The Dash 750

As part of ‘product testing’ I’ve spent the last two nights sleeping in the “floating studio”! First night I tried the vee-berth and then last night I tried the main berth – both were very comfortable! Not only did I have a good sleep but managed to get some interesting images of the dash at night! You also have to keep in mind that this is approaching our summer! The last few days have been a sweltering 36 degrees so to be comfortable on a small boat at night was a very pleasant surprise. This is no doubt due to the great pop-top which allows all the heat to escape. Of course sleeping on the trampoline nets would be way cooler but I’m going to leave that until we visit some exotic island location. The Dash sits fairly falt in the water and even the ships wakes that frequent Changi Sailing Club induced only a gentle motion… Also a nice surprise!

It was a nice way to end a great little day on the water where we got to use the screecher and ‘big red’ (the huge asymmetric!) Onboard was former National Sailor, Tan Kok Hua who currently pilots a F16 Viper, was very enthusiastic about the way the Dash performs – and is comfortable to boot! By the time we finished the days sail quite a few of the Changi regulars came to have a look at the Dash. We think racing at CSC is just about to get more interesting.

Today, “THE DASH” came up out of the water at Changi Sailing Club where she will be dry stored and raced. The Corsair folds very simply on the water and was easily slipped where she takes up only the same space as the equivalent sized monohull.

Of course all this is just gearing up to sail the Dash to Tioman Island… Almost ready to go…

Great little boat..

Corsairs Dash 750 was a nominee for the European Boat of the Year, and we have just received our first one in Singapore. The Dash compliments a Sprint and a 28RS that are already in Changi Sailing Club. There is some interest from some in the keelboat fleet simply because, “you can go fast, still drink beer and you won’t fall over!”

We had a nice little sail with Phil and Zam from Corsair on Thursday just after ‘opening the box’ and yesterday she went in the CSC Twilight race with Chris Longdon the owner of singapore’s first Corsair – the Sprint. Although the Twilight winds were light the Dash performed extremely well. We knew the Dash was a good performer but in the sub 5 knots of breeze, the Dash was beyond even our expectations.

Right out of the box, things are perfectly well set up. The mast is pre-tuned with a nice amount of prebend. Very nice! The Kevlar Racing Sails that we order match the rig settings very well, I was expecting to have to do some tuning, but no it was all right on. This reflects the amount of work that must have gone on behind the scenes to dial all the equipment. Phil’s eye-on-mast-rake, was also spot on as the helm is neutral with positive feedback through the tiller depending upon what headsails you have working.

Pretty much anyone who has seen the Dash is really surprised that you can have so much usable space in such a small boat. We like the way the interior is in “modules” depending upon what you happen to be doing i.e. cooking, sleep or eating. We opted to have a proper marine head installed over the standard Porta-Potty and that is a big surprise for everyone.

The hull shape reflects the modern thinking of falt sections to promote lift. High volume ama’s allow the Dash to be pressed harder. But just like other high performance platforms, it makes a big difference to performance to keep your crew weight ideally placed. For us yesterday that means crew weight forward/leeward so that you keep the nose in the water and reduce wetted surface area by lifting the aft ‘planning pads’ out of the water. The forward trampoline nets are ideal in this situation. Not only do they get the crew weight in the right place but they feel like a most comfortable lounging area.

In the Twilight breeze yesterday, the Dash was pulling 6-8 knots up wind that was lesser than that. That to us is a good measure of performance as our conditions are very changeable, especially at this time of year. One can easily imagine hitting 2o knots as they say it will!

Of course we’re setting the boat up to head to the Malaysian island of Tioman. That will be a great 100 nm shakedown…

A star is born...

We have just received our first Dash in Singapore, what a cool machine! The container doors were opened at 9:30am and by 1:30pm she was mostly assembled just in time for Phil and Zam to come from the factory to check our handy work. By 11am the next day, we were all enjoy the first ride of a dash in Singapore waters.

The Dash fit perfectly in the container and then very easily slides out. You bold the ama assemblies on, stick the mast up and you are good to go! Although only 7.5m long, inside the cabin is a surprising amount of space and most importantly – a decent loo! Team Pro Sail ticked most of the options including cooker unit, loo detail and racing sails. This is in preparation for the shakedown sail that will include the 100 mile leg up to Pulau Tioman.

The test sail in about 8 knots of revealed that the Dash’s modern hull shape is very efficient and the race sails with the square head main give the boat a lot more zest… The ama’s also exhibit the ‘flat bottomed’ approach and along with a wider beam and more floatation means she can be driven a lot harder – not that we’re into that sort of thing! Racing especially the coastal passages just got a lot more interesting.

