourselves battling with two other boats to keep from being in last place which we lost by seconds but it did not matter since this race with a 19th place becomes our discard race.  We are currently overall in 7th place out of the 21 boats.  Unfortunately, one of our good German friends Kilian went to the hospital for a twisted knee so that boat is out of racing.  It happened with Kilian in the trapeze and foot strap at the back of the boat when both hulls dug into a wave.

For the final day of racing the northerly wind was a repeat of Saturday’s conditions.  Today we understood much better which side of the course you needed to be on.  For the first three races we had conservative starts at the committee boat end so that we could quickly tack to the favored right side of the course.  We had very good boat speed upwind and quickly found ourselves amongst the top boats.  We had finishes of 5-3-5.  Because the races were started earlier today and in good wind conditions of 15-20 kts we were able to get in one more race which would allow for a second discard.  We started near the pin end of the line and had a good race finishing 5th though at one point in the race we were in 3rd place.  But unfortunately, when we looked at the results we had an OCS (over the start line early) penalty which became our second discard.  Net result is that we remained in 7th place over all.  Unfortunately, our good friend Dieter from Germany was hit on his port hull by the same Italian boat that we had the protest with.  There was significant damage but Dieter won his protest against the boat so he had two DSQ’s for the regatta.  We also saw what Matt says is a spectacular capsize. 10/10 for style and execution.  We were going upwind when a downwind boat with spinnaker dug their hulls into a wave.  The crew went flying in the trapeze all the way around the front of the boat and then back on the other side.  As the boat capsized the crew was being dragged in the water behind the boat.

We will remain at Garda until Thursday morning when we depart for Lake Como which is only about a three-hour drive away (130 miles).

Sunday, July 29

When we got up this morning and checked the Windfinder app we could see that it was going to be a light day.  Once we got to the sailing club and the boat rigged we were just ready to put on our wetsuits when we heard that racing was canceled for the day because the wind was very light and expectation to be lighter.  So the results stand from yesterday.  Naturally we were very disappointed to not have a shot at getting back into the lead.  They moved the award ceremony earlier to noon so that people could hit the road.  Three of the teams that were competing here are also heading to Lake Garda for the next F18 event.  We are leaving Monday morning and will arrive in Lake Garda Tuesday afternoon.  Our next racing starts on Friday.  After the awards ceremony we were interviewed by the local newspaper and there will be an article on Tuesday that one of the locals will send to us.  

Saturday, July 28

Today they called for an earlier start at 10:00 am because the forecast was for very high winds +30 kts in the afternoon and they wanted to get races in before the wind became too severe.  The first race was in lighter 11 kts wind heading toward the eastern shore so it was very shifty.  We had a great start and rounded the weather mark in second place behind the Phantom boat.  It was us in 1-2 place to the last downwind leg when we managed to get ahead of the Phantom but then made a tactical error when we had crossing paths so they ended up beating us in the first race.  As we were preparing to start the second race a very large ocean going ferry came right through our race course.  There was a German police boat escorting the ship through all the racing areas and they made the R/C cancel our start and cancel the racing for the other class on the course.  After the ship passed the R/C decided to move the whole race course to a safer area away from the shipping channel so that delayed racing about 45 minutes.  By the time they started the second race the wind was up to 18 kts with gusts over 20 kts and it was extremely shifty because the wind was coming off the land.  We had moments of greatness being in 1st place in both of the next two races but then also made poor moves in the shifty conditions to loose our lead.  We finished those two races with 4th and 3rd while the Phantom boat won both the races.  We were glad when the R/C then cancelled the 4th planned race and sent us home because the wind was building a lot.  Our results today dropped us to second place overall 2 points behind the Phantom boat.  So it is going to come down to the final two races on Sunday.

On Sunday we are scheduled to start at 11:00 and the forecast is for light 8 - 11 kts of wind.  So we should be done with racing around 1:00 after which the forecast is for the wind to die.  You can check results at:   http://manage2sail.com/en-US/event/fd80e594-ca08-4d76-90a0-49e7d0e73c1a#!/results?classId=6f08e897-92e1-48d8-821b-06092ffd41b1

Overall Matt and I are very happy with our decksweeper sail.  Upwind it sails very nicely and tacking is just as smooth as with a conventional sail.  Maneuvering downwind is a little more difficult and we are still working out our coordination.  I think we could have done almost equally as well with our conventional sail in this fleet and there are three conventional sails in the top 5 boats (1, 4, 5).    There were a total of 6 decksweeper sails out of the 21 boats and they finished in 2, 3, 6, 8, 9, and 11.  Below are the final results:

Friday, July 27

Today was a very tough racing day.  The wind came up quickly and by the 3rd and 4th races was over 20 knots.  We had raked our mast back expecting heavier wind and were glad that we were rigged correctly for it.  There were also pretty steep waves which made the downwind legs challenging.  Unfortunately there was one injury on another boat when the spinnaker pole of a boat rounding the weather mark hit the head of the 16 year old girl skipper of the boat in front of him.  She had to be evacuated by the German rescue crews to a hospital for a concussion.  Matt and I religiously wear our helmets but helmets are not in vogue in Europe with only a few teams wearing them.  We are doing much better in North America with more teams using helmets.  There was also a boat that ripped their mainsail in half during a capsize when one of the crew fell onto the sail.

