World's finest at F18 Worlds

The F18 World Championship has attracted the top names in the catamaran world to Parkstone in England

Multi Olympic medallist and World Champion Mitch Booth and regular crew Herbert Dercksen were busy preparing their Hobie Tiger at Parkstone YC yesterday for the F18 World Championship at Parkstone YC. Booth is defending his World title at the championship which has attracted the world's top catamaran sailors to race at Poole.

Booth was relaxed about the high level of competition in a class that he has dominated, winning three European titles as well as the Worlds.

"I have been in F18 from the beginning and at every championship it is harder to win, the opposition gets closer and this year, with the Tornado changing to a spinnaker, the class has so many Tornado teams, the competition is very strong."

The level of cross-class sailing between the F18 and the Tornado is something of a feature of the championship. Since the decision to add a spinnaker and second trapeze to the Olympic class for the next Olympics, the F18 has become the class of choice for many of the potential Olympic teams, keen to get fleet racing in this configuration.

F18 Chairman Phil Cotton commented: "With so many top names here, the competition is so strong that it will be a tremendous achievement for any non-sponsored team to break into the top twenty."

Britain's last Olympic Tornado team, Hugh Styles and Adam May are here, sailing one of the new nacraF18's. They only launched yesterday after two days of assembling and measurement but were enthusiastic.

Hugh said: "We had some teething problems today, breaking the spinnaker pole after a splice failed but we were able to get the boat set up and get the general feel of the different layout after the Tornado."

For Adam the biggest change was the amount of room. "You forget just how big the Tornado is and although the F18 isn't small, you do notice the smaller trampoline area changing straight over like this."

Compared with the Inter18 the new nacraF18 hulls are much slimmer and deeper with the front beam 43cms further aft. It was noticeable watching the teams on the water that the new hulls were much more buoyant in the bow and Hugh confirmed this. "The more we sailed we found that we were moving further forward all the time in the light conditions today."

Another top British Tornado team competing here is that of Rob Wilson and Will Howden, sailing a Hobie Tiger. After their recent run-in with officialdom at Kiel Week robbed them of victory they will be looking for a better result here.

Australian Gavin Colby and Camenisch Cori, also sailing Hobie Tiger, are another team to watch, coming to the championship in top form with a third at the recent Tiger Worlds and a victory at this year's Round Texel.

Fellow Australian Darren Bundock and Dutchman Eddie Pool are sailing the new nacraF18. Bundock won this year's Carnac regatta from over 100 entries sailing an Inter18 with Gerhard van Geest - keeping track of the team combinations is a full time job in itself...

Geest is on another of the nacraF18s with Gunner Larsen for this event and they were racing the boat last weekend in Holland.

Geest commented: "The new boat feels completely different to the Inter. Of course the control layout is very similar but the slimmer hulls make for a much different feel through the waves."

Continued on page 2........