Cappuchino sailing

Rob Eckstein sails his new 1720 to victory on its Italian debut and creates a stir at his local club

I had been looking forward to our first race, yet had certainly not anticipated the result we would achieve, neither the way in which it would happen. Tony Castro please take note.

During January I had felt a bit like Hannibal must have done, crossing snow covered alpine passes towing a Cork 1720 from a mild temperate climate (gales, drizzle, rain, fog & salt water) to a bitterly cold yet sunny alpine winter with fresh water lakes. Well the difference between Hamble and Lago Maggiore could hardly be greater, but on arriving at my sailing club the effect was immediate. Aside from the customary warm welcome, everyone wanted to know “che cazzo é?" translates into “what the hell is that?“ Well, something like that anyway.

Since nobody here had ever seen a 1720 the questions were relentless; How heavy is the bulb? How long is the mast? How many battens? No spinnaker? What is the J measurement? (I just made something up). Who is the designer? So trying to rig a mast with a group of enthusiastic Italians took about twice as long as I had anticipated. Yet it was quite a laugh as some of them had never seen a gin pole being used to lift the rig into place and by the time we came to use it quite a large audience had gathered (at a safe distance) expecting the worst. Well fortunately they were dissapointed and once the rig went from horizontal to vertical the commentry went along the lines of “Cazzo é pui grande comme o pensato” (gosh, that’s a tall mast).

Then followed much well meant advice that the boat would be far too heavy to be competitive on the lake, that the bow entry was more for large waves than flat water, as well as concern that the gennaker might not be big enough! (Crazy Italians) Quietly however, I learnt that while I was at the office during the day, many people, from America's Cup rockstars (Azzurra, & Il Moro) to local heroes (Melges world champions, J24, 5.5meter) and boatbuilders had come to the club to inspect the boat and give their opinions, which collectively were more than positive.

The local club race at Belgirate on Valentine's day proved to be a day of reckoning for the light weather pessimists. We started in 2-3 knots of breeze amongst 25 yachts, ranging from a 30ft skiff with wings and five trapezes, a Grand Surprise (30ft length with 120sqm gennaker) not to forget our major competitor, a sponsored 8m Felci prototype design. We had a crew of five on the 1720, most of them being big lads, so we put two on the bow just to keep the stern out of the water. The downwind start was to our advantage, as we caught some pressure, and sailed down to the leeward mark in a patch of building breeze. We rounded in third postion behind the skiff and a Surprise. Halfway up the beat we comfortably got into second place, only to see the skiff parked up a mile or so ahead of us without any wind. We then spent an hour or so perfecting our roll gybes and tacks trying to reach the skiff as the breeze - if there was any - was coming from all sorts of directions.

At this stage we discovered that the central winch provided an excellent support in which to place lit cigarettes and observe the apparent wind direction. Thanks Tony, I am sure you did not have this in mind when making the original design, but served it’s purpose admirably and probably gave us a 300m advantage over our nearest competitor. After half a pack of fags and some fairly impressive roll gybing we crossed the finish line second on the water behind the skiff, first in class and first overall with a delighted crew.

By the time we got back to Monvalle Yacht Club gossip was rife about the potential that the 1720 has even in light winds. The collective consensus of the experts proved right, and the winch-fag windex worked a treat. The concern of the established local heroes is plain to see as although happy to see a new competitor on the lake, all are now sure that our debut victory will not be our last.