Created : 14 march 2003
Last updated : 14 march 2003
Classification : general publication
Copyright : restricted freeware
Helen of AHPC has made an incredble offer. Below is her offer to the winner of this year's T4.9 Nat's:
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Australian High Performance Catamarans is offering the "Come Sailing with us" Package as a prize to the best performing T4.9
Use of Taipan 4.9 at the Australian National Titles in Early January
03.
Accommodation for two people at the venue of the Australian National Titles. (Paynesville)
Accommodation for two people in Bendigo - Home of the Taipan - for up to 5 days.
The only sad news is to pay for their own airfare to Australia.
We are willing to work with the winner to assist in co-ordinating the
trip - Organising airport pickups, carhire, tours of "Downunder" etc.
****
All I can say is WOW! That's a helluva lot better than any old trophy!
I will quite surely get my behind kicked mercilessly by the Aussie T's but MAN ! I was planning to go to Australia in the not to distant future (in 1 to 2 years) anyway.
But Micheal, I guess that a Charter Taipan is also included in the package, shipping a boat to and back my be quite a bit more than the airfare for two persons.
Wouter Hijink
REPLY
I see that these nationals (offered as a prize) are well attended too.
I had a look at one of the F16 website articles the other day and was pleasently surprised to find that the Australian 2001 Taipan nationals attracted some 35 boats and conducted some 10 heats (Australian for races?) held in both light and strong winds.
By the way, Wouter, you've overlooked the second comment of the offer. There it is stated that the use of a charter boat is included.
Jack
REPLY BY Rob Wilson
The number of taipans at the 2002 Nats in Australia were closer to 50 sloops and a dozen or more cats !
From memory, here�s the standings after three races.
(Apologies to all if I�m wrong. Also sorry to omit crew names)
1. Mike Hagan
2. Jennifer Lindsey
3. (tied) Michael Coffman
4. (tied) Chuck Harnden
5. Michael Crawford
6. Rick White
7. Kirt Simmons
8. John Maples
1 T4.9 221 Hagan, Mike Rich, Carter 1 2 1 1 4 1 = 6.
2 T4.9 262 Lindsay, Jennifer Stern, Seth 2 1 4 2 3 3 = 11
3 T4.9 189 Harnden, Chuck Harnden, Mavis 3 5 2 4 1 4 = 14
4 T4.9 32 Coffman, Michael Coffman, Theodora 4 3 3 DSQ 2 2 = 14
5 T4.9 213 Crawford, Mike Williams, Ron 6 4 5 5 6 6 = 26
6 T4.9 AUS 184 Simmons, Kirt Ruesink, Geert 8 7 7 3 5 5 = 27
7 T4.9 194 White, Rick Woodruff, Stan 5 6 6 OCS 7 DNS = 33
8 T4.9 215 Maples, John Danis, Rob 7 8 DNF 6 8 7 = 36
Attached are the Sailwave results (as HTML) for the Taipan 4.9 Nationals/A-Class/Open Multihulls held at Gulfport Yacht Club, Gulfport, Florida on November 9-10, 2002.
GYC is planning this regatta as an annual event. It was a great event held at a gem of a club. Gulfport Yacht Club members went to great lengths to make all sailors feel welcome. There were a lot of GYC volunteers to help make everything run smoothly. The Taipan Nationals Regatta if run to this standard could become a must attend event if you enjoy well run and fun regattas.
The weather was cooperative. Both days were sunny and warm. Saturday the winds were a little fluky but Sunday they steadied out at 8-10 knots.
TBCSI offered a variety of races including gates and the traditional triangles. This was a good test for all the sailors and really tested their abilities.
The competition was intense especially in the Taipan 4.9 Nationals. There was a huge prize for the first place winner. The Taipan manufacturer offered to supply the food and accommodations, charter boat and entry fee for the winner to attend the Australian Taipan Nationals in Australian in January 2003. This trip includes 5 days before/after the Nationals for sightseeing. The only thing the winner has to pay for is air fare.
Mike Hagen and Carter Rich (the first place winners) abdicated their prize to the second place winners (Jennifer Lindsay and Seth Stern). Jennifer and Seth (both TBCSI members) are heading for Australia in January. They have promised updates to us so that we can keep TBCSI members informed.
These results were also in Monday's St. Petersburg Times sports section
Thanks to Big Ed and Beth on the chase boat (setting marks, etc.) He had a great time and even got in some fishing.
Thanks especially to Chuck and Mavis Harnden for coming from the east coast, Kirt Simmons and Geert Ruesing from Arkansas and Holland respectively, and Rick White and Stan Woodruff from Key Largo. Eight boats out of 15 in the country. Looks like more may be coming too.
