Hi every one.
I have just came back from Pucón City, where the Sudamerican Championship for RG 65 and ONE METER ULY classes where held.
It took me 3 hours driving from Puerto Montt to get there, beteewn the Villarrica Lake and the Villarrica Volcano. The place choosed was great, a big and high enought artificial peninsula made out of stones was the control spot. The measuring center and after, the score center was a 6x6 meters spot very comfortable. the results was inmediatly uploaded to the web siter www.cvrc.cl, as well as some videos of the actual regatas. During the weekend over 2000 visitors from many contries and continents visited the site.!!!
The “pits area” was a huge awning where the total of 62 boats fitted in very well. Some of us felt a little crowded inside, specially when trying to replace A for B rigs or vice versa, but in general all the services where very well studied and implemented.
I thought I could do it well, i have a good One meter boat, wich performed very well against other renowed chilean sailors but many things showed me i was not ready to take all the things that could happen in a contest.
So here is the list of the things you should be aware of when planning to attend a contest like these.
1.- study the area intended for place the boats and take imediatly the one at the end at the opossite side of wind and evetually…rain. The area at the end has less transit of people and if you display inmediatly all your rig box and stuff, you ensure yourself a comfortable area to work with the models.
The first day I went to the awning a little late so the only available space was at the enter (front door, where everybody pass by, and the strong wind came in pushing the rain around the models and all over the carpet. shaking the sails that were not rigged in the boat.
2.- Use a set up in the model that will allow the fastest way to move form one rig to another. Was incredible how brazileans were holding their Rg 65 hulls s in one hand at the side of the water waiting to the very last second to choose which rig to use (the seemed to bring in 5 sizes!!) while a helper hold the rigs at their side in a medium to strong wind was a superb sight. With a swing rig, this is no problem, but in a IOM style boat, the stays need to be removed and placed one by one, plus sail sheets etc. If you did not get enought space ( point Nº 1) to work, this task becomes even more difficult.
3.- If you are planning to win more than having a good time, just concentrate in your model, don´t talk too much or you can loose a race by being just talking and no listening the calls for your fleet. Yes, it almost happended to me, and also i was volunteeer for being a RG 65 bouy judge and lost the chance to swing from A rig to B in my boat wich was the next class ( fleet) to race…i got a DNF that time!!! Cause the wind came stronger and the A rig was overloaded all the time.
4.- Every time you swing the rig, let the other one in your box in a way that if there is need to use it again, you can do it quickly.
5.- Bring as much attention as possible to batteries capacity. I charged them between races removing th Rx pack allowing the hull for ventilation…but everybody does not pull out the patches in their boats.
6.- use real tuff dacron patches, many used only pvc adhesive patches and we saw two 1 meter submarines during the weekend.
7.- don´t let your tools or repair items falling around, keep them always in order and dry in its box, that way you suffer a lot less stress when trying to repair something 2 minutes before starts.
8.- The most important. Always save enought time at noon to talk and share with other contestants, since for me this is the best part of a event. I did very good friends and finally was introduced to some distinguished sailors from Brazil and Argentina. You can learn more within a casual talk about tuning your sailboat and how others sailors use to trim the boat, than reading books and theories.
Many thanks to Federico Breuer, Ricardo Pollono, and all the argentinian team (12) with who We have a great time.
Other comments:
The organization, by Mr. Rolf Köster was excellent, all the lunches were inlcuded in the best restaurant in the city, that casually was located at 100 meters from the lake, so we stoped at 13:00 oclock and walk in crowds to the place for lunch, with two dishes, desert and coffe to come back at 14.00 and continue racing. The saturday dinner was excellent, wich included a PPT and videos from the Barbados world championship and explanations from Fede and Chango who attended the event.
The chief judge, Mr. Montalbetti, was a monster, he did not forgive us never!!! and he always was right with his decisions, so the event was fluid with no significant time for a complain or protest between skeepers.
The weather: I arrived on wensday night to help all thursday with the organization, Then the championship started on friday 9th and we had rain saturday, sunday and monday, some times strong, sometimes very insignificant. For sure brazilean team suffered with a hailstorm on saturday. No doubt something quite strange for them.
But the awnings were great and even the control area was so protected there were no need to stop the races…
50 races at all, 62 sailboats and 45 skeepers…a total sucess in the history of sudamerican Rc sailing.
I know…i know…as soon as i can will be posting some pictures.
Good winds
Tato Lazo
CHI 273