F18 Argentina: May 2-3 Weekend racing

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All images by Flor Gonzalez Álzaga / F18 Argentina –

F18 Argentina May 2-3 Weekend Racing

Racing season was rather over here down South, but renewed interest got our Secretary Alejandro Colombo & VP Pablo Volker searching for club to put together an additional final regatta for us. Buenos Aires Rio de la Pata coast is filled with sailing Clubs along the corridor from BA City to San Isidro and beyond inside our Delta. Such concentration of sailing clubs make Opti Nats with +450 boats gathering for ie.

The local F18 had +20 consistently racing up to 2019 before the disastrous lockdowns….

We are now targeting 29er & 420 kids for them to have a performance dinghy path after those Classes, as the huge Opti base is diluted once they grow up, many stop sailing or sporadically go to yacht racing as crews. Nothing more apparent than the dynamic and speed of the dinghies they have sailed as kids.

We did a Clinic this summer with +35 attendance, I took out five 420 kids and they were natural crewing mainsheet and hanging on the trap. It was a windy day so they had a great experience.

The F18 is the only performance platform they can keep racing until your later 60s no prob.
I’m currently racing with one of my kids, who came directly from Opti, a path not recommended for everyone, and depends on physical height/strength of course.

To keep promotion going Pablo hired a local photographer, we got plenty of nice pics, some above.

Racing results? Another win for Krevisky-Tigre Beintez, Reim-Volker 2nd and Vilate-Dorbessian 3rd, all racing Scorpion 1D (Pablo with Mischa’s 2017 World Champ hulls). We lost the 4th overall by two points on a bearaway capsize (where I sent my kid to his first catapult..! Helm cam video coming…) on a windy Sat plus a tricky no wind last race. Super fast and improving handling on the Phantom / Landenberger combo.

The Club Barrancas served us a nice dinner Saturday night, with beer & Malbec.
The Chair of the event was my good friend Juan Salvatierra, who runs a rig/spar shop in San Isidro where we developed together the firs Racecat F18 rig back in 2004.

All in all such a great racing weekend and reminded me why I left the office for the local F18 Arg project. Sailing along with one of my kids is the cherry on top.

Life is short go out racing F18, A-Class, Hobie 16, Dart and any other Catmaran Class you have near by.