Today we just tidying up the boat and give her another bath!
Will get the interior shots later… Thanks Phil and Zam for your help. That is great factory support!

Cirrus R... Hot ship.

The most aggressive looking cat platform has to be the Cirrus R. It might not be pretty but it seems to work very well. It would have the flattest bottom profile of any cat so far launched. Its advanced rocker profile is more pronounced forward than other designs so that should see it ride ‘bow up’ when pushed hard by the spinnaker.

When floating it seems to hardly be in the water at all. That job is left purely to the super high aspect foils. During the first day of racing Mischa was unfortunately pinged with a black flag so had to carry a lot o fpoints on the first day of Eurocat. Results will tell so we’ll know more about it this evening after the prize presentation.

For sure the top ten in the F18 fleet will be Hobie, Nacra, Cirrus and Darren Bundock on the C2. Still I think the Cirrus R wins in the design department… It looks like it means business.

Carnac, France home of Eurocat

So here we are at the ancestral home of Eurocat, one of the biggest cat events in Europe and the world! 2011 see’s 350 cats out on the bay comprising everything from the smallest to the fastest in platforms. We’re here to help two of Singapore Sailing’s National sailors make qualifying for the Youth Worlds in Croatia in July. Jen U and Peter Wong have previously only ever sailed a Hobie 16 and so in coming to France have had to learn a new platform with more strings as well as get acclimatised to a different weather pattern as well.

Thankfully, Jen U and Peter did some sailing within the Cat Fleet at Changi Sailing Club before departure. This included a couple of races onboard the mighty Nacra 20 Carbon. Okay so that’s like going from a Beetle straight into an F1 car bu there is nothing like a baptism of fire to get you going!

Carnac is a beautiful village setting where the whole town is behind the event. It is great to see everyone so enthusiastic about cat sailing. The weather plays a big part with nice wind and sunshine that you can sit in and not burn yourself to a crisp!

Really good to see all the new designs from all the big manufacturers and one thing is for sure, designs older than a couple of seasons now look really dated! The ‘in-look’ platforms include the Nacra 20 Carbon, Hobie Wildcat and the Cirrus R. Nacra launched an updated Infusion with the Mark II but the thing going against it is the Mark I look. That’s unfortunate as it is a really well sorted boat.

The F18 is the premium class here so much attention is diverted in their direction. Coming soon is a new F16… I can’t say what it is but I can tell you that it will look exactly like a Nacra 20 Carbon that has been shrunken!

I did enjoy a walk around th eboat park looking at hull forms. I can tell you that flat bottoms are in! Teh Cirrus R takes this to new extremes with its angular aggressiveness and pronounced rocker line. The Cirrus is visinly fast on the water and floats without much hull in the water at all. That job is left to the high aspect low camber foils and it is a combination that appears to work very well.

Yacht Club Carnac is a great Club that churns out two world championship events per year! They accomplish this with 13 full time staff and a host of part timers and volunteers. That is on top of a huge training set up that is probably responsible for some of the biggest names in multihull sailing on the planet. It makes our Club with its 5 receptionists and a cast of dozens seem rather lethargic and inefficient. There’s much to learn still!

The racing at Eurocat is divided into the F18′s and everything else. It is split into two different race areas with the premium F18 fleet having their own area while the slowest (Hobie Dragoon) and the fastest (Formula 20) share another area.

Next year we would like to see more sailors from the Changi Cat Fleet take part in a few major regattas and Eurocat should be one of them. Put it in your calendars now.

More pictures on interesting bits coming up…

It’s Monsoon time again, so I can wake up out of my sleepy slumber and get the blog rolling again. We have much to report… The Nacra 20 Carbon has arrived! Don’t believe all the reports you read about this sailing machine – it is more AWESOME than words can describe. We’ve only had it a little while and it is creating a sensation with everyone! Speed alone is not the key… finesse is – over 20 knots of boat speed in a limp 10 knots all the while maintaining the perfect helm!

So stay tuned as we tune her up because Number Two will be hitting the water here very soon…

Crunchy numbers

A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 12,000 times in 2010. That’s about 29 full 747s.

In 2010, there were 9 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 52 posts. There were 13 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 3mb. That’s about a picture per month.

The busiest day of the year was March 31st with 127 views. The most popular post that day was SPINNAKER. Tips.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were catsailor.net, catsailor.com, langkawicentre.com, en.wordpress.com, and mail.live.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for nacra 20, nacra 500, nacra 570, nacra 5.7, and nacra 460.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

SPINNAKER. Tips December 2008

Nacra 500 November 2008

F16 Viper November 2008

NACRA catamarans November 2008

TUNING, Viper/F16 December 2008

Six cats from the Cat Fleet based at Changi Sailing Club made their way into waters that have in the past, only been stirred by the Extreme 40′s ( see article). The Public Utilities Board of Singapore is in charge of this body of water and what an “awesome” stretch of water this will be when all the surrounding foreshore has finally been completed.

