Team Seacats

C class catamarans have a new breed. The Canadian Team, who is slated to challenge Steve Clark’s Cogito next month, have just unveiled their new beast, “Off Yer Rocker”. She is a foiling beast of a hard articulated wing C-class catamaran. Check out the innerview on Sailing Anarchy HERE and the Canadian C Class Cat Home page (with some video) HERE. This could be the first time the C-Class Championship is taken away from Cogito in nearly a decade. The C-class Championship is also commonly known as “The Little America’s Cup” although they were instructed to cease and desist use of the name by the Alinghi camp several years ago….bastards.

For those of you boiling in the heat and dryness like we are in South Carolina at the moment, here’s a cool video in cool weather to bring it down a notch.  Another oldie that circulated quite a bit a while back.  The crew is doing a pretty good job taking pressure off the jib, but she’s just a little late in anticipating the waves…it gets them eventually.  Kudos to the guy with the headcam for getting some good footage.

An interesting America’s Cup article by Eric Sharp can be found at the Detroit Free Press.

Ok, hopefully for the 3rd and final time, I attempted to make the second half of the rudder mold. If you remember, the first time, the gelcoat pulled away from the plug leaving a very uneven surface. The second time, the mold warped (and cracked after I tried to straighten it) after I heated it to accelerate curing of the first rudder. This time, I think I have it! The first half of the mold was still in good shape although it did show a slight curve from top to bottom. I fixed that by vacuum bagging two 3/4″ threaded rods (secured from the scrap bin at work) to the back of the mold and clamping it straight. I remade the second half of the mold using 3 layers of 3.5oz cloth and two layers of 17oz nytex cloth – regular ‘ol polyester resin. Once that cured and before separating the two halves, I vacuum bagged two more threaded rods to the back of this half too. They weigh like 4 pounds each, but they’re flat as a board and never warping again!  I did, however, scratch the thing while cleaning up the trailing edge…I should be able to repair it.

I promise some more US1M advancement this weekend…for now, take a moment and behold: the Hobie 18 wave jump.