Team Seacats

Wow, what a tough crowd!  John Williams and I set up his (mostly) new Capricorn F18 on the beach and launched into some healthy breeze.  Although I had intended to work the front of the boat, as we pushed off, John decided he wanted to work the front and put me on the helm.  This was my first time helming the Australian made AHPC Capricorn F18.  Although I’ve been making up some distance lately, John and I weigh in at about 310 to 312lbs combined so we’re pretty light weights in this fleet.  We set the boat up yesterday morning for maximum depowering to handle the strong breeze.  I think we got the setup mostly right but our lack of weight, combined with being a little rusty, caused us some problems early when the wind was at its strongest.  We’ve been getting terrific starts and out of the gate are usually charging at the front of the fleet. 

In the first race, we had a terrific start but lost a little bit of time in some tactical fuzziness at a crowded A-mark rounding.  Then on the next downwind leg, I didn’t manage the mainsheet very well and as we approached C-mark it had trailed off behind the boat.  In an act of shear odd-ball luck, it managed to get looped around the tiller and John had to disconnect the tiller to clear it while we continued south faaaar away from the race course (“kicking a field goal” as John would say!).  We gained some time back on the fleet but not enough to gain any of those lost positions back and finished in 7th position.

In the second race, we charged the start line just a little bit early and had to try and slow down before we were over early.  I’m still amazed that we weren’t over early but there was no recall flag flying from the committee boat, so we put the bow down and went to work.  We were again mixing it up near the front of the fleet but on the second rounding of A-mark, we stuffed hard while trying to turn down.  John was safely on the trampoline and I was on the wire as far back as I could get.  As the boat stuffed and quickly decelerated, I tried desperately to keep my footing but it was futile and I started my trip forward.  As I went by John, John reached out and grabbed the tiller from my hand and although I was at the bow, I somehow managed to not slip in between the hulls or go around the forestay.  Standing knee-deep in the water and on the bow, the boat popped back up (because John was keeping the steering under control) and I was able to walk back down the hull to the back!  Neither of us could believe that the boat was still upright.  I tried to turn the boat back down again and we did an exact repeat but again survived!  Unbelievable!  We sailed that race to finish with David Ingram and Alex Efre-Perez and John McDonald hot on our tail and finished in 6th.

The third race saw the wind die down a little bit toward the end of the race.  As for myself, I was beginning to feel the rust shaking off and get into a groove.  I was also beginning to adjust to the helm of the Capricorn (talk more about that in a bit).  We lined up for the start right behind Kenny and JC who were obviously looking to duke it out with Robbie Daniel on their hip.  With about 12 seconds to go, John and I hooked in, shot out on the wire, and busted out from under Kenny and JC hitting the line with about 1 second of the gun and at full speed.  We rounded A-mark with the front pack and really started to get into a groove downwind.  John does an incredible job calling puffs giving me help to ‘connect the dots’ at the helm (going puff to puff while keeping the boat at full power constantly).  We managed to stay pretty close the lead pack and as the wind continued to soften slightly, we got faster and faster and we finished in 5th without any pressure from behind.

So what’s the Capricorn like?  The build quality is far superior to anything I’ve seen.  They even gel coated the INSIDE of the hulls!  They rigged some things differently than I’m used to but it works really well.  Personally, the helm is a little heavier than I’m used to and it fights back a bit when turning hard while tacking (that took me some getting used to so I would turn the rudders fully when tacking).  However, although the helm is heavy, it is very tight and has absolutely no slop (this usually takes a good deal of effort and mechanical prowess to achieve on most other brands of F18).  I don’t really feel much speed difference in the boat.  It is a really nice boat that sits high out of the water and is quiet when moving through the water.  It has some neat rigging features and the quality is top notch.  As far as F18s go though, I still don’t think that any boat has any real advantage out of the box.

So today we’re expecting a little lighter breeze.  I’m hoping John will drive some today as I want to experience the front of this boat and I’m looking forward to crewing for John some.  We’re one point out of 6th place and we’re going to see what we can do to move up a spot.

Results can be found at The Helm.