Matt and I are still working out our gybing techniques with the decksweeper sail and it definitely takes more helm/crew coordination to execute a smooth and quick gybe.  In the four races there were three different winners with many of the people deep in the fleet having moments of glory by picking the correct wind shifts on the very shifty course.  At the end of the day we were satisfied with our consistency with 2-4-2-3 finishes but we had to fight for those scores.  We were still in first place overall ahead of the second place Phantom boat by 4 points.  The Phantom is sailed by former German Olympic Tornado team sailors from Lake Constance who I have not raced against before.  

Thursday, July 26

On Wednesday we had a good training day going out around 2:00 when the wind came up.  We were lucky that two very good boats were out training together.  They were the Sach brothers and the winner of Kiel week this year.  The Sachs have a DS and the other boat has a conventional mainsail.  We sailed with them for about 45 minutes and found that we were very much faster than both boats upwind and a little faster downwind.   We went in early to be rested for the first day of racing on Thursday.  Travemunde Week has around 650 boats racing with around 3,500 competitors.  We have 21 F18's registered to race and the start is set for 1:00 pm tomorrow.

The wind came up very well to 11 - 12 kts and we headed out to the race course early.  The start was prompt at 1:00 and we had a great start near the center of the line.  We immediately jumped out with great boat speed and were going in the same direction as the Sach brothers.  Quite a few boats tacked towards the shore so after a short while we tacked towards the shore when the Sachs tacked.  The shore was favored but only one boat managed to cross in front of us.  We rounded the weather mark in second place and headed downwind.  There was a tight race between four boats with most of the rest of the fleet further back.  At one point the Sach's passed us but then we got them back going up the second weather leg.  We managed to work our way into the lead and then finished first.  The second race was similar but there is a Phantom with a conventional sail that was very fast upwind.  They got ahead of us the first weather leg and we were never able to get them so finished in second place.  For the final race it was similar again with the Phantom boat leading around most of the race course but we managed to split tacks with them on the final weather leg and pass them.  We were then able to hold them off so finished in first again.   

We have three more days of racing with a total of 12 races scheduled so have a long way to go.  Matt and I are going to bed for an early night's rest.

Saturday, July 21

This has been a busy week for us.  We sailed a few more days at the CatPoint sailing club and enjoyed the Netherlands hospitality.  On Tuesday we took a day trip to the Nacra headquarters about an hour away to investigate the availability of decksweeper mainsails and found that we could get a used sail with Nacra's latest sail cut for a reasonable price.  This was the sail used by the Nacra factory team that took first place on Saturday in the long distance race beating us by 9 minutes.  We ended up buying the sail and having the decksweeper boom installed on our boat on Thursday on our way to Germany.  On Friday we arrived in Travemunde which is the seaside suburb of Lubeck and worked all afternoon on the boat at our hotel.  We enjoyed the first night of the Travemunde Week festival and found delicious German food from the many stands.  On Saturday we took the boat to the catamaran club which will be our base for the next week.  We rigged the boat making adjustments to the spreader rake and mast rake to account for the new decksweeper (DS) sail.  Matt was very excited to get out onto the water to test the sail and our ability to handle the boat with it.  The DS makes it more difficult to maneuver around on the trampoline especially for the crew because the sail goes all the way to the trampoline.  The crew always has to walk in front of the mast on tacks with a DS but Matt can handle it.  Around 4:00 pm we hit the water with around 10-11 kts of wind.  There was one other typically fast German F18 out sailing with a conventional sail so it was a good opportunity to test our boat speed.  We found our speed to be very good both upwind and downwind.  We sailed for almost two hours doing a lot of tacks and gybes to get our boat handling down sailing by several tall ships that were visiting for Travemunde week.

We have four more practice days before the racing starts on Thursday.  There will be four days of racing and currently 22 F18's are entered including two new Nacra Infusion Mk III's one of them sailed by the Sach brothers who are former F18 World Champions.