Jennifer and Seth will do well down south. They do need some heavy weather practice though. However, if it gets below 6 knots Jennifer will give all of them a good run for their Kevlar!!!!
Thanks again to GYC and TBCSI.
Michael Crawford
USA #213
A few of us set up our boats on Friday, with three boats already rigged from the GYC. Kirt and Geert came in about 2:30 in the afternoon and Chuck and his wife made it a little later that night. Rick came in late I suspect.
Saturday started with steady 10 knots from the east south east. We did a 4G and spent 1 hour 25 minutes on the course. All had good starts and then Mike and Carter powered away. We all sailed sloop. The course was long at approximately 2 miles across Boca Ciega Bay (just guessing). Lots of wind shifts to play and some boat chop to negotiate.
The temperature was a perfect 80 degrees with the water about the same. Sunny too. The second race was more out of the south and the �A� mark was set up close to a seawall behind a few condos. What a difficult time trying to get around that sucker. I chastised my buddy Big Ed for placing it there, but he said he was just following orders from race committee. It did make for some challenging racing though.
The last race was a slow one, but in the end I could see the onshore breezes kicking in (a benefit of being in the second half of the field!). We were ready for it and powered up from downwind run to reach in a few seconds. We went across the finish line about two seconds behind Michael Coffman and his wife Theodora for third place. We then had a long run back downwind to the GYC when all was over. I didn�t go, but heard that the night out in Gulfport was great with a 10% discount at a local eatery. Gulfport has some real funky places close to the GYC.
Sunday was south wind at 10 knots with three races run. Still trouble with the condos on the south side of the bay (changing wind speed and direction). Also, had more difficulty with powerboat chop. We had great starts all weekend, but blew it on race one with an over early. The pin was way downwind and I didn�t see it (my fault).
Race three was fun until we ran into the back of the GYC�s commodore�s new 4.9. He hit the �C� mark and proceeded to do a penalty turn right at the mark. I assumed instead that he would clear the mark and turn between �A� and �C� somewhere. I was readying the boat for upwind and was just hooking up for wire work when I looked up to see him sitting dead in the water 20 feet in front. Ron was skippering at the time and we had no time to react. We hit him square in the rear crossbar three times before we finally stopped. It was a hard crunch and I thought there would be major damage, but was surprised to find only small missing pieces of gel coat. Wow!
The boat is very fast for a 16 footer and has a lot of things that you can adjust to go slow or fast. I haven�t quite figured out the fast part yet, but have the slow part down pretty good.
Sorry about lack of race details, but my memory is fading.
Michael Crawford USA #213
Here is a copy paste of what was written there :
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Yep,
We got about a years worth of sailing (for us) in the last two weekends. Had a great time - met some nice people and realy had fun racing.
Taipan Nationals were in GulfPort near Tampa. Gulfport Yacht Club is a cool club on Boca Ciego Bay (or something like that) Cats pay something like $400-500 to be a member and keep their boat on the trailer year round. They have a rigging yard and it is a killer place. The wind was pretty fluky when we were there - but that happens everywhere.
Eight Taipans sailing sloop. We had good boat speed against everyone and if I could have hit less holes we would have been right up there. Holes and going downwind. Jennifer who has sailed Sunfish for 20 years or so kept working me downwind. By the second day I was atleast keeping up - but you couldn't rest a second. Anyways a nice group of people and very nice to race 1 design for a change. They have a couple other people thinking about buy a 4.9 and also say they will head to the east coast for a couple of races - so hopefully this will be the start of a trend.
The next weekend we added the spin and sailed F16hp down at Ricks. The first day was fluky as all get out again - but there was wind so that was okay. This was the first buoy race Mavis and I had done with the spin and if it was up to me, we would probably run spin all the time (except for set up time). Not only do you not have to worry about barberhaulers and the like but going upwind becomes the long part of the race - what a difference. Was really surprised how manageable everything was even when it was blowing - the boat definitely had some lift on the bows - I think it was easier to sail with the Spin than just main and jib. Of course I had lots of problems with sets and takedown - my bottom patch ended up getting stuck in the top patch - chute wouldn't go up or down. Midway through what ended up being the last day of racing (for the 16s) My jib halyard broke and the jib came down. That happened in the middle of the 5th race of the day so I figured I wouldn't be able to repair it and get back out there for the last race. Ended up they had 7 races that day (Rick really likes to keep them going) so we dropped from the lead. But we had a great time - Mavis did an awesome job - I sent her around the horn twice once driving the hauls down when bearing off fast with the spin loaded up and then getting caught on a crab pot. Both times she came back strong and ready to go.
I'm ready to go again this weekend! But think I had better get back to reality for a while and do some of the chores that have been piling up.
Chuck Harnden
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Although Kirt, Your didn't send in a report but rather a short novel. Not that I'm complaining though, no sir. By the way Luck was definately not on your side during the races.
