No quality control.

Would we suppose that the tornado teams would use the same boat for the 4 year campaign? I would guess the N17 teams might go through more than one. Just a thought, in either case the boat is the cheap part.

This is what I've come to expect out of Nacra quality control; to be fair they do appear to making an honest effort to fix it, but won't be doing so on my dime.

Jake,

This isn't the time or the place to burst your bubble. Suffice to say the only real in-house design work 2013/14 Nacra does is on the sails and rig, and even that isn't really Nacra, rather it's Performance Sails.

Again, none of it matters, it's the boat that the teams are stuck with for the next 7 years. I just hope the QC issues get sorted and teams don't have problems with their equipment that prevent them from training.

Build quality of the Olympic Equipment has been evaluated by ISAF for every class in light of ISAF's number one goal... growing the number of nations that compete for Olympic slots. Boats like the laser and 470 have known issues but they are affordable. A pricey but bullet proof boat (Tornado) is not the objective for gear selection. ISAF dumped the europe dinghy for the laser radial for this reason. The cost of campaigning is large relative to the cost of the equipment but the entry costs dominate the thinking. ISAF nations have decided the build quality versus cost issue... The Nacra 17 is good enough.... (same as H16, AHPC F16, Hobie Tiger)

Once upon a time... the catamaran world looked to the Olympic Tornado for much of the innovation that trickled down to the other classes and the boat was refined over and over again. This philosophy caused lots of competitive problems for ISAF as sailors innovated within the class rule and the Olympic playing field tilted in ways viewed as unfair. The philosophy changed... So now they want a boat that is completely cooked and one design, controlled by ISAF and their contract. The ISAF solution... you can't drill another hole in the Nacra 17. You also can't fix things.

Given the uber one design mindset.... the mistake made by the catamaran selection sailors and Catamaran committees was picking a boat that was not tested (two prototypes made)... but the N17 looked like it was high tech, cutting edge (curved boards,)designed by an AC cup designer. Two years of testing would have made the fixes needed (see Bert) clear. Unlike the rest of the olympic sailing world.... we bit on the bright shiny object.... Meanwhile, the rest of the world will use the same equipment in 2020 that they have for the last 20 years... So, fixing the boat mid stream is a political problem that ISAF and Nacra have decided to delay until after Rio. It is a failure and for the sailors... Well... it is what it is...and the game ends in three years to win their countries selection process.

The long term issue is the MIXED discipline for Multis.... Obviously the plan to migrate from mixed to mens and womans cats failed with barely a wimper and multihulls are almost unique in the entire Olymmpic games with a mixed sport. The powers that be should have stayed with Open or argued that all double handed sailing classes should be mixed or open. (470 and 48ner). We failed at the politics of this as well.

PS, Jake, Roman Hagarra (Aut) used his Tornado for three games and won medals.

link to 2013 texel vid
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSFGm7XY9m4
looks like at least 20knts. Only 1 F18 beat the first N17. Nacra has a very strong presence at that regatta, being a Dutch company at the worlds largest cat race held in Holland.

"bust my bubble"? WTF? All we're talking about is if the infusion is a stiffer platform than the I20 and it is hands down. To quote my southern kin folk "You guys are eat up wit it".

added to which...you're not going to catch me defending Nacra's quality control.

Sam,
After what Jake had to do to fix the "quality control issues" on his Infusion, I seriously doubt you're bursting any bubbles about his view of it. The infusion process alone should make the 18 stiffer than the vinylester hand layup of the I/N-20.

That's a great result for a boat that's only been on the water for a short time, were the boats out of the box or did they have to do some alteration to the boats before the race?

Jake,

Certainly the Infusion is stiffer than the N20, but who engineered that layup? I bet it wasn't an in-house Nacra engineer (maybe a good thing?). Regardless, the lack of quality control on the process has me asking a lot of questions. I don't want to see N17's failing on teams because the factory isn't taping the seams on the outside after joining the hulls. That is all.

I think these were stock, at least foils, hulls, mast, rig.

http://www.nacra17class.com/roundtexel-2013-three-nacra-17s-within-first-5-boats-overall/

There are no in-house engineers (there weren't at the time the Infusion came about, anyway). However, I was at the factory while they were laying up hull number 5 or so and Gino Morrelli was there helping them sort out the bagging material placement and the infusion process....so the engineering on that end was pretty solid. The Infusion MKI is a Melvin and Morrelli design as are a lot of Nacra's products.

One of the problems with the Infusion is the lack of consistency.
Like with wine, some years are better than others (and give you less of a headache!).

Should have gone with the H16. Boats in place, mixed crews are normal.

Popcorn, anyone?

Mike

On a more sailing based note. It is interesting to see how fast the cream is rising to the top at sail Melbourne. Bundock and Curtis, both Olympic medalists, in their second week of sailing the N17 are leading regatta despite a huge range of conditions and giving the young upstarts 12 months head start.

The best cat sailors tend to adopt quickly to new cat designs.

If we're talking about switching between two designs within the same discipline (e.g. spin boats), it's not too much of a shock to me for someone at Bundock's level to make an easy transition. Leading in their first regatta on the boat certainly is impressive, and undoubtedly frustrating to those with more time on the design.

Now, if a 420 team were able to pull this off, that would certainly get some attention. The brain trust at US Sailing was considering this as a pathway option...

Mike

Bundock was second only to Franck Cammas at Catacup (with numerous Olympic hopefuls in the top 10). This result is of very little surprise to me.

Seriously Mike, 420's? US Sailing has heard of the F16 right? Regardless, the serious big fleet competition is still in F18's right now, if I was seriously gunning for an Olympic campaign slot I would move to France for the next 18 months, race the crap out of the F18 and Nacra 17 there, then return to the U.S for the qualifying races.

Yes, Sam, seriously. They are looking to grow Olympic sailors from youth, and don't see an active youth cat. 420s have two-person teams, spins and big fleets. At least, that was the logic.

They're learning that transitioning from sailing slow boats to cats doesn't work for the vast majority of sailors (although there are notable exceptions). Since there are very few cat sailors making these decisions, they don't understand why it doesn't work.

They have asked for our input. I did mention that the F16 is the most logical choice (yes, they are familiar with the boat), but the fleets are small and available boats are few (and expensive, although that seems to be less of a concern). The H16 is another good choice, but has other issues (non-spin in large fleets, few youth-only teams).

I agree with you that the F18 is a great training platform. It looks like the FL groups have it dialed in: get the kids crewing or steering on F18s with adults, and then team them up with other kids for F18/F16/N17 racing when they get their feet wet.

Mike

Just saw this morning that Ravi (4th at F18 Americas, 1st at F16 Nats) was 5th at the Jensen Beach JOs over the weekend sailing in the 30 boat 420 fleet. The horror! Someone should probably talk to him about running away from big competitive fleets as fast as possible so he doesn't become less of a catsailor...

(ok, maybe a bit sarcastic)