Sunday, July 15, 2018

When we arrived at the sailing club the wind was similar to yesterday.  The schedule had for us to start racing at 11:00 but we could see that the morning breeze was declining so we thought they would postpone the racing.  But the R/C announced that we are starting on time so we sailed out to the race course.  We had a fair start off the line but a lot of the leading boats had terrible starts at the leeward pin.  We tacked to head to the right because we could see more wind on that side of the course.  Most of the locals went left so we were not sure how we would do but our upwind boat speed was excellent and we were moving well.  Once we tacked onto the layline we could fetch the weather mark and found ourselves in first place.  Downwind a F16 managed to sail by us but we were moving well towards to leeward gate. The course was set to two laps but the wind was getting very light (less than 5 kts) so the going was slow.  As we neared the first leeward gate the race committee boat was blowing a horn so we figured they were shortening the course which meant to go to the finish line.  We crossed the finish right behind the F16 so we were the 1st F18.  Some of the leading boats from yesterday were way back so this was an important win for us.  Later on we find out that they did not count this race towards the results because the R/C had put up the wrong flag to indicate shorten course so they considered the race cancelled.  Because the wind was totally dead they sent us back to the beach for a delay until 2:30 when we were sent out again for a second race.

The start for this race was exciting because there were some boats fouling others on the start line.  We managed to get ourselves clear and moving up wind.  When we got to the weather mark we were in first place with the Scorpion decksweeper closely behind us.  It was a duel downwind with the positions changing twice but we managed to round the leeward gate still in first but we still had two more laps.  At the next weather mark we were in third place due to playing the wrong side of the course.  We managed to hold third place for the rest of the race even thought the Nacra team with a decksweeper was dueling with us most of the race.  We learned that you needed to sail near the dike because there was stronger wind along that shore.  

At the trophy presentation we found out we were in 4th place overall but would have been either 2nd or 3rd if the first race had not been cancelled.  The overall winner was a Nacra Infusion MkII with a conventional sail (like us).  Second place was the Nacra MKII with a decksweeper and third place was a Scorpion with a decksweeper.  We found that we are very competetive in the lighter wind.  We are sailing eight pounds under the minimum weight so carrying 4.4 lbs (2 kg) of lead as compensation.  We were happy with our results but disappointed that they did not count the first race sailed today.  They are letting us keep our boat at the club through Wednesday so we will do some more sailing with locals over the next few days before we head to Lubeck, Germany.

Saturday, July 14

We arrived at the racing venue after 9:00 am to find a good wind out of the east so we were optimistic that we would have enough wind to race.  Then the wind died totally so the race committee decided to postpone the start.  After reviewing the race course which was identical to the practice sail we did on Friday we were ready to go.  The R/C finally set 1:00 as the start time when the wind filled in from the north east. The start line was just off the beach but very long for the 1 9 boats entered in the regatta.  There were 12 F18's, 2 F16's, 2 Tornados, 1 Nacra Inter 20, 1 Hobie and 1 Dart.  With the different type of boats the scoring will be based on handicap.  Amongst the F18's there were four decksweepers and five boats that had competed in Spain.  The first start was a general recall with many boats over the line early because it was a downwind start which people are not used to doing.  We got a relatively good start on the second try and quickly jumped into third place.  We had a great downwind sail with the wind picking up to 15 - 18 kts.  On the downwind we lost a few boats and were not sure where to find the turning mark but had some boats to lead the way.  On the upwind leg we were hiking hard and going as close to a dike as we dared since people said that was the favored way to go.  We had fun passing a Nacra 20 going up-wind through the channel and then as we were getting closer to the finish area we discovered we were in very shallow water.  The boat was healing about 30 degrees so we let the boat heal up to 45 degrees to keep the daggerboards at a shallow angle.  We felt the leeward board hitting rocks but we had no option but to keep going.  Luckily we got to deeper water without breaking a daggerboard and then went upwind to the finish line.  We were the 5th boat to finish after 2 1/2 hours of racing but one F16 corrected out on handicap time over us so we placed 6th out of the 19 boats.  All the F18's that finished in front of us except one had decksweepers.  This was a really fun day with great sailing tempertature in the 70's and clear blue skys.  

The Cat Point club hosted a great BBQ dinner and the beer was flowing freely.  We have made many new friends and have been offered a tour on Monday of the gate to the dike system in the area.  Tomorrow we will have about four around the buoy races.

Friday, July 13

Yesterday we rigged the boat and today we went for two practice sails at our sailing venue in Ouddrop, Netherlands.  There were three other boats out with us and they gave us a tour of the large in-land salt water bay.  It is tricky because there are many shallow areas so we need to be particularly careful that we do not run aground with our long dagger boards.   There was a nice wind today but the forecast for Saturday is very light and even lighter to no wind on Sunday so we many get minimal sailing for this regatta.  Saturday is a long distance race that should take 2 - 4 hours and Sunday they are planning for standard around the buoys racing.  The people here have been very friendly and welcoming to us.

