Won on an old Hobie Tiger. FN classic! What does that tell ya?

That he had the best crew.

I was wondering when someone was going to bring up that he won on a Tiger....

To me, that means the Formula is working AND the best team is going to win no matter what boat they are on.....

or...... He's so freakishly good that despite being on a inferior boat, he still can kick butt.

I agree with you, just good to look at it from the other side.

Bingo!!!

I'm not saying the Tiger is inferior, Mischa is THAT good.

The formula seems to be working extraordinarily well.

Can someone put me in touch with any of the event photogs?
Thx,
J

[email protected]

Lets see him race on an aqua-cat next time!

Thanks John. We sailed our best for this regatta and almost pulled it off, just had some bad luck in the last race (some brought on by ourselves, doing a 360 in 3 knots of breeze is not fast!) and having already used up our drop on the first race (which we finished second, guess the head start helped, woops) our standing took a hit.

That said, wow, what an event, again the club put on a great show, great food, great support on land and on water. Tonnes of "if only" and "what ifs" on a lot of teams minds this week I'm sure, but at the end of the day, wow, weren't those first two days fun!

Thanks to all the competitors for pushing themselves and the fleet to a new level ever year,

Cheers,
-Patrick

Matt, the waves and puffs (as Todd mentioned) made it hard for those of us who don't train in those conditions that often to stay on the line, that and our OCS made us bit nervous ;-)

Dave, We use a speedpuck set on speed, although we are considering moving to something (perhaps the new velocitek coming out soon) that shows both speed and heading as both are valuable tools to have while racing. On the last day in light air the speed helped us know if the main was under / over trimmed, but the lack of compass heading didn't help us keep track of the big shifts going on.

That said, if you are gifted you need either, but who is ever that gifted (cough cough, Misha, cough cough) :-)

The speedpuck uses a gps, i'm pretty sure the rules dont allow it for racing.

The US Fleet created a set of prescriptions for the 2010 NAF18 Championship to allow the device and the fleet voted to keep those prescritions in effect until the 2010 WC vote in December at which time all the prescriptions (for the US) will expire. I supsect the CA fleet did something similar since the CA F18 President was at the USF18 fleet meeting last August.

Where do you stand? I was opposed, for no particular reason, but now that I use one I'm not so sure.

Yes, the Can fleet followed the US, as far as I know, hence why a lot of people were using the speedpuck at the Can nats (its simply cheaper then the tactic compass).

I'm a bit worried about GPS in our fleet when it gets easy to "ping" start lines and marks (giving you distance to layline, distance to start line, etc), but for now that is hard to do given the physical distance from where you need to put the device on an F18 (yes, the Rockbox has a remote, never used it, so it may be possible). That said, not sure if it is really an issue, as no device will ever ensure you win. Also, distance to start line probably doesn't help much in an F18 given the lack of "to the inch" accuracy of GPS and the style of starts we do (no big boat "start your momentum at 1 minute" starts), and layline distance assumes constant knowledge of wind direction, which would require more tech to be accurate.

To me the ideal device for an F18 would be Speed, heading and estimated VMG (for both upwind and downwind). Speed (and hence VMG) would need GPS to work. The SC-1 from Velocitek does this but in a package that is not that appealing to F18s (to big / bulky, can't reach buttons). They have a new product coming out soon, the SC2 which looks to solve this issue (fingers crossed).

My 2 cents, back on subject, loved the Nats and I hope next year everyone does the NAs and Can Nats back to back, would be a great couple weeks of racing!

Dave and I use a Nova Sail NS360 unit. Best of both worlds - dual displays (top/bottom) fluxgate compass chip for determining heading, and GPS chip for determining speed, vmg, course over ground, etc. Also has countdown timer and LED backlighting. Total package @ $499 from most of the on line retailers.

That does sound like a great product, have you used the VMG stuff in it? Looks similar to how velocitek does it (tell the box the wind direction). I've always liked that idea until the wind shifts, then it will be useless.

No remote also means not very useful given where you need to put it on a cat (out of reach on the spi pole just inside the jib on our F18).

Thoughts?

I'll throw something onto the F18 forum in a little bit - it should be noted that the US Class voted on some pretty specific language regarding electronics. The International Technical Committee is currently working on new wording for the electronics rule. The intent is to open the rule to allow for newer, inexpensive options, but continue to prevent expensive devices that provide advantages which supplant sailing skill. Specifically, display of real-time position, distance and bearing to marks or the start line, and VMG are data that are generally regarded as being of unfair advantage in the F18 fleet. We'll see where the debate takes us...

John,

I think the garmin wrist unit is around 125.00 and does vmg, location, speed, compass so your argument about cost does not hold up very well. A tactic is around 400.00 and just does compass and timer. It would just be to hard to set up a good system on a beach cat that gave you an advantage over another team with setting the line and marks and trying to read it and change settings while racing. A lot of teams have used vmg for distance races only to find out they should have gone to shore and not followed the rhumb line. One thing about sailing is the conditions are never the same and no electronic device is going to make you better than someone else on beach cats because of the loss of attention to boat handling playing with the device. They are fun to play with though.

I'm putting in my order for one of these (Jimmy not included).

Dave, when we discussed the issue in the general membership meeting the fleet with a signifiant majority only wanted speed and heading and possibly VMG. The debate was very similar to what is shaping up here in this thread. We also discussed the issues that could arise with the ability to update the firmware on these devices.

That is really cool but when that first wave hits you in the face and rips your glasses off and the whole system shuts down it be much good. I think he was getting info from weather boats around the course (outside info).