My Road to F18 Worlds 2024 Part 2

After Ravi tore his meniscus we had to find a new skipper for the World Championship. With Cam Farrah we found an experienced Catamaran sailor and we would also be the only women’s team at the event. In order to ensure the maximum preparation time possible I arrived early in Europe to pick up the F18 from Nacra Sailing that we had been using over the season and drive it to Costa Brava. During the drive I had company from Henry Lee, Ravi’s F18 crew from last year’s World. Once we got to Costa Brava we rigged everything together and went for a quick shakedown sail so that when Cam arrived in Barcelona on June 25th we were able to sail the same afternoon. 

During the 4 training days we practiced Accellerations, Tacks and Gybes and Bear Aways, as well as speed with another American Team, Lars and Olin Guck and our French Team Nacra training partners Cedric Bader and Yves Peters. We always looked good in the line ups, even in 12-15kts and with us being generally lighter than our training partners.

Measurement went smoothly thanks to Ravi’s and Steve Strobel’s help in teaching us how to set up the boat. We weighed in 4 kgs under the minimum crew weight. Normally we’d have to carry half of this amount in crew corrector weight but since the boat weighed in 3kg over the minimum weight we were able to offset and not carry any corrector weight. On June 30th we took part in the practice race to again make the most out of the preparation time we had and get our first racing experience together.

Racing started July 1st at 1pm. We sailed one race in a medium offshore breeze and finished 26th. Then followed a long period of waiting in no wind until the mighty Tramuntana winds filled in again as an offshore breeze. Very quickly it got very windy and we ended up racing in 30kts. Half the boats in both fleets did not finish this race and many capsized and broke equipment. We also had our first capsize as a team but managed to righten the boat and finish the race with only the main and the jib.

On race day 2 the race committee was more cautious about the Tramuntana winds and decided to only let one fleet at a time race. Our fleet raced second. We did 3 race attempts in very light conditions which were all abandoned. Then finally the Tramuntana filled in again and we sailed another race in +30kts. Again, only half the fleet finished the race. We raced until the 2nd top mark. However, this time we did not make the bear away and capsized in a weird way that saw us getting dragged behind the boat for at least 15minutes until rescue boats arrived to help us turn the boat into the wind. 

On race day 3 one race was completed in an offshore morning breeze. We had a great start and after tacking over we were leading the race. Soon though some of the heavier teams who were able to sail a higher mode passed us. After a few strategic and tactical mistakes on the second upwind we finished the race in 27th. The race committee tried to start a second race but soon had to abandon it due to no wind. We were sent back to the beach soon after where we waited for the Seabreeze to settle in. An hour later AP went down and Delta flag went up again. We started the next race in windy conditions – again. At the top mark we realized that bearing away would be just as hard as yesterday. We were not ready to go through that experience again after what happened yesterday so we decided to head in.