Tuesday, July 10

We have had the change of crew.  Matt Morris arrived in Paris safely last night after spending almost two weeks in Iceland with his girlfriend Stephanie.  He is glad to be in a warmer climate!  Alex flew home this morning with many good memories of the trip.  Matt and I will be heading to Ouddrop, Netherlands Wednesday morning for our next regatta which is this weekend.

Friday, July 6

Now that the European Championships are over I have compiled some data based on the results for F18 sailors who are interested in which equipment is doing well.  The Scorpion F18 built by Exploder in Poland has emerged as a top boat.  The Windrush Edge from Australia also did very well.  The results clearly show that to be in the top tier of a continental championships requires a decksweeper mainsail with only one conventional sail breaking into the top 20 which was the Italian team of Cristian Vettori / Maurizio Stella on a C2.

Thursday, July 5

For the final day of the Europeans the wind did not develop as quickly as forecast so we ended up starting around 1:00 but the first northerly mountain wind came up very quickly to 20 to 22 kts.  It was a very exciting day with many capsizes.  We had a very good start in the first race and worked our way to weather nicely to finish 30th.  In the second race we had a very poor start and finished 41st.  In the final race we changed our start strategy but were fouled by a Spanish boat shortly after the start.   This race was very windy and we successfully managed the course with our best finish of the regatta at 26th.  Due to the foul this was the first time I have had to go to the protest room but the Spanish boat was disqualified from the race.  We were happy that we had moved up our overall finish to 47th once the second throw out was applied.  We were exhausted at the end of the day and it was nice to have our ground crew of Emily and Chris to assist with de-rigging the boat to get ready for the road.

After the regatta, Emily, Chris and I went to Barcelona for the weekend while Alex stayed at the sailing venue hanging out with newly made friends from Germany.

Wednesday, July 4th

Day 4 of the Europeans brought more wind for the second and third races with the wind range 18 - 24 kts.  We placed 42-38-37 so had our best day of the regatta so far.  We are liking the heavier wind though in the last race on the final downwind leg half way to the finish line we had a pitchpole capsize.  Once we got the boat back up I was surprised to see boats still behind us so we got going to the finish line.  If we had not capsized we would have been around 29th.  It was Alex's first experience of a pitchpole so it was fun.  No one got hurt nor any boat equipment was damaged.  In the second race one boat capsized just short of the finish line but drifted across with both crew members holding on to the boat so it was counted as a finish.  There was also one boat that was dismasted today because their shroud shackle worked its way loose but they will be able to be back on the water to tomorrow since no equipment was damaged.  Tomorrow is the last day and they have announced a noon start and it is supposed to be very windy again.

I will be getting a spreadsheet with all the boat types, sail types, crew weight, boat weight, etc from the Chief Measurer that I will share once the regatta is over.  I believe almost all the boats in the top 20 with only 1 or 2 exceptions are decksweeper mainsails.  It will be a tough battle tomorrow for the final positions on the podium.  One more race throw out will be applied to the scores once we have completed one more race.

Emily and Chris arrived on time by train to Figueres where I picked them up.  They have a hotel just a short distance from ours and will be our support team for the final day of the regatta.  Then we will all spend the weekend in Barcelona relaxing.

There are good articles about each racing day at:  http://www.f18-international.org

Full race results are at:  http://www.f18-international.org/f18-europeans-2018-spain/

Tuesday, July 3

Day 3 of the Europeans saw similar conditions with the wind increasing a bit more over Monday.  The wind was 12 to 18 kts with the higher wind in the last race where there were many capsizes and broken spinnaker poles being repaired after the races.  We enjoyed the higher winds and had our best finish so far at 38th.  We are noticing that the decksweeper boats have a definite pointing advantage over our conventional rig.  They can sail probably 3 degrees closer to the than we can which makes a big advantage over the course.  Our other finishes were 42 and 48th so we have now moved up to 58th place overall.   The forecast for tomorrow and the final day, Thursday is for even strong winds so it should be fun.  With the new decksweepers sails there has been an explosion on innovation amognst the sailmakers.  There are seventeen different sailmakers represented at this event which shows the strength of the class and how the principle to allow different sailmakers promotes good cost and product competition.

My personal observation now regarding the decksweeper mainsails is that if you intend to compete seriously at a major F18 championships or world championships that you must have a decksweeper.  Virtually all the top sailors in the class have migrated to decksweepers within the past year since the first regatta with a decksweeper F18 at the Copenhagen World Championships in July 2017.  Also decksweepers have a clear advantage in stronger winds and make the boat more manageable though crew coordination requires more teamwork.  I have also heard from several sources that users of the decksweepers also have learned to make them fast in lighter winds.  The conventional sail plan may still have a place with the club sailor crowd who do not travel to major championships.  I have also found that many day sailors are not yet ready to embrace the decksweeper.

