Sea, Sail & Surf newsInternational C Class Catamaran Championship
Duncan McLane and Steve Clark win International C Class Catamaran Championship
Team Cogito defeats Team Patient Lady in the grand final
dimanche 26 septembre 2004 –
A slick calm delayed racing some hours, with things finally getting underway just after one. Breeze was shifty from the SE generally at about 4 knots.
In the Grand Final, Cogito dominated her rival boathouse mate. At the start of the first race, she started to leeward, and was clearly faster, able to fly a hull in puffs when Patient Lady was stuck to the water. Four minutes into the race she crossed Patient Lady, and rounded the weather mark at 13 24 09 with Patient Lady two minutes back. Cogito just made the mark three minutes inside the twenty minute time limit. Cogito continued to stretch her lead, winning the first race by six minutes.
The second race told a similar story. In prestart maneuvers with the wind building to about 6, Patient Lady got caught in irons and Cogito crossed the starting line with over a minute lead. By the weather mark the lead had increased to 1 minute 20, the leeward mark to almost two minutes, which Cogito held to the weather mark in a breeze now building past 10 knots. Cogito won the race and the championship by almost 3 minutes. Patient Lady may have made a mistake in leaving the curved boards on the beach as the speed differences had been smaller with them. Clearly Cogito is a significantly faster boat driven by a skipper with hundreds of hours sailing Class C Class C #CClassCats #LittleCup catamarans.
The Petit Final was much more interesting. After the first race was abandoned as neither Ronstan nor Invictus got to the weather mark in the specified twenty seconds, the race was restarted in a breeze now respectable by the standards of this week about 7 knots. Underway at 1444 after some serious prestart maneuvering, Ronstan rounded the weather mark at 14 53 57 only fifty seconds ahead of Invictus. The British wing was operating and looking far better than it had been thus far in the series. Downwind the British rode puffs and had better speed to nip the Australians by a second at the leeward mark. The Australians were back on top at the weather mark by a scant 20 seconds. The breeze had been building to about 10 and both boats came flying downwind. They finished overlapped with Invictus just nosing out the Aussies.
For the second race, the Australians led off the starting line and were first around the weather mark by a little over a minute. Wind was filling in to 12-15 knots for a great ride for all. But the Australians continued to increase their lead and won by almost four minutes.
The Australian win in race 2 meant a final race was needed to decide the day. With the wind at about 13 both boat were off at 1608, with the British doing a beautifully timed Vanderbilt start at the boat end starting from about a minute away from the line. A minute later Ronstan which started on the pin end crossed behind the British on port. Invictus rounded the weather mark almost two minutes ahead. The next two legs saw the Australians shorten the lead to a being only a minute behind at the second weather rounding. But the British sailed well in the final downwind leg to win preserving their minute lead, at 16 43 39.
Both the British and the Australians were pleased to finally see some air that they clearly needed to make their wings perform. Still not in the class of Cogito which lapped them as she sailed her second race and the challengers sailed their first, at least both programs could feel the excitement of sailing a C Class cat at speed.
Info cclasscats.com/Ben Fuller
• Final Results
1st Team Cogito. Helm Duncan McLane / Crew Steve Clark
2nd Team PL6. Helm Lars Gluck /Crew Stan Schreyerer
3rd Team Australia. Helm Gavin Colby / Crew Darren Smith
4th Team Invictus. Helm John Downey / Crew Paul Larson
Voir en ligne : http://www.cclasscats.com/
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