Team Seacats

So here’s where we are with the America’s Cup. Alinghi has filed for an appeal on the entirety of Justice Cahn’s rulings to date and asked for an expedited hearing. They got the expedited hearing and it’s scheduled to happen on June 5th. BMW/Oracle filed to have the whole thing tossed – we’ll hear more about that on June 5th but the word on the street is that Alinghi has very little chance of success with the appeal.

Meanwhile, we’re still waiting for Cahn’s ruling regarding the date of the event. One would presume that he has delayed his ruling due to the appeal filed by Alinghi – which could potentially negate anything he has to say (so why bother?). His ruling could come out any day but don’t hold your breath.

Across the pond, Alinghi has announced that they have begun design of their DoG boat and will be ready for a May 2009 event…as if repeating 2009 will magically make the October 2008 date go away. That’s the nutshell.

Nigel Pitt and Alex Shafer win the U.S. Sailing Multihull Championship. After years of competing in this Championship and placing the top three, the team of Shafer and Pitt were finally able to break through and take the win by a narrow margin of two points over returning champions John Casey and John Williams and five points over the team of Tomko and Billings.

The final day of the U.S. Multihull Championship concluded today with one last A-fleet heat which concluded Race 11. Off the start line, the points leading teams of Pitt and Casey were unintentionally fouled off the start line by another competitor leaving them both late to the start line while the third place team of Tomko and Billings was well underway heading up the course. Both teams managed to fight hard in the lightish 8 to 10 knots of breeze and claw their way to a third and fourth place finish, while Tomko struggled on the last lap and slid back to seventh. Watters and Burd seemed unable to shake the DSQ from the day before and finished the race in 8th place – still holding onto fourth overall but poised to return to B-fleet in the next series.

Going into the last day, we had hoped to run three heats to end on 12 complete races but with a deadline of 3pm for the last start, and the seabreeze refusing to fill in by 2pm, the event was concluded on the 22nd heat with 11 completed races – a very high number for a championship with boat rotations.

The facilities planned for by the Gulfport Yacht Club and provided for by the city of Gulfport, FL were absolutely outstanding for this event. The Mayor of Gulfport, FL went so far as to present Commodore Bob Feckner and the all volunteer Gulfport Yacht Club with a proclamation proclaiming Saturday April 25th, 2008 as the U.S. Multihull Chamionship for the Hobie Alter Cup day during the dinner banquet on Friday evening. The manufacturer and importer of the AHPC Capricorn F18 catamarans, Fun in the Sun, Inc and AHPC in Austrailia, provided impeccable fine tuned racing machines for this event. Fun in the Sun went so far as to, at their own expense, locate and provide a 12th boat when we had two boats damaged and in need of repair so that we would not have to end the event for the two lowest scoring teams at that point. This year we had a beach support staff of one person for every two boats and they two are largely responsible for the success of this event. In no particular order; Tim Owens, David and Robyn Strickland, Chris Zander (also taking photos), Rob “What about Rob” Van Den Enden, Greg Goodall (AHPC), Robbie Daniels (Fun in the Sun, Inc), Jill Nickerson (Fun in the Sun, Inc), Pete Pollard, and Mary Ann Robertson.

I have been honored to work with PRO Fairlie Brinkley and his on the water staff, largely from the Gulfport Yacht Club, this week. The integrity of the race management and proceedings on the water were impeccable making it easy for everyone else to do their jobs. Lastly, I would like to thank our Chief Judge, Dave Shaffer, and Judges Barb Shaffer and Ann Newton (who in my opinion have one of the most stressful jobs at an event of this caliber) for helping to make this an incredible week. We have had a terrific championship and I look forward to next year.

Day four of the United States Multihull Championship has paved the way for an all-out brawl for the final day of racing tomorrow; day five. The top four teams have unbelievably close scores with a very small margin separating the top four. They’re separated by 6 points all within reach of the lead currently held by Pitt and Shafer.

One team stands alone in not having once been relegated to B fleet thus far in the series – that’s the returning champion team of Casey and Williams. However, that feat has not guaranteed them any comfort room atop the leader board as the two throwouts have allowed Pitt and Shafer, Tomko and Billings, and Watters and Burd to erase their mistakes and come back for a tough finale. Casey and Williams now sit in third with 26 points one point behind Tomko with 25, and three behind Pitt with 23. Watters and Burd, who had been sailing an excellent regatta and sitting in the number 1 position this morning, were protested in a barging situation in heat 9A and were disqualified from the heat giving them a DSQ and relegating them to a B-fleet race which they subsequently won.

Also notable, the young team from Peurto Rico, Francisco Figueroa and Gustava Pinto, scored impressive finishes today with a 2nd and a 1st in A-fleet which lifts them up to fifth place over Brandon Wallace by 2 points. This is an incredible showing for a young pair of sailors that currently race Hobie 16s and have very little experience with Formula 18 spinnaker equipped catamarans. The Marshack team continues to struggle unable to break back out of B-fleet for the second day but they won the last b-fleet race of the day which may enable them to hold on to a top 10 finish position.

Fun In the Sun, Inc, went above and beyond today by quickly finding a 12th boat to use in the event after damage to the backup boat on Wednesday precluded it’s use in racing today. Contractually, Fun In the Sun was only required to provide 11 boats but upon realizing we were going to have to finish two teams early if we had to retire a boat position from the event, worked late into the night and early in the morning to get a 12th boat ready to race.

We’re hoping to have an opportunity for the ground / beach crew to get out on the water with many of the local Gulport, FL residents who have been watching the event to experience, first hand, the final race of this year’s Championship that we’ve all been working so hard to complete. It will undoubtedly come down to the last and final race but one way or another, the United States Multihull Champion will be named tomorrow. Stay tuned!