Tomorrow evening my daughter Emily (the creator of this blog) and her husband Chris are arriving to be on site for the final day of racing on Thursday and to help us celebrate the Fourth of July since the only fireworks we may see is lightening up in the mountains.

There is a short video about day 3 that I have added to the "Videos" tab of this blog.

Monday, July 2

Weather wise today was a repeat of yesterday with moderate wind 12 - 15 kts so we had three races in perfect conditions.  Our finishes were 48-44-44 out of 72 boats and the replacement spinnaker tack line cam cleat held up fine.  One throw out has now been incorporated into the scoring since we have completed six races so we are in 63rd place.  Our best start was in the second race and generally we were doing reasonably well in the first upwind leg but then lost boats downwind.  Our Italian neighbors in the boat park from Lake Garda who are in 9th place overall had an exciting finish in the second race when they capsized less than 100 yrds (meters) from the finish line because it was a very tight spinnaker reach.  They managed to get the boat back up and crossed the finish line losing only 6 boats.  There were quite a few protests the past two days and a few collisions.  The first leeward gate is very difficult because so many boats are converging at the same time.

There is a short video about day 2 that I have added to the "Videos" tab of this blog.

Sunday, July 1

We had a bad start to this regatta.  When we went to set our spinnaker after rounding the first mark the tack line would not hold.  We discovered that the cam cleat that holds the line under the trampoline had come apart and would not hold.  Without a spinnaker it was useless to continue so we sailed back to the beach to make repairs.  Since we could not get parts until the other sailors returned to the beach we missed all three races of the day so we are in last place with three DNF's (Did-not-finish).  One other boat from France had a worst day when they de-masted with their shroud pulling out of the threaded connection with the hull so they are probably out for the regatta.  Fortunately will should get two throw-outs so we will join the mix again tomorrow.  The wind was lighter today than expected at 11 - 15 kts and is forecast to be about the same tomorrow.

Saturday, June 30

Today we had the practice race in about 18 kts of wind.  The sailing conditions here are excellent with warm water, fairly stead breeze and about 1-2 ft waves generated by the thermal wind.  The weather forecast is for us to have the same conditions all five days of racing.  We sailed conservatively around the course and felt good about our boat speed but in these conditions the decksweeper mainsails have an advantage.  The decksweeper boats can point higher and have better boat speed.  For my survey of the fleet about 1/2 the boats have decksweepers and all the elite sailors who you would consider to be in contention for the podium are using decksweepers.  So it looks like there will be a "B" fleet for those boats without decksweepers but we will need to see.  Today during the practice race there were a number of capsizes so staying upright will be part of the formula.  Racing starts everyday (Sunday thru Thursday) at 1:00 pm with three races scheduled per day of 45 minute duration each.  If we sail more than 12 races then your two worst scores are eliminated.  Two Nacra Infusion MK III's have arrived and this will be their first competitive event since their launch.  One is sailed by a top team from Netherlands who placed 3rd in the Brest, France Europeans two years ago and the second one is sailed by a top team from Argentina.

The sailing venue is a resort campground with outstanding facilities.  This is the best organized and best facilities for a major championship that I have attended - and the sailing conditions are top-notch.  Whoever wins this event will have done so in very good and challenging sailing conditions.

Wednesday, June 27

We have arrived at the site of the European Championships.  There are already about 20 boats here of the 70 boats entered in the regatta.  I expect many will show up tomorrow and Friday.  Registration and boat weigh-in starts tomorrow morning at 9:30.  The wind was blowing around 18 kts when we arrived and many kiteboarders and windsurfers were out enjoying the wind.  In Austria we discovered that one of our shroud wires had a broken strand which is an indication of pending failure which could result in the mast falling down.  Nacra sailing came through to express ship new standing rigging to our hotel in Sant Pere Pescarda and it was here upon our arrival.  We installed it on our mast this evening so we are ready to go for weigh-in tomorrow.  The first race is on Sunday.

Sunday, June 24

We had a short delay at the club because the wind was very light and then they sent us out to the course around 10:30.  We finally started a race around 11:30 when some wind filled in nicely but it was very shift so it was very tactical sailing up the weather leg.  We rounded the weather mark in about fourth place.  Downwind was also difficult with the significant wind shifts.  We had sailed to the wrong side of the course and dropped back significantly but then had a good puff bringing us into the leeward mark.  There were about ten catamarans rounding the leeward mark at the same time so it reminded me of my Snipe sailing.  As we approached the mark we heard two horns and saw the flag cancelling the race and sending us back to the harbor since the wind had died so much.  So the race results from Saturday below stand.  The first place boat was a German C2 with a mixed crew, the second place team was an Austrian Mixed team on a Hobie Wildcat and the third place boat was a Hobie Wildcat with two young Bavarian men.

