Olympic Trials: The Viper sailing
We are all expressing our opinions on the Olympic trials, and for me the best option is to have all interested boats and classes represented beyond isaf RFP restrictions (not mandatory as we know so far).
For those who think the F16 is not suitable (as others think the same on the T) here you have a good ‘old’ video on the Viper sailing along the C2 in Australia, with female and mixed crews (Brewin-Carolijn for ie)
Bundock and Carolijn gave a hard time to many F18s while racing together last year in Holland in a big fleet, so you can´t underestimate any possible option before the trials.(F16, Tornado, F20C, Phantom etc)
Edit: Quite funny , if one has to take all opinions seriously then there is not a single cat class that is suitable for Mixed Olympic Racing: No Tornado too old, No Phantom too expensive, No Viper/F16 for youths only….and so on.
Chill out and wait for the trials, meanwhile analyze possible candidates without disqualfying others, but instead focus on praising your favorite’s appeals.
Pay for the rights to that U2 song?
looks like a perfect girls boat, The 2B team were pushing the Viper as a youth/womens boat last year, but then as the ISAF make it mixed it looks like they want us to believe the Viper is the right mixed boat.
even here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YttAMQU9P_0
with a crew that has not sailed small cats for years they were winning at eurocat at under 120kg crew weight. So what happens when they train?
Viper = great youth and womens boat. But for sure not for Mixed at top levels.
I fully agree, I am convinced the Viper and the other F16 are the right boats for the youth and women.
How can you switch from a 20", 3m wide to a 16"…
There is a huge gap between, maybe a lighter F18 could be the right compromise for a wider range of crews.
In the end I really hope we will have some fair and open trials.
One can have some doubt about the integrity of these trials, how can Carolijn Brouwer can be in 3 different comities at the ISAF knowing she is involved in the business. She can not be both judge and jury.
Let the athletes choose the right boat, not the best lobbing…
Come on, it is the Olympics !! It should show cat sailing at is best !
I can say that I have sailed the Viper with 3 very good sailors, 2 who knows the boat better than almost anyone, and have weighed anywhere from 125kg to 165 kg. Every time we killed the F18's in the fleet and when I sailed at 125kg we were moving to fully depowering at 12-13 knots of wind. We would have needed to go back to the beach to depower any more. I believe the boat is much more than a youth boat and that it actually has a very broad weight and wind range, it also just so happens that it has a pretty broad skill range too.
my two cents
pick the F18 rule, we all know how close the rule pits different designs.
then make the factories and Brands of F18 bid for equipment supply at Olympics and ISAF Worlds, other located factories could supply at World Cups…
Differnt countries can get support from differnt factories for the duration of the Olypic Cycle, four years…then a switch to the supplied F18 boat for main event…
Money for equipment,reason to bid for supplied equipment…gives mutiple factories tothe class around the world…straight away.
Can be sailed mixed or open.
Chris PSA
that works pretty good, as long as the boat that will be used for the games is kept secret until very close to the event.
It would be good to see if fam.gabler could manage to get a 16 footer around the race course in 18knts when you remove their big stable platform. It's more challenging sailing a 16 than a 10ft wide 20fter.
Having known them for many years, I think they would have no issues at all. The impressive thing is that Mrs is able to manage the kite and mainsheet loads on a tornado.
Maybe if they were 120kg they could go to the next olympics, but with ISAF's stupid request, they and more than 80% of the mixed teams currently sailing catamarans are not in the game anymore
More than 80%??? come on show us the data.. Looking at the tornado worlds and european results there was 4 Mickey and Mini mouse mixed teams. All the top teams except 1 have fled the Tornado.
A few more competitive mixed teams in F18 but only 1 in the top 20 odd.
Seems the majority of competitive mixed teams are in 16's. Hobie 16 and seems recently F16. Look at the Hobie 16 worlds results.
So would be keen to see the data that 80% are missing out. Looks like ISAF have done the home work on that one.
2008 Tornado Worlds results
1st AUS Darren Bundock & Glen Ashby 34 points (14, (23), 2, 2, 8, 1, 1, 6)
2nd CAN Oskar Johansson & Kevin Stittle 39 points ((21), 1, 3, 1, 4, 19, 7, 4)
3rd FRA Yann Guichard & Alexandre Guyader 39 points (4, 9, 1, 3, 13, 4, 5, (23))
4th GER Roland Gaebler & Gunnar Struckman 44 points (3, 3, 4, 9, (30), 1, 8, 2, 5)
5th ITA Francesco Marcolini & Edoardi Bianchi 46 points (11, 7, 10, 5, 1, (52 OCS), 10, 2)
6th NED Mitch Booth & Pim Nieuwenhuis 52 points (7, 2, 6, 8, (26), 22, 4, 3)
7th ESP Fernando Echavarri & Anton Paz 70 points (1, 14, 8, 11, 23, (52 OCS), 6, 7)
8th USA John Lovell & Charlie Ogletree 71 points (2, 5, 29, (52 DNF), 3, 16, 3, 13)
9th FRA Xavier Revil & Cristophe Espagnon 72 points (18, 12, 14, 6, 6, (52 OCS), 8, 8)
10th FRA Billy Besson & Arnaud Jarlegan 73 points (19, (20), 7, 4, 5, 6, 16, 16)
11th AUT Roman Hagara & Hans Peter Steinacher 74 points (10, 25, 12, 15, 2, 9, (52 DNF), 1)
12th NZL Aaron McIntosh & Mark Kennedy 75 points (17, 8, 5, 7, 10, 13, (24), 15)
Here is some data.
Where are they now? Roland is there but no Nahid. 2011 world champion didn't make the top 15.
No mixed teams here. So 100% would have missed last time.
How about some relevant data:-
Bundy won the 2011 F16 worlds with a girl crewing. Bundy is not a big guy at all, His crew is for sure not big, she is a young fit girl.
Their crew weight? 138kg, So they are 2kg under the maximum proposed.
If ISAF chose the Viper, you will see the crew weights drop, this is not up for debate, the data from the past 50 years shows this.
So, considering that the winning team from the F16 was made up of two people that are not considered anywhere near above average, what does that say for the weight range chosen by ISAF?