Wildcat at the Worthing Sailing Club F18 TT Open
by Luke Yeates 22 Jun 2009 17:30 BST
20-21 June 2009
The first Wildcat in the UK made its first TT event appearance at Worthing Yacht Club at the weekend. An experienced fleet of 17 F18s turned out including Hugh Styles fresh from his win at Eurocat.
In the first race, sailed in a 16-18 knot westerly, it was the Capricorn of Dave Bartlett that rounded the windward mark first, closely followed by the new Hobie Wildcat of Luke Yeates and Matt Humphreys. The Wildcat rolled the Capricorn and pulled out to a comfortable lead which it held to the finish, followed by the MK2 Nacra Infusion of Grant Piggott in second and the Capricorn of Stuart Gummer in third.
A poor start led to a discard for the Wildcat in the second race but a 5th in the third race followed by a 4th in the fourth race, after a few tuning tweaks, showed a promising upwards trend in results.
After Saturday's racing Luke said; “the boat felt extremely quick up-wind against all other F18’s with the ability to hold a lane easily”. Matt said; “we still need to find the groove consistently upwind but when we do it is going to be rapid”.
Overnight the duo decided to change some rig settings, moving the rig more upright and lowering the pole height. During the second day the wind was much lighter with the first race sailed in a shifty 10 knot northerly. The Wildcat continued its upward trend in results by finishing race 5 third after Hugh Styles and Grant Piggott. The second race of the day was a much lighter and flukey affair with the Wildcat holding third place for the first two laps before pulling through to overtake both Nacra Infusions downwind on the last lap to win by 30 seconds.
Matt and Luke were very happy with the overall performance of the Wildcat over the weekend, Matt said; “the design has proven it self in a full range of conditions this weekend and when we work out how to tune it properly it will be a real weapon”. Luke agreed saying; “we are extremely happy with the boat and we are excited at its potential.”
The Team would like to thank Cobalt Corporate Finance, Harken, Sea-Sure, and Towergate Mardon's insurance4dinghies who have insured the boat with “GOLD COVER”.