We are already back in Germany spending the night in Ulm and then head to Zweibrucken tomorrow for one night to take care of important trip logistics such as doing laundry.  Then we have two days driving through France and plan to arrive in Spain on Wednesday.

Saturday, June 23

Below are the results for the first day of the Mattsee Regatta.  Wind was 9 - 15 Kts but extremely gusty and shifty with 30+ degree wind shifts and it was very hard to predict what would happen.  There are a total of eight F18's but in the results they list everyone as Hobie Wildcats.  Four of the F18's are C2's with three Wildcats in the fleet.  We are the only Nacra Infusion.  The scoring is using handicaps but the top six boats are all F18s.  There are no decksweepers at this regatta and the people I have talked to say that the "club" sailors are not interested in decksweepers.  For race 3 we were the first around the weather mark but could not hold on during the three lap race.  Tomorrow we have only two more races and start at 10:00 am.  

The Mattsee Sailing Club is a very nice facility with wonderful views of the lake.  We received a very warm reception and had a nice Austrian buffet dinner at the club this evening.  See the picture of the junior sailing club house below though with this facility the children will be spoiled and not know how to rig a boat. 

Friday, June 22

We have had three busy days.  First we needed to take the boat back to the Nacra dealer north of Hamburg to get repairs to our trampoline.  He was able to get it done in two hours on Monday morning and then we hit the road for a full day of driving to Nurnberg.  On Thursday we drove half the day and arrived in Mattsee, Austria mid-afternoon.  We scoped out the lakes and sailing clubs.  It is a beautiful area but the lakes are on the smaller side.  The one we will be racing on is about 4 times the size of Mission Bay.  Thursday was extremely hot and humid with little wind but when we woke up on Friday it was in the mid 50's and very windy.  It is supposed to stay cool and windy through the weekend so it could be an exciting regatta.  The trampoline repairs caused a lot of additional work to rig the boat today so we spent the whole day on boat work.  The boat is now ready to go.  Some boats started arriving this afternoon and I saw an old friend from the Italian World Championships in 2013 when he arrived.  I am having some difficulty with understanding the German here because their accents/slang is so different from regular German.

This will be a small regatta with eight F18's and several other types of catamarans including one Tornado, one F16 and some A-Cats.  We will all have one start with three races on Saturday and two on Sunday.  I was wrong on stating that is was the Bavarian F18 championships; it is one of six regatta which Bavarian sailors can race in to accumulate points towards the Bavarian Championships and all the other races are in Bavaria.  This approach encourages people to travel to different regatta locations in order to be crowned Bavarian Champions.

Tuesday, June 19

So Kiel Week is finished.  There were a total of 731 boats racing in the first session.  Below are the final results that I will provide some enlightenment on.  First place boat is a C2 with a conventional mainsail.  They sailed a very solid regatta in difficult conditions.  Second place boat is a Nacra Infusion Mk II also with a conventional mainsail and a mix team (man and woman).  Third place boat is a Scorpion with a decksweeper mainsail also sailed by a mixed team.  There were a total of 4 decksweeper mainsails at the event and they finished 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th.  Ultimately winning the regatta came down to good starts, good boat handling in the heavy wind and going to the correct sides of the course.   The deck sweepers were pointing better and had better boat speed upwind especially in the heavy wind.

I will provide more updates later but we need to head to bed to hit the road tomorrow morning.  Boat is all packed up ready to go.  In the last race our result of UFD means we were over the start line early so disqualified.  Turns out it did not matter because one of Alex's trapeze lines it came untied and he fell in the water.  After he was recovered by the German rescue team with we withdrew from the race and headed back to shore.

Monday, June 18

We had four races today out on the "C" course ring with the wind ranging from 12 - 18 kts with some gusts over 20 kts.  This was the third day in a row that a cold front passed through in the afternoon bringing stronger winds and some rain.  For the first race we had a good leeward end start and headed left since it was my experience that the left side is favored here but I was absolutely wrong.  The right side was way favored so we placed 12th out of 17 boats racing today.  For the second race we were doing very well up wind and coming into the weather mark in about 5th place on port tack in a heavy breeze.  We had to make a quick tack in front of some speeding starboard tack boat and I failed to ease the mainsheet enough and we capsized right in front of all these on-coming boats.  The boat turned turtle fairly quickly which has never happened to me before in an F18.  It took us a while to get the boat back up but we did so without assistance and continued the race.  After another lap we decided to drop out since we were way in last place to conserve energy for the next race.  There was no damage to the boat or sailors in the capsize.  The next two races we had solid 8th's in both.  We were moving the boat much better today.  The top two boats at the end of today are conventional mainsails (not decksweepers).  I am absolutely exhausted since all the races were 4 laps except for the last race was 3 laps so am going to bed early to be ready for the final day tomorrow when we have only three races and then we pack up the boat to head to Austria.

