|
I just finished the Rick White Catamaran school two weeks ago. This
is a week course by Rick White (past NA Tornado Champ) along with his
wife. The Guest speaker was Randy Symthe, multihull racer par excellence
and driver of Super Lube, the Formula 40 that won every proSail event
last year (his boss bet the world a $100,000 a race no one could beat
him!). The course is based on the Canadian Olympic training school.
The format was to have yourself and boat ready to go at 9 am sharp.
There would be 15 talk on the drills for the morning. This would consist
of a warmup excercise such as circle 8s around two bouys before having
2-3 drills with a multiple attempts on each. This would be followed by a
debriefing before lunch. After an hour, there would a second 15 min
class followed by a warmup excercise and then 2-3 more different drills.
This would go from 1 till 4:30. We would then wash up and get dinner. At
7 pm we would go to a large room and review 1-2 hours of video film from
the day. This would be followed by an hour on some aspect of Catamaran
sailing and how we would practice it the next day. At 10 pm, we would
leave to get some sleep.
The class was held in New Bedford Mass at the Low Tide Yacht Club,
although most people take the class at Rick's Florida Keys location.
Although the class was requested by the New England Nacra Association,
none of them showed up. Instead there were appr 30 people on 23 boats.
Most were Hobie 16, 17, and 18 SXs. There was a brand new Prindle 19
from New Jersey and a gentleman with a F-27 that crewed up on a Hobie.
Most the Hobie Catters were racers from New England who knew each other.
The class started Sunday when we put our boats together and then had a
cookout. This was followed by a class on boat handling. We got into
timed started, stopping, backing into a starting line, and making the
boat just sit until we wished to go. This was followed by a lecture on
roll tacking a catamaran. Rick says it could be done in 5 seconds or
less. Right!!! ;>) It was then time for sleep.
Monday started windy and clear. 15-17 knts. The warmup was doing
circles around two bouys. This was very "interesting" as no one knew one
another, and many people would blow their roll tacks. The first drills
were coming to the line. Now most classes are pretty easy on this, but
up in New Bedford, we knew each other from too many regettas over too
many years. The problem was that we had different type boats that needed
different styles to start. I'll be discreet and say a bit of gelcoat was
lost during the fray. Especcially the poor souls with the new Prindle. I
saw one Hobie 17 pilot barrel in for a start only to lose his tiller as
it hit the sideshrouds on the boat beside him. He then raked the new
graphics clean off the Prindle. As the P-19 owner screamed, a Pro-Sail
21 went to the leeward and started pointing as the gun went off. This
caused the 21's wing to denude the graphics from the Prindle's other
hull. We managed to duck low and get decent starts, but having the
"bumper" wings on has a way of keeping Yahoos away.
The next drill was backing up and holding still. Not too difficult.
The next excercise consisted of starting on time, and roll tacking 10
times before getting to the windward mark (not very far away). This had
some close calls as 20+ boats tacking close by is no picnic. After about
4 of these, people were getting tired and sore. I was switching off
captaining with another person since my normal crew couldn't make it. By
now the wind was really going. I was crewing when we got caught on port
at the windward mark. We had ducked 4-5 boats on the starboard parade
and thought we could make it right behind a hobie 16 that had just roll
tacked. What we didn't see was there was another Hobie 16 right behind
it in irons floating backward. I'm here to tell you there is no worse
feeling than being trapped out on a wire on a flying hull on a port
tacked boat with 10 starboard boats coming down on you and nowhere to
go. The captain tried to shut her down, but we had too much juice. As we
tried to crank her up into irons we hit the 16 at the rear pylon. Damage
was $0.11 of neoprene on the 16. On my boat, the bow has trashed and
shifted to the left. We limped her in and ducted taped the nose
together. Seemed to hold so we were ready for the afternoon. A Hobie 21
got T boned and cut it's hull from the deck to the keel. A garbage bag
and some duct tape made it well too. For those of you who wonder why
Hobie's are heavy, it's so that you can duct tape them back together and
get back into the fray :>) .
