Foiling GC32 cats at Marseille One Design competition - Day 1
by Icarus Sailing Media 12 Sep 2014 13:34 BST
8-14 September 2014
GC32s at Marseille One Design competition day 1 © Sander van der Borch
Racing for the foiling GC32s resumed in dramatic style at the opening day of Marseille One Design, run by Sirius Evènements with backing from the city of Marseille. Throughout the day the northeasterly wind built and for this afternoon's two races it was gusting to above 20 knots causing the speed of the flying catamarans to soar above 30 knots at times.
Star of the day was unquestionably Flavio Marazzi and his ARMIN STROM Sailing Team. The team of the Swiss former Olympic Star sailor won both this morning's practice races and this afternoon followed this up with victory in the first two scoring races of Marseille One Design.
Marazzi attributed his success today to 'time in the boat', sailing with more foiling catamaran experience in his crew than his rivals. "It is a good result but I think if you practice it is easier to sail the boat particularly if you are new to the boat and there's 15 knots when small mistakes can create problems."
However Marazzi did not have it all his own way. While there is a strong sense of crews still getting to grips with the Martin Fischer-designed catamaran since they become airborne foilers at the beginning of the year, Dutch former A-Class catamaran World Champion Mischa Heemskerk and nearly won today's final race aboard his newly launched Magic Marine.
With the wind at times exceeding 20 knots and the boats sailing on an 'America's Cup-style' course starting and finishing with reaching legs, the final race saw several lead changes with Magic Marine leading for most of the final lap.
"We made some mistakes," admitted Marazzi. "It is hard to make no mistakes on these boats, but equally it is easy to catch up even if you are 200-300m behind. And it is good fun – they are rocketships."
However at the start of the final reach into the finish, Magic Marine suffers a problem with one of her boards preventing them from making a final gybe and this allowed their Swiss rivals through.
Mischa Heemskerk was delighted by the Magic Marine team's performance, particularly as at midday he and his crew were still scrambling to get their boat launched and yet were racing by 1400. "It is a new team and we haven't sailed together at all, so we are still figuring out boat handling during racing," he admitted, welcoming this afternoon's bigger breeze and it meant that his fledgling crew, that includes British Artemis Offshore Academy sailor Rich Mason, didn't have to use the genniker on their maiden voyage.
"We are very pleased," Heemskerk continued. "Everything stayed together, everything worked. There were minor issues and I am looking forward tomorrow. The GC32 is a great concept and it is so well built and such fun to ail. You sit at the back of the boat and you look forward and there are four guys with big smiles on their faces."
Unfortunately with the GC32s having not sailed in a fleet since Traunsee Week in Austria in May and this is only the class' second event since they first started foiling this spring. This created a few issues today.
First to suffer was the French crew on board GDF Suez which during today's second practice race broke the tip off one of her J-shaped daggerboards, forcing her to come limping back into Marseille's Roucas Blanc Marina. According to skipper Sébastien Rogues, it was the 'old' board that broke just asthey were preparing for gybe and had dropped the 'new' board. Tomorrow he and his team, that includes two time America's Cup helmsman Seb Col as tactician, will be back on the water with borrowed foils.
This is only Rogues' first foray into foiling multihulls and despite today's incident he is ecstatic about it: "It is just amazing. I love it - it's a flying multihull. The boat is easy to sail."
During this afternoon's two races a short sharp chop had developed and this caught out GC32 creator Laurent Lenne and his SPAX Solution crew on the first run of this afternoon first scoring race. As Lenne explained: "We were doing 35-40 knots in about 25 knots of wind and the boat rammed a wave at full speed and because the upwind board was neutral and it seemed to hook up the boat and slammed it through 90 degrees."
This round up was so violent that it tossed overboard Lenne, who was still hanging on to the rudder, in turn causing the rudder housing to break.
Apart from today's set-back Lenne was excited by today's racing and the level of interest being shown in the GC32 here. "The weather is good, the wind is good and we have delivered a new boat." He is also pleased to one again be sailing in his native France, especially now that there are more French sailors getting involved in the circuit such as Sebastiens Rogues and Col, plus another team that is soon to take delivery of a boat.