Before I head into my next F18 adventure (stay tuned) I thought it would be nice to tell you about my last one. 🙂
In the last week of September, I had the pleasure to participate in the F18 America Championship 2024 with David Liebenberg. The venue was the stunning San Francisco Bay which promised nasty chop and wicked breeze (or at least that’s what the event stickers said). The regatta was organised by David’s home club, the Richmond Yacht Club. Ahead of the Americas Championship Richmond Yacht Club also organided the RYC Multihull Invitational Regatta – a great opportunity for us to get to know the venue – and to learn the boat and each other.
This was the first time ever that we had sailed together and the first time ever either of us had sailed on a Cirrus R2 F18. Ahead of the week David and one of his friends did a tremendous job of getting the boat measured and replaced nearly half the lines and fittings on the boat to make it “San Francisco proof”. It’s not like I didn’t want to help, but I was busy with a Teambuilding Event with Janssen & Team in the greater Hamburg area.
Saturday afternoon was the earliest I could be in San Francisco – too late for the long distance race of the RYC Multihull Invitational Regatta. But on Sunday we went out and did 3 races in some 11-18kts of wicked breeze and nasty chop and the Cirrus R2 proved pretty reliable, especially downwind. David and I also did a pretty good job. It definetily helped that he just raced at the Olympics in Paris, that this regatta was his home venue and that I had just completed 4 days of training in the San Francisco Bay 5 weeks before – and of course that we are two badass sailors! 😉
With our results in those three races we did enough to discard the DNC from the long distance race on Saturday and actually made it into 4th place! Not too bad for only sailing half the regatta.
Stay tuned for part 2 coming tomorrow!
segellena 