The afternoon consisted of more boat handling practice started by a
circle 8 between two bouys. With the wind up and memories of the early
morning carnage, people were being carefull out there. That night I got
to see our pileup in slow motion as the camera boat was just upwind of
us shooting pictures of the ordeal. Not a good day, but hey, there is
always tomorrow. Rick and his wife said most classes are made up of
people from all over the US with different boats. Because of this, the
students are more cautious. They remarked we were the most "aggressive"
group they had ever encountered. Swell, just swell ;>( Everyone went
to bed beat to dog poop. How were we ever going to make it to Friday????
Woke up Tuesday and it is howling 20-25 knots. Seas are 3-4 and
building. Visibility is so-so. We do our warm-up and practice staying in
a box consisting of 4 bouys. Once everyone was in it, there was a 3 min.
countdown until the gun went off. During that time, no-one could leave
the box. When the gun went off, we would leave the start line and follow
a course around the 4 bouys. The box was not very big and 23 boats take
up a lot of room. Felt like the old Jim Bowie movie where they lock two
guys up in a dark room with nothing but knives. Winner gets to walk out
alive. Roll tacking, gybing, What work!!. We did very well in the first
try. On the second iteration my crew was captaining. We got a clean
start near the committee boat with 30 seconds to go. Randy Smythe yells
"Nice Going". My captain starts cranking up the boat. As the whistle
goes off, we are ballistic, but he has missed the fact the boats in
front of us are all stalled. He dodges the first one, but runs right up
the back of the second. The poor captain sees up coming and trying to
turn right, but this only causes us to roll their boat over on top of
them them. Luckily no one was hurt. No damage to their boat, but my soft
bow is now shot and taking on water. We limp it back to the shore.
After a flurry of activity, we find a boat maker who is having a slow
day. A quick stripping of the mast and other non-essentials, and it's
off to the shop for a 6 hour marathon hull rebuilding session. I'll fill
the gory details on this one in on a fibreglass repair note. Lets just
say by 11 pm there is a rebuilt SX with "lipstick" (pink wax release
agent) back on the beach, and a very tired dejected owner getting
cleaned up to go to sleep. I missed the evening meeting, but I hear the
"experts" got caught in the middle of a high speed rounding excercise.
One of the old salts on a Hobie 17 had nowhere to go and resorted to
flying a hull over the film crew's power skiff in over not to punch
through it. Yet another Hobie 16 got trashed from a novice on port.
Come Wednesday, I have a new crew. While I was out working on my
boat Tuesday, my crew managed have a bit of an accident on another 18
that needed crew (his bailed out from back spasms). My crew is now
feeling he is jixed on other people's boats and is going to sail his
Hobie 17 alone. I take on the other skipper.
The storm is gone and the day is warm and sunny with light (5-7 knt)
winds. We practiced inside overlaps at the leeward pin all day. Lots of
bumping, but nothing serious. One poor soul had her boat tagged 8 times.
After a while everyone was warning poor Deb that they were near her, and
all the other boats would chime in. The class was really coming together
as everyone was much more confident of their boat handling skills and
starting to get a handle on all the other boat's weaknesses. They were
also getting to be quite aware of the racing rules of the road, as any
infraction would draw a comment from the instructors via bullhorn to
half of buzzards bay! It was also a time to refine roll tack after roll
tack. The afternoon started with Randy Symthe going over each type of
Catamaran to explain how they work, what to look for, and when to use
the adjustments. Then it was off to the water for gybing drills. The
winds were up to 10-15 with fairly flat seas. The excercise was to drive
down a chute of markers just like an auto rally course. The course was
tight with lots of different angles, and you always had lots of people
in front and behind you, so you really had to work the boat. At the end,
you would gybe to the right and go to weather until you could tack off
for another run. This was wet, wild and a lot of fun. One also had to
watch the angles as looseing the wrong sheet would cause a pitchpole.
