18’skiff beating a Tornado sport? I dont think so somehow:
Perhaps on a short course if the tornado has to do lots of corners, not in a sraight line for cert!
Luff 'em & leave 'em.
Back in the early 1990’s a fellow in Redmond Washington put on an invitational race event, where 18 Square Meter cats raced Aussie 18 Skiffs. The course was a “bow-tie” looking course, and by varying the legth of the upwind, downwind and reaching legs, the race organizers were able to “play” to the strength and weakness of each type of boat. They fooled with the course legs enough, so that several lead changes took place each time around. I believe several of the “down-under” crowd participated, as they were here in the U.S. doing exhibition races.
Upwind the uni-rig cats tore up the skiffs, off-wind it was a pretty even match and downwind the skiffs caught up - or pulled away from the cats. Was a great regatta, and everyone went away with new respect for the “OTHER” class of boats. I had to pull from the event due to a broken arm when a friend (???) of mine stuffed the bows on his Hobie 18 and I flew forward and caught the forestay earlier in the summer.
Certainly would be neat to see a repeat now that so many technical changes have been introduced to both classes.
Matt,
Have you checked out the pic on my last post of Smeg.jpg, cause I think that shows how fast the 18’s are compareds to your pic of the Tornado’s fairly well. Or even the pics of ellabache.jpg and symantic.jpg