Team Seacats

Day three of the United States Multihull Championship again shook up the results after a tough day of racing on the water in some shifty breeze. The day started off in a healthy 13 knots as Pitt/Shafer stood atop the leader board with a 9 point lead over returning champions, Casey/Williams. The early racing in the morning saw several lead changes and the team of Ken and Ian Marshack, who had been consistently placing well in A-fleet, struggled and dropped back to B fleet where they have not been able to escape for the rest of the day. After three completed races (six heats), the Marshacks have dropped from third to sixth. The team of Tomko and Billings, who had suffered from an OCS penalty yesterday, posted good finishes of 5, 3, and 4 in a-fleet and once we reach the end of the 8th race, are standing in 4th place.

The most surprising event today was that the teams of Pitt/Shafer, leading the event, and Krantz/Lennard were involved in a collision that resulted in a DSQ for Pitt dragging them down the leader board as they were relegated to B-fleet. Currently Pitt/Shafer, our leaders through day 2, now stand in 3rd position 2 points behind a 2-way tie for first between returning champs, Casey/Williams, and another team quietly posting solid A-fleet results, Watters/Burd. At the end of Day 3, Watters/Burd, even after hitting a sandbar and damaging the daggerboard well of their boat for the last race, have been the consistent sailors finding themselves now tied for first place with two days of racing left.

With 8 complete races recorded to date, we’ve seen a multitude of changes in the standings for the Championship. Once we achieve ten complete races, the sailors will benefit from a second throw-out, which will undoubtedly have an interesting affect on the scores. Tomko, who was at the front of the fleet early but suffered an OCS penalty, will suddenly find himself back in the hunt as will Pitt / Shafer. With two days of racing still remaining, the Alter Cup is up for grabs as a handful of the best US Multihull sailing teams are still in contention for the win.

Going into the third day of racing, this is where we stand:

Today’s United States Multihull Championship continued the success from yesterday with another five heats of racing. The Fun In the Sun, Inc supplied AHPC Capricorn catamarans are holding up exceptionally well allowing for even shorter turn around times today as we work out the last few exceptionally minor bugs.

Today’s racing started out in a lightish and shifty 10 knots of breeze with our round 3 A-fleet. The team of Watters and Burd were late getting dressed and pushed off the beach and were even later getting to the start line. They were 35 seconds late to the start line after the gun went off as the other 9 teams tried to sort out the best lanes to A-mark. Returning Champions, Casey and Williams, had difficulty getting to A quickly and rounded in 9th position. Watters and Burd, on the other hand, seemed to have pulled off a miracle and had already overcome much of their startline disadvantage and rounded in 6th. By the end of our race, all of the current standings leaders had not managed the shifty air incredibly well with Tomko scoring a 4, Pitt a 5, and Casey digging out from the back of the heat with a 6th. Watters and Burd had obliterated their startline disadvantage and won the heat!

B fleet managed to get another race where the teams of Gillespi, Ingram, and Olsen finishing in the top three and picked up a promotion to the next A fleet. The mildly unstable 10 knots of breeze then fell to the sea breeze and we sat for about an hour while the new fresh breeze settled in. Once we got things underway with race 4A, things got interesting. After the start, we could see from the beach that an OCS flag was flying off the committee boat as Fairlie Brinkley’s sharp staff had identified at least two boats that were over early. The racing continued and we watched the team of John Tomko and Ian Billings race a terrific race holding 2nd place or better for the entire race and to finish in the lead. We learned that Tomko and Whitte were both OCS which gave them last place finishes “flushing” them to the next B fleet race. OCS penalties are very costly as the OCS teams, now relegated to B fleet after the 11 point OCS score, can score no higher than 11 points in the next round.

With a scheduled 6:30 dinner hosted by the Gulfport Yacht Club and with chef services by Tom Feckner (I’ve heard the menu is to be outstanding!), we decided to run two more races and call it a day. The team of Nigel Pitt and Alex Shafer scored a very impressive bullet in their A fleet race while Casey and Williams seemed to continue to struggle today with a 4th place finish. The standings now have Pitt and Shafer in the lead with 6 points followed by Casey Williams with 12 in second place overall. The dark-horse team of Ken and Ian Marshack has been quietly recording great finishes and are sitting in 3rd place with 13 points due largely to their consistency.

Tomorrow should bring more excellent breeze and another great day of racing. It’s early but already the results pattern established on day 1 were completely shaken up on day 2 – who can maintain the consistency required to win a championship of this magnitude? Perhaps tomorrow will give us some additional insight.

This is a pretty crudy image – but here are the results from Day 1′s competition. B fleet sailed the 1st half of race 3 last night so we start this morning with the second heat of race 3 with the A fleet competitors.

The first day of racing for the US Sailing Multihull Championship has concluded after an excellent series of five heats and two completed races (two heats constitute one race). After the first day of racing the returning champions, John Casey and John Williams, are sitting atop the leader board with 2nd and 1st place finishes. They are very closely followed by Nigel Pitt and Alex Shafer with 4 points John Tomko and Ian Billings with 5 points. The 20 teams pushed their high performance catamarans from the white sandy beach of Gulfport, FL into the 10 to 18 knot breeze for racing around a course operated by PRO Fairlie Brinkley. The husband and wife team of Olli and Kelly Jason are poised in a 5th place position followed by Ken Marshack and son Ian Marshack. The Marshacks had led race 2A for one full lap before a brush with C-mark led them to a 360 degree penalty turn and a drop to 5th place for that heat. The wind and weather were so spectacular that the fleet gladly continued racing until 7:30pm until we had to stop for losing daylight and still, not one complaint was had. The top 20 multihull teams in the nation are satisfactorily exhausted and headed for dinner while they are undoubtedly working on their game plans to find that extra inch of boat speed and to establish goals for tomorrows racing which starts in the morning at 10:55am.

Robbie Daniel of Fun in the Sun, Inc, and Greg Goodall of Australian High Performance Catamarans (AHPC), who have provided the 10 new AHPC Capricorn F18 catamarans for the event, have contributed 10 very solid boats that have allowed us to record 5 heats on the first day of racing with very few minor issues permitting us to achieve short fleet rotation turn-rounds. Gulfport Yacht Club has graciously paved the way with the race committee, facilities, local city authorities, and provide thus-far superb hosting. We’re excited to record more racing tomorrow in what should hopefully continue the established pace and rhythm of, what has already been the beginning of, a stellar championship.

Chris Zander has been taking some incredible photos out on the water. Here’s a few of my favorite for the day. For the rest, go to the entire set