F18 Argentina: Scorpion Land

When I launched the Scorpion Open Project back in 2012, never thought what it would become. Long story short, 4 World Titles in the bag, but the aspect I feel most proud of is to get my Argie mates racing them locally and abroad at podium level performance.

This past week, four more Scorpions 2022 arrived, currently being assembled out our Club, some will race in Mar del Plata ocean course Feb 15.

I would love to build the Scorpions here, as I did with our first one back in 2005, but Arg it’s a crazy tough place to invest or bet into productive ventures, every now and then a crisis gets the axe hard on you, we are used to it, but I wont be investing again all I have, as done in the past.

Today building them here, is a minor aspect indeed, as I couldn’t be more happier than having mate Jakub Kopylowics + the Exploder yard team building this weapon for us & sailors World Wide. Thanks to him, we’ve changed the game in the Formula F18 ,as predicted, the Scorpion project along Heemskerk-Dekker Title in 2017 with Mischa’s DS revamped the Class for good.

With this new container, my very own Scorpion arrived (colored bow above), Finally! What a joy indeed, it took almost a decade but was worth the wait, as now I can sail it with my kids, the idea is to start to race with them too, if they want, for them to race together in the future.

Thanks a again to the Exploder Team, both Kuba K, Kuba Z & Arek representing the entire hardworking team, boats / equipment are just perfection. Special mention to Mariano Heuser for the logistics, he has done plenty for the local Class bringing majority of new boats, and we are proud seeing him & Cruz blasting regattas all over the Globe as they did in 2021.

Arg local Class has gone through four different stages: Our own built RCF18s that launched the Class from scratch, the arrival of the Nacra Infusions (Melvin’s Game Changer on its own back then), the Phantom F18s (Fischer’s untouchable weapon at the time in the midrange, still the only top level competitive boat of that era), and the current Scorpion fleet, we have around 10 right now in Arg.

The Argie Squad will keep training hard while pushing the limits, in January 2021 I predicted our guys would target to fill the podium at Gaeta Worlds… They did with a #2 & #3rd. For 2022 the target will a World Title abroad..

Riding a Scorpion of course.