This has to be most ideal venue for water sports in Asia. On the eastern side a new golf course is going in. To the west is a massive and spectacular Garden by the Bay is being put in place. To the north lies the heart of Singapore’s CBD. To the south, well that’s the Barrage itself and over this wall lies the Straits of Singapore with Batam, Indonesia visible on the horizon.

The Singapore skyline forms an impressive backdrop for Marina Bay and for the weekend of 26 & 27 June, the Bay played host to the Singapore International Water Festival. It was great to finally have cat sailing mixed in with a few other water sports like dragon boating, kayaking and rafting. Onshore activities included a rock climbing and art competition so all-in-all, a nice atmosphere. The Bay itself is something of an amphitheater where it is possible to hear the DJ from out on the water.

The Barrage is the dammed up section of the former Kallang Basin and operates as a tidal buffer to control flooding within the island nation. By constructing the Marina Barrage the Singapore Government has created a unique venue for water sports as I can’t think of any other venue in the region that has such a city surround!

One of the cat crews entered into a debate as to whether the Marina Bay Sands building was iconic or not! Whether it is or is not doesn’t seem to matter as “Singapore’s ironing board” casts an impressive shadow on the Bay. The other attention grabbing structure is of course the Singapore Flyer that has the Singapore F1 Circuit running around its base – this Bay has certainly grown up but happily, the nicest feature of it will be the Gardens by the Bay. When completed this will be a most stunning green belt.

Sailing on the Bay is pretty confined so once the breeze gets up, crews on the high tech cats are going to be very busy indeed. For the 2010 event the cats were invited along to add a dash of colour to the proceedings. For the crews involved it was a rare opportunity to be allowed onto the reservoir.

A few of the cats with shorter masts, managed to sail under the ‘iconic’ double Helix bridge and into Marina Bay itself to sail immediately in front of the Singapore Merlion. Of course we were all there to support the Water Festival but it was also a test for bigger things to come. In 2011 it is envisioned that there will be a much bigger event on The Bay. This could include a Southeast Asian Catamaran Championship so the 2010 event allowed everyone to gauge the  types of courses that might be possible within the tight confines.

Suffice to say, it will be an exciting an intense event in 2011 and the current Southwest Monsoon will be monitored so as to place the event in the middle of the most windy period. For 2010, Saturdays conditions were light and gusty but we are convinced that as the SW Season settles the breeze inside The Bay gets better. Some of the Extreme 40′s reported hitting speeds of around 30 knots in their December event, so it can happen.

There were a few good blasts down The Bay with the spinnakers pulling hard. What made it all the more exciting was getting a good gust, having the hull fly and then realising you were getting ever so much closer to the river bank. With only six cats inside The Bay there was plenty of room… But with a lot more boats it will get very interesting indeed! Of course any enclosed body of water will suffer big wind shifts and as far as racing goes, this is going to create many more overtaking opportunities!

I think this is the most exciting development in cat racing that we’ve ever had. It’s also a good thing that the Singapore Government has entrusted the operation of the Marina Barrage to a young and very able Singapore team. The building is impressive especially so if you make the effort to get to the upper level! You’ll be surprised by a massive lawn area, a ‘green building’ in a true sense. Of course the Barrage forms just a portion of Singapore’s Future Ready plans. The Marina Barrage is perhaps the biggest foray into a sustainable future for this Island Nation and so it is great that water sports recreation is being avidly encouraged.

The event was well received and so the cats have been asked to stay an extra week to support a media event on the coming weekend. So it looks like more fun and games for the Cats on the Bay.

Here’s a gallery of photos from the weekend… I’ll be adding more as soon as I find the download cable!

If you’re in Singapore City this weekend, make your way down to Marina Barrage. Make sure you visit the Gallery on Level Two and you’ll be impressed by the engineering behind The Barrage… Impressive stuff!

Pro Sail Asia would really like to take this opportunity to thank all the helping hands behind the event this includes Marina Barrage, the PUB, Singapore Sailing for the invitation as well as Kelvin from Changi Sailing Club. But especially the owners of the cats that just put their names into a little piece of Singapore’s history. It is a pleasure to work with good people, thank you everybody!

A six hour flight and then 3 buses and 7 hours later, we’ve made Hupo on the Korean coast. This is a great place and our Korean hosts have gone beyond themselves to make sure we’re well taken care of. This is shaping up to be a really exciting event.

