It's great that finally center stage has given some light to Steve Clark - the mad man scientist of catamaran sailing! I only wish he had been able to prove how fast his boat was...what a racing tragedy this year's little AC was for him.

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/international/2010/09/16/mainsail.extreme.sailing.bk.b.cnn

there are two more videos in this series - I'll try to find the links later this afternoon. I can't wait to see more.

Very cool Jake!

+1

I guess we are all going to have to go over to Jake's new garage and start building wings. Good thing Jake built the larger version of the garage. I can here it already when stopping for fuel what happened to your other wing and what is that.

If it's more than 34' tall, we'll have to build it in sections! ;-)

I'm starting with a winged R/C trimaran first...hopefully that will be my winter project.

Well, if this isn't a tear jerker....

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/international/2010/09/16/mainsail.new.york.yacht.club.bk.c.cnn

Oliver and his family are truly some exceptionally great folks.

Agreed. But at least he is compensated by the other outcome of the Little AC: they made it to the America's Cup.

When he gave the canadians full access to Cogito his goal was to have oponents and revive the class. He got both. Winning is secondary.

Reg White must have felt about the same when a downscaled version of their C Cat made it to the Olympics.

holy keeee-rist those things are fast!

I was thinking about this earlier today while mindlessly doing my job, and the silver lining to this whole deal is that while it absolutely sucks that he destroyed his wing I know for a fact that there were plenty of things that he would have done differently. I don't know the guy and this is more or less an observation in general, but anytime you build anything more complex than something out of LEGO's there is something that you would have done it differently. Especially true if its something developmental. I'm sure the more complex the project the more things that pop up regardless of the amount of thought that goes into it. Things that could have been made different, but require going through the actual process to make them seen or obvious.

The man does have a terrific attitude. I know I would've been inconsolable, and probably violently pissed off.

Oliver Moore raced with us at the A-class North Americans last week. A great kid. Its a bummer that he got smacked by a wave and knocked off Aetheon (the boat was a smidge too flat and he was a smidge too low). I predict Oliver might even put some leveling sanity into The Great One, Steve Clark. Seriously, Steve has shown me to be an interesting, thoughtful, even philosophical fellow in numerous discussions I have had with him at A-cat regattas on this very topic. With a manic side. Note that they were rolling the previous winning C-cat at the time of the wreck, while using their old Cogito wing. Steve will never quit trying to excel. And adding to the accolades- 2 honest, well-done interviews by the New York YC! I think the lady had never before been on a cat, and she loved it!

You mean Shirley Robinson? She has done a lot of racing on VX40s and is in fact the only person to have helmed both the cat and the tri from AC33.
Didnt Steve Clark in anger once chop the bow of his A-cat of with a daggerboard? (or was that someone else?).

Yep.

That was Steve - but it's that passion (and possibly the eccentricity) that make people like him such a driving force in design and creativity.

The lady in question would spank you around buoys in the weapon of your choice.

She is twice gold medalist at the Olympics, 2000 and 2004. She was "only" fourth in 96. On monohulls, granted (Europe and Yngling). But since then she finished second at a fastnet and helmed eXtreme 40 on the eXtreme 40 circuit amongst other challenges.



I almost forgot: I've also heard she is the only person to have helmed *both* the Alinghi cat and the BMW Oracle tri...

Never before been on a cat, riiiight....

[I should read all of the thread before writing. It appear that someone already corrected you :)]

Karl

Aethon wasn't sailing with the new wing, but with the old one, from Cogito. The new one wasn't ready in time.

I guess they could race against Canaan with the new wing in a few weeks, if they wanted to. Anyway, Steve Clarke will have plenty of time to optimize his new wing and boat before the next LAC. He might also build something new.

When asked for his thoughts on the sudden death of a wing that had been the best the class had to offer for 11 years Clark was characteristically jovial. “That wing gave us everything it had,” said Clark. “The last time we sailed in heavy air, I told Duncan (MacLane, the wing’s designer), ‘if something goes wrong with the wing here I’m fine with it.’ It has done everything we asked of it for over a decade. If it goes down in flames so be it. At least now I don’t need to decide which museum to donate it to.”

I knew he cut it off, don't recall hearing that he did it with a daggerboard. That takes a special kind of "passion" (not to mention persistence)!

Or, is this just a case of the urban legend taking on a life of its own (every time it's told, it gets amped up)?

Mike

No urban legend. He was upset at something that happened on the race course, came in beached the a-cat, rolled it up the hill, grabbed a daggerboard, and whacked a bow off.

Saw the incident on the water and watched the modification being made to his A cat with the daggerboard.

Fred Smith