New Nacra F20

These photos were taken in the middle of last week on a cold grey day in the Netherlands. There was 8 knots of breeze. Air temp. was a cool 3 to 4 degrees celsius.




More photos to follow....

Fancy sails!!!

Andrew Macpherson, Australian catamaran wizard took the F20 out just
before the weekend. Here is his impression of how the boat performed...

"Holland in March is usually not the best place to go sailing, as an Aussie I
have a natural dislike to any weather that requires the use of a drysuit!
John Forbes said it best: If you need a drysuit, we don't go! But as the
years I spend in Euroland go by I find myself less reluctant to drysuit
weather and was even tempted to sail the new Nacra F20 in February. but
sanity prevailed when there was a good coverage of ice in the harbour.

So finally the weather came good, I arrived back Holland earlier this week
and after a visit to Nacra HQ we arranged to go for a test sail on
Wednesday. The forecast was great, Unseasonal warm weather and 12 kts
breeze sounded pretty good for a first sail on the new creation.

You have all seen photos of the boat and discussed the boat at length so I
won't bore you with any more detail stuff unless someone has a specific
question, but suffice it to say that the boat is what you expect from
Nacra, the layout is clean and simple just like the Infusion. The build
quality and finishing (on this pre production boat) was excellent, a few
extra bolt holes and fittings here and there but as you would expect from
the first boat out of the moulds.

The breeze was a lot stronger than the forecast and as we sailed out of
the harbour and as soon as we exited the sea wall it was clearly more
than 20kts. So this would be an interesting session!

First up, Peter Vink and I sailed upwind for a couple of miles, just getting
a feeling for the boat and trying a few different settings for mast rotation
and board height (more on the board height later) essentially the boat
sails like an Infusion, same systems and Nacra DNA helps with the
familiar feeling and there are very few things anyone would want to
change. You can feel the foils working to lift the leeward hull even as you
go upwind. The boat feels fast as you come out of a tack but then as you
both get on the wire and it winds up to full speed you get a funny feeling
through the boat that it's all gone a bit light, essentially it has gone light!
There is clearly less boat in the water..

Pete and I then cruised downwind (no trapezing so we could chat) getting
a feel for the boat under kite and seeing what happens when you push
the bows under a wave (not much, just pops out again). The breeze by
now was solid mid 20's so we were giving it some loads to deal with, At
the bottom of our run we parked up and had a chat about a few things we
noticed and then Pete jumped on the coach boat to check it from a
different point of view and Adam Beattie joined me on the 20.

Upwind again, this time Adam and I were pushing as hard as we could
and tried the boards in different heights as well as different heel angles
for the boat, both of these are related to the behaviour of the boat and
both make a huge difference. If you have the boards fully down and fly
the hull high you get a lot of lift from the foil, this is fun but not the
fastest way to go upwind. We tried some silly things like big hull flying
and then rounding up sharply.. The boat flies on the foil (leeward hull out
of the water until the board case) then it settles back down in the water
and carries on upwind. Its all very manageable and aside from the ability
to make the foils lift the boat its pretty normal sailing.

Then we set the kite and left the boards fully down and Adam jumped on
the wire, you feel instantly that the boat is lifting on the foils. Its very
easy to get the whole boat out! We did this a few times and couldn't stop
laughing! It's seriously the most fun you will ever have on a beach cat.
For sure the full boards down option is not the fastest in the conditions
we had (25kts by this stage) but it's a crazy amount of fun and very
addictive..
Anyhow, sanity prevailed and we lifted the boards 30cm and tried again:
This is the quickest I have ever been on a beach cat downwind. Pete was
only just keeping up in the coach boat at full throttle. The slightly higher
board setting still gives lift and the boat is semi foiling the whole time.
You can feel that the steering becomes super sensitive and your speed
increases as you keep the boat in the groove. It was around this time that
I said to
Adam: "this is the future of catsailing" It's a whole new dimension to the
sport, The added speed and feeling the boat gives you is something I
want to do again and again. I would have stayed out all day if it was
possible!

So, we could see some seriously bad weather coming in and as it was
already 20kts plus we decided to call it a day, Here is the "funny" part.
The heading back to the harbour was a square reach and being silly
(bloody
Aussies!) we thought it would be interesting to see what happens with a
full noise reach and full boards down. We started out pretty well, the boat
was semi foiling and going quick. I think we would have been quicker
with the boards up a bit more though. But we were still heading a bit high
for the harbour entrance, so we tried to sail a bit lower angle and initially
we were fine, then we had a huge line of breeze come through and we got
it all a bit wrong.. With the full boards down the boat started to get out of
the water and we were standing too far aft which then lifted the bows and
then the boat really came out of the water, lost grip and took a big step to
leeward, this would have been ok if I was still attached to the boat!
Suffice it to say that we did some swimming in the North Sea J

The good news is that the boat was super easy to get back upright again,
the lesson for the day was: don't try to fly too high!! Its no problem
upwind (the boat never fully flies upwind) and downwind is ok because
the boat doesn't make the big sideways step as it come out, but reaching
is where the side loads are big and the boat wants to go to leeward once
it comes free of the water.

The boat is the most fun I have had on a small cat for a very long time
and I can't wait for the next sail on it (maybe Monday..) I would happily
swap my F18 for the 20 and for a lot of the bigger teams I think it's a
great option. There are already solid orders that ensure there will be a
class in Europe this year and as more people get to try the boat I am sure
the momentum will increase.

Steal one if you have to, but make sure you get out there and try this
boat!!

Macca"


Edited by Nacraman