A Class Cat Regata Nazionale at Centro Velico Punta Ala - Day 1
by Gordon Upton 1 Sep 11:10 UTC
31 August - 1 September 2024
Welcome to the first 'proper' racing day of the PuntAla regatta festival. Next week we see the 2024 World Championships, for both Classic and Open categories, but this weekend we have an Italian National event, a TT series event if you will, and it is being used as a practice/warm up event for the Worlds.
15 Classic and 15 Open boats took to the deep Azure waters of the Golfo Di Fallonica on Saturday in 3 back-to-back races organised by the Centro Velico Punta Ala and under the orders of the Claudio Bagnoli, their President. The fleets were combines, as a 30-boat fleet is perfectly manageable. Next week will see a couple of 90 boat fleets, so rather more stressful for the race committee no matter what their experience.
With a very pleasant 8-12 kt Westerly breeze, the races all got away with no problems, other than a couple of temporary postponements as the occasional errant motor yacht blindly ventured across the course and needed shooing away in typical hand gesturing Italian style. However, even though it was a mere 7 miles across to the Isle of Elba, a rather short and choppy sea stated had built up. This made it hard work for the sailors, and particularly the Open foilers if they wished to try their hand at upwind foiling. The continuous sheeting required to keep the things powering forward, through the chop, meant a number of somewhat earlier to bed nights than usual due to their exhaustions.
The three races went smoothly, no drama to speak of really, until the results were published. In the Open category, Darren Bundock AUS 88,looked to be holding sway, with a pretty smooth masterclass in how to sail these boats in a chop. He was chased variously by Ravi Parent, USA 76 and Mischa Heemskerk, NED 7 and Stevie Brewin, AUS 4, in the first race. Their second race was very similar until Mischa's board rake control belt snapped, leaving him no other choice than to capsize the boat and attempt an on water jury-rig fix, ending his race as a result. That left Bundy, Ravi and Stevie to battle on to the finish with Bundy victorious. Race 3 for them saw a new battle, as Mischa had now joined in again. In a slowly dropping breeze, Mischa and Bundy split at the top mark, and Mischa got the better of the shifts, pulling out a decent lead. Ravi decided to go home while conditions still allowed him to do so at a decent rate, leaving Giuseppe Colombo, ITA 442 to close into 3rd place. In the dying breeze, it was Mischa then, maybe 8 mins or so later came Bundy and Giuseppe.
But it was a shock to see, for Bundy, that his first start was adjudged to be an OCS, thus relegating him to 16 points. With Mischa's DNF on race two, and Ravi's early bath in race 3, it opened to door for an Italian clean sweep with Luigi Camisotti, ITA 54 leading at close of play, Giuseppe in second and Paolo Mangialardo, ITA 300 in Third place.
For the Classics, it was straight bullets for Mathieu Verrier, SUI 44, and he looked dominant throughout. Next was Francisco Mainaro, ITA 583 and the veteran old guard Stefano Sirri, ITA 7.
The star turn of the event this year goes to Mischa Heemskerk and the DNA team. They have unveiled their new experimental rig that has been developed over the last few months but was finally seen last weekend at the Dutch Nats in Hellecat and has caused a huge rumpus online with the usual wild and insane theories and rumours in huge and glorious abundance.
It is a mast and rig that has a bend component designed to allow it to bow, dramatically at times, to leeward. This is rather disconcerting at first appearance, unless you have seen the one design DN class Ice Yachts. Their rig has been the inspiration for this rather weird and radical departure from conventional mast and sail design. The sideways bending rig, when combined with a suitably cut sail, can be adjusted to control the power of the sail when sailing upwind and appears far more effective than the conventional rig which bows fore and aft. The mas is essentially a tube design with the wing shape gained by side cheeks bonded on. This results in a very flexible mast in the sideways direction, and modelling shows it could deflect up to 2.5m. The deflection is controlled by a set of adjustable Dyneema lower shrouds, that are tightened or loosened as required. Upwind they are loosened; downwind they are tightened.
This is fully admitted being very much a work in progress, but the initial trials are encouraging for the team, although this event is the first time it has been able to be tested under race conditions, in a lighter breeze for them and with stiffer completion. It has been shown that it can provide moments of power and speed to outstrip a conventional rig, although Mischa fully admits that he has very little idea what he is currently doing and how far it can be tamed. It needs much more development work, as this is really at the Mk1 stage currently. However, they feel that there is great potential there somewhere and are excitedly exploring the envelope. We all watch on with great interest, and not a little curiosity.
Results in full can be found here.