Sunday, June 17

No time for an update.  It was a tough day but no injuries or damage to the boat.

Saturday, June 16

We had a very exciting first day of racing but not much was accomplished.  At the competitor's meeting they announced that we would do three races with each race consisting of three laps even though the wind was less than 10 kts.  By the time we launched our boat off the beach the wind was already 10-11 kts and was building as we sailed out to the start line.  It took us about 45 minutes to get to the start area.  They started us promptly at 1:00 and we had a good start off the middle of the line.  The wind was continuing to build so was in the mid-teens.  We first sailed to the left side of the course but after the Danish boat tacked to the right we went with them.  Our boat speed was doing very well and as we got to the lay line we saw that we were in the top five boats.  As we were converging on the weather mark we saw that the second place boat capsized right at the mark so we sailed wide around them.  We had a good downwind leg sailing conservatively in the higher wind and a boat capsized right in front of us as we were rounding the leeward mark.  The second lap was similar and we were seeing other boats capsize.  We rounded at the end of lap two in third or fourth place.  For the final lap we noticed dark clouds approaching and as we reached the top of the course the squall hit us with full force.  It was raining extremely hard with visibility reduced to about 100 yards/meters.  Also there was a very large right wind shift.  As we were going down wind we could not tell where the finish line was and sailed very far off course.  Then a race committee boat came by us signaling that the race had been abandoned.  After about a half hour wait the R/C decided to send us back to shore even thought by then the wind had calmed down.  So for all the effort no points on the score board.  The first place boat leading the whole race was my friends Jan and Penny from Denmark who are sailing a C2 with a new decksweeper sail.  There are four boats with decksweeper mainsails at this event.  The boat that capsized at the weather mark was one of the decksweeper boats.  One boat had their mast fall over when a shackle came loose so they were towed in by a rescue boat.  Luckily nothing broke on the mast or boat so they will be able to sail tomorrow.

Tomorrow we start at 11:00 and they have increased the number of races from 3 to 4 since none were accomplished today.  We will be racing on the media course so there will be live coverage for at least one of the races.  The wind is forecast to be strong from 13 up to 21 kts.

Sunday evening you should be able to find race results at:  http://manage2sail.com/de-DE/event/kiwo18#!/results?classId=f18

Friday, June 15

The weather forecast was accurate and it was very light wind today and very warm so we finished a lot of preparation work on the boat.  It started to become very crowded with many boats arriving and I was seeing at lot of old friends.  Most of them arrived late in the day so did not have too much time to socialize yet.  It appears that there will be only three of the new decksweeper mainsails in this regatta with 21 boats entered.  We checked in and were smart this year by being at the door right when they opened and were at the front of a very long check in line.  They have a new process this year where each boat has to check out before going on the water and then check in when they return with a RFID chip that I wear.  This is for safety purposes to make sure they know where all the 1,800 boats that are racing are located.  Tomorrow's schedule is 8:40 attend weather briefing, 9:30 competitor's meeting and 13:00 first start.  There are 3 races scheduled for each day except Tuesday will be only two races.  We are scheduled to be on the "TV Course" on Sunday where one of our races will have live coverage.  On Sunday our race starts at 11:00 which is 2:00 am California time.  We had a nice dinner at the Kiel Yacht Club - Strande satellite facility and will head to bed early tonight to be ready for the races.

A few statistics for this year's Kiel week regatta which is the largest in the world:  4,000 regatta participants (sailors); 10 racing rings; over 400 race starts, 38 boat classes, 50 nations participating and 3.5 million visitors to Kiel anticipated.  We viewed what appeared to be a US Navy amphibious ship coming into port.  There is a large contingent of military vessels visiting the Kiel German Navy base for the festival.  As a side note I first came to Kiel in 1973 during my "Youngster" cruise aboard the USS Coronado which was visiting during Kiel week.  Little did I know that decades later I would become a regular attendee at Kiel week since this is now my fourth participation.

Thursday, June 14, 2018

We went for our first sail today after working on the boat for two days.  The wind was great running 14 - 18 kts with some gusts over 20 kts.  With the SW direction the wind was coming off the land so we had only small waves but the wind was very shifty.  We sailed for about two hours and covered a lot of ground.  The boat performed very well and we found only a few things that we need to tweak to get the boat ready for the races.   We saw several old time sailing boats arriving for Kiel Week.