This was followed by pairing off and running different tacks with a
sister boat to find the favored side of the course followed by a gybing
return. It showed that the favored side of a course upwind is ussally
the opposite of the favored side down wind. Finally, we had to unlearn
going to the weather mark in only two tacks. This is a norm on
Catamarans where tacking costs too much time. We also had to pick funny
lines going downwind to the leeward mark. This was to dispell the notion
of playing follow the leader when one gets behind.
The days were going quickly, too quickly. Night lectures were
getting tough to keep up with because of fatigue. But we were almost
done. After the crashes, I had lost any confidence I came with, but by
Wednesday night I was feeling better.
On thursday the airs were again light. Randy started off with a 30
minute discussion on the use of Spinnakers on multihulls. Wonderful
talk. Then it was off to the water for a day of run rabbit run.
Basically, a boat would be given between .5 to 1.5 minute head start
provided everyone stayed out of their way. They would then complete a
windward/leeward leg before finishing. The rest of us would try and
catch them. Whoever was the rabbit had Randy Symthe follow behind them
pointing out bad habits, mistakes and giving tactical advice. The camera
boat would be around for most of the run too. For the rest of us, we had
a chance to practice all facets of the sport. Lots of pratice. In fact,
23 races worth. By the end of Thursday, I was roll tacking without my
normal crew in 8 seconds start to finish. Hummm, some of this must be
paying off...
Special credit must go to Decie Jeff Duncan. Jeff is an avid Hobie
Catter. Unfortunetly, his back is on the mend and he couldn't do the
course. Instead, Jeff takes the week off to help the instructors. This
ussally meant working the committee boat including signals which were
nothing more than a whistle. With 15 whistles needed per race, Jeff
showed superhuman effort. And he was always on time. When one of the
boats got trashed, it was Jeff who offered all or part of his own boat
to get the poor souls back on the water. Real "Can do" attitude!.
Thursday night was a 3 hour review of all the races. Lots of
critique going on. Very helpful. This was followed by a beer blast with
the sponcering Low Tide Yacht Club.
Friday came early and people looked bad from the prior night ;>) .
There was no wind, so Rick and Randy went through every rigged boat and
checked them for proper setup. During this time you could ask any
question in the world ( How good are the Pro Sailors, whats you favorite
race, What is the future of Catamarans, Would you like to crew for me
this weekend??? ).
Both Rick and Randy are nice guys. Folks you would want for neighbors.
Nothing like the Chicken poop you see from the AC boys. Since it was a
half day class, we then lit up the grill and had a party. Rick and Randy
left mid afternoon since Randy had to get home to ship a Tornado over to
Europe the next day.
Come the weekend, there was the Buzzard, the BBR of Multihulls. We
did so-so, but lots of that can be measured on the fact we were part of
the host committee, and didn't get prepared for the race. The fact we
were dueling for 2nd in 2 knots of wind with 170 lbs of extra weight
says it all. On Sunday the winds picked up and so did we. We took out
half the Hobie 21s on normal time, and gave the other SXs a run (most
were in the class with us ;>( ). The SX pilot who took the last 6
regattas learned what the back of the pack is all about (us students did
horizon jobs on him). After the race when I had pulled all the boats off
the beach, one of my competitors came up and said "Last year I won this
race hands down. This year I took third. I've been racing cats for 16
years and have 8 years on this model. You guys sure sailed super out
there today".
Before the race I talked to the organizer. I told him to assemble a
real good protest committee cause 1/3 the fleet knew the rules and were
going to be pushing their new skills. Damn if I wasn't on the mark as
lots of skippers found out what inside overlap and luffing rights were
all about for the first time.
Did I enjoy myself, Sure did. All of us did.
Did I learn something? Yes.
Would I do it again? Hope to in a year or so.
There was a lot of breakage, but Rick said it was above
average. But then the Buzzard is known for causing hijinks on the bay
;>) . But All of us learned. And that is what the class is about. My
advice is to bring an old boat and knee pads and 2 sets of gloves (wore
out the palms of 1 pair in 3 days). Also, one should get into shape
before attending.
If you really want to learn how to race small multihulls, this is an
excellant course.
john
|