Here goes
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[Simmons, Kirt E] Wouter-
I seem to have lost my posting privileges (again!!) on the Forums-
You asked for a report on the races- Well, here's mine-
Tampa-
Geert flew into Arkansas from Holland the evening of November 5th. Spent November 6th preparing and packing boat then I worked until noon on the 7th at which time I left straight from work to drive to Gulfport, FL. We alternated driving until about 4AM when neither of us had the energy to stay behind the wheel so we slept for ~ 3 hours then started driving again. Finally got into Gulfport on Friday the 8th and spent most of the day putting the boat together and visiting with the friendly FL sailors. I was thrilled that we had eight boats registered, including one with a female
owner/skipper and two with disabled sailors (including Geert on my boat). I had mentioned to Geert on the drive that I had my mast set up for myself cat rigged and it was "probably fairly depowered". We rigged the boat and went out Friday evening with Michael Coffman on his boat in very light wind and near as we could tell we were "okay" so we decided to sail with it as is for the first day and see how we did (we sort of ran out of time to change it anyway!). The local "guys" told us if it was light wind we could expect to follow Jennifer around the course as that had been there experience.
Jennifer's boat was the newest one I had seen and beautiful! It had the carbon fiber rudder arms and "Flyer" style rudders, carbon tiller, new Ronstan traveler car (it hinges to keep the block loads in line as you travel out), etc. We stayed at Michael and Theodora's house which was great! We were like 4 blocks from the club! First day was expected to be light air so we set the boat up accordingly. About the time we were ready to launch the wind really came in! I wanted to be out on the course early but decided I might need my full harness (rather than the "butt bucket" I had selected based on light wind and skippering) so we headed back in and I hurriedly exchanged harnesses, unfortunately as we pulled the boat up on the beach the traveler line broke at the splice! I hurriedly grabbed some extra line and we jury rigged a traveler line and took off (in traffic) again- promptly ran aground, got going again and headed out to the course.
We decided to do some practicing, neither of us having much experience sailing the Taipan sloop, with crew or with each other. We also decided Geert would handle the back of the boat and I would handle the front as to play to our strengths. Well, while practicing downwind we went swimming- righted the boat easily and then decided it was time to get serious so we headed to the start.
Fairly aggressive fleet and we got off to a good start but it was immediately apparent we were down on power and speed upwind- everybody else was easily double trapped and we were struggling single trapped. Then, on the second beat of the first race, while tacking I had my feet behind me coming across the tramp and Geert somehow sat squarely down on my left foot. I heard a loud "POP" and felt tremendous pain.
Somehow we managed to complete the tack with me rolling around in agony on the tramp. I was pretty sure I had broken something (turned out to be my big toe!) but also knew there was not much to do except "Stay off it, keep it elevated and put cold on it." Well, I didn't put much weight on it after that, it was sort of "elevated" on the tramp, and every so often I just stuck it in the cold water. And on one leg- while trapped out the jib cleat "exploded" (cheap old Seaway cleats!) and I somehow managed to come unhooked and go straight into Boca Ciega soaking my whole body! Luckily I held onto the jib sheet and was able to clamber up onto the boat, but not before my sea anchor episode put us safely in the rear of the fleet.
We tried everything for the next two races to power the boat up but were only able to beat John and Rob in either of the races, falling steadily behind everyone else on every leg. So, we resolved to definitely check the mast out the next morning. Dropped the mast and measured the prebend and spreader rake (I had only recenlty upgraded to the Proctor adjustable spreaders and had not raced much with them). They were both on the "extreme" side of depowering with considerable rake and tremendous prebend. We promptly reduced both by about half!! No time to do anything else but restep the mast, rerig and hit the course. Our boatspeed was noticeably improved! We took a third in the first race on Sunday and our spirits lifted.
We only managed a couple of fifths after that though due to various tactical and boathandling problems (tacking/jibing was quite painful for my foot and I know we lost ground on every one). Had a great time though and some great meals with more Taipan sailors than I had ever seen before in one place! We also knew our work would be cut out for us the following weekend since the only two boats going to Rick's place- Jennifer and the Harndens- had both beat us in all but one race! Geert stayed in Gulfport and enjoyed the Coffman's hospitality for the next several days and tried to address some of our "issues" we had had (slippery line used for the traveler repair and jib sheets that would not hold!!) while I flew back Monday to participate in a clinic I couldn't get out of.
(End of Part 1 - Taipan nationals - continues under F16 Nationals)
Kirt Simmons
Congratualtions Mike & Carter for taking out the Title. A pity you can't join us in OZ - Maybe we will see you down here some other time .
We will be thrilled to have Jennifer & Seth join us in January. Please contact me directly so that we can finalise plans.
Regards Helen