So far no other F18s have shown up but there are a lot of Nacra-17's including teams from Russia, Japan and many European countries.  The air temperature is in the 60's and the water in the low 50's.  Tomorrow the weather forecast is for practically no wind so we probably won't go sailing so we will fix that last few things on the boat and check in for the regatta.  Right now there are 21 F18's entered in the regatta and our first race is on Saturday with four days of racing.  I expect typically 3 races per day.  The weather forecast for the the four days is looking good with one lighter wind day and three days of good wind.

Tuesday, June 12

We start working on the boat and had a full day's work polishing the hull, fixing lines under the trampoline, replacing the spinnaker halyard etc.  During the boat repair the trampoline was fully disassembled so it was a lot of work to put it back together.  Weather was cool in the 60's but we still managed to get a little sunburned.

Monday, June 11

Alex and I drive to the Nacra dealer near Hamburg to pick up our boat.  The boat is all repaired and ready to go.  Before we load the boat onto the trailer, I have a logistical task.  My boat trailer is now three years old and needs to go through a government safety inspection called TUV (similar to DMV).  I am nervous about whether it will pass but also glad that the trailer will be thoroughly inspected prior to us departing on 10,000 miles of hauling a boat through Europe.  The inspector was very thorough but friendly.  First he found one problem with a fog light feature that I did not even know existed but after knocking on the light it came on so he was happy.  He called me over when he was inspecting the left tire and I thought I'd be off to buy a new tire but instead he pointed out how the fender had bent in a little so had me pull out the bend so it would not hit the tire.  So after an hour we were off to pick up the boat and head toward Kiel

Tuesday, June 5, 2018

I drop off my boat at the Nacra dealer near Hamburg.  He says that it will take 3-4 work days to fix the boat so I am scheduled to return next Monday, Sep 11 to pick it up.  I then drive back to Zweibrucken to spend the rest of the week with my cousin Frank.  On Saturday I will pick up Alex at the Frankfurt airport and we will head north to get the boat and prepare for the Kiel Week regatta.

Monday, June 4, 2018

I drove to Sonderborg, Denmark to pick up the boat.  It has been safely in storage all winter at the Kuesler's farm.  Their farm house dates to 1777.  We had a very enjoyable steak dinner in Sonderborg close to the castle and then I left for Germany early the next morning.

Friday, June 1, 2018

This is an important day because the first agenda items is to visit the German visa office to apply for an extended visa.  American's can travel to Europe and stay 90 days without a visa.  Because I found so many interesting regattas this summer I want to stay 106 days so need to get a visa.  I attempted to get a visa at the German consulate in Los Angeles but they recommended that I do it on site in Germany.  Now I don't need to modify my schedule to avoid visa problems.  In the evening I had dinner with my cousin Frank and his son Till and wife Peggy in the Zweibrucken biergarten.   We are enjoying very warm weather for this early in June.

Thursday, May 31, 2018

I have arrived in Germany after spending an extra five hours in the San Francisco airport.  My flight left San Diego two hours late so I missed my connection in SF by five minutes!  Luckily the re-booking agent snagged the last open seat on the 7:00 pm non-stop to Frankfurt so I was on my way flying on a new Boeing Dreamliner.  My cousin Frank was at the airport waiting for me and helped with the double luggage since I also brought Matt's sailing gear.  

Wednesday, May 30, 2018

Another summer is upon us and I am heading off to Europe again for a new F18 racing campaign whose highlight will the European Championships north of Barcelona, Spain.  I will be spending a total of 3 ½ months in Europe racing F18’s.

This summer I will have two different teammates.  For the first month will be Alex Mudge for the first three regattas.  Alex has been training with me since last October to prepare for the European events.  Alex is 33 years old and married so many thanks to his wife Ana for allowing him to be gone for a month. 

For the second part of the summer Matt Morris will return to take a few months of sailing rest after graduating from UCSD with a degree in Engineering Physics.  This will be Matt's third European regatta tour with me and we have been sailing together since 2012.  His graduation day is the same weekend that Kiel week begins.  The swap between Alex and Matt will occur in Paris on July 9/10.

The Schedule

Our plan is to sail in nine regattas over 15 weeks which will consist of 31 racing days and an estimated 90 races (typically 3 races per race day).  Following is the schedule of events shown on the map of Europe.  Point A is the starting and ending point in Zweibrucken, Germany where Steve’s mother is from and the car is stored. This summer I estimate that we will drive 10,000 miles (16,000 Km) over the fifteen weeks.