The boats were shipped out of Singapore about 3 weeks ago. The timing has been perfect as Southeast Asia heads into the monsoon transition period with unpredictable winds. Korea sits will above that so we are expecting good winds for the 3rd Korea Cup.

Yesterday we ventured onto the bay for a shake down sail. After [picking up a fishing line and then rolling the Nacra over we were cerimoniusly dumped into the water with a breath taking effect! Yes the water is a lot cooler than what we are used to! But having said that, it is really refreshing for a change.

The event is being help in a nice wee fishingh town with about 50,000 residents where unsurprisingly, fish and crabs are the speciality. We’ve had good meals and the event organisers were so worried that western breakfasts would be impossible to find that they organised one restaurant to open early and put on western styled breakfasts! Impressive indeed. But after finding Korean pancakes, we might just switch back from the western edibles.

Eight cats were shipped in from the Changi Fleet in Singapore including Vipers, Taipans and a lonely Red Rocket Nacra 20. Of course, in my wisdom I left my own Viper rig back at base, but at least everyone else’s gear is here and the boats are installed!

Great conditions exist here. The day we arrived it looked like nice sailing coditions. The following day it was a paltry 5 knots. Then yesterday it flexed up a little with about 15 knots on hand. This brings waves to the beach so our team is going to have to learn beach launching in waves otherwise we’re going to have a few snapped rudders!

Today it is about 13 degrees C and eraining so we’re all indoors catching up on other jobs! Tomorrow is Registration day and we expect the rest of the cat fleet to arrive and be installed on the beach alongside the Singapore cats and then it will be game on!

This is an ‘old’ image but sort of highlights a couple of the things we are ‘experimenting’ with on the Viper now…

One, mast tune and rake
Tw0, daggerboards

During the Cat Nationals, we reset the spreader angle and tightened the diamond wires. That seemed to give us a lot of pointing ability but we were looking for more speed!

Two weeks later it was into the Acclaim Monsoon Cup, there we loosened the diamond wire tension to try to ‘find’ a little more speed. That also seemed to work too but we never really got to measure it shoulder to shoulder with the Nacra 20′s.

This weekend… we’re still looking for more speed! But that is the life and times of a race boat!
So what we did, was to rake the mast back more than ‘normal’ the results from what we felt were much better up and down wind.

UPWIND. The boat accelerates much smoother.
We had a good benchmark boat with us (Viper Isdoo!) who had made a better start. Wind at this stage was light a variable, no trapezing. In these light airs the increased rake seemed to generate more speed – which was a little bit of a surprise! But we also noticed that Isdoo! had the mainsheet too tight for the prevailing conditions so the head of the mainsail was standing to windward with no flow.

As the wind increased (one on trapeze), the ‘more rake’ Viper pointed high, accelerated better and appeared to maintain a higher average speed and so it seems to be heading in the right direction.

DOWNWIND
The real reason for increasing the mast rake was to try to remove some of the lee-helm that we seem to have when running with the kite up. Increasing the mast rake will move the centre of effort aft… we’ve still got lee helm but not dramatic so we think we can run a little more mast rake. Definitely, the boat was quicker downwind (single trapezing, kite up condition) as the bow lifted with greater ease helping the Viper onto the ‘plane’ earlier.

So the boat was easier to drive upwind and downwind!

Our next ‘test’ will be to increase the mast rake until we hit the ‘pothole’!

OTHER
For those who raced over the weekend… after rounding Frontier buoy, you will have noticed that the tide was running out perpendicular to the line of travel i.e. lifting. The water was also perfectly flat and enough pressure to hold 1 occasionally 2 on the wire.

We progressed upwind and bit by bit, pulled the daggerboards up.
Measuring from the bottom of the ‘vee’ in the handle (see picture above)…
- we started the leg with about 20cms showing, the boat felt good and speed/angle was still spot on.
- then we tried 30cms showing, also good but with a little more weather helm coming creeping into the feel
- with 40 cms showing, more weather helm on the rudder and the boat was now lacking ‘bite’ and a little squirrely!

But remember, this is in medium air and maybe 40cms showing would be good in heavy air – yet to be tested!

Ahh more ‘experiments’… stay tuned!

We were hoping to follow on with a few more ‘experiments’ from the 1oth Singapore Cat Nationals (read about it). Unfortunately the NE Monsoon faded and so we couldn’t achieve as much as we had planned. However I can say that we ‘experimented’ with a few bad starts a blown spinnaker halyard and they certainly don’t help with your results…

But there are lessons to be gained from everything.
1. Prepare your boat well before any race.
2.  Make sure you get good starts and you’re half way there!

During the Cat Nationals we had really good pointing ability but I was hoping to find the same height with a little more speed and acceleration from the Viper F16 so the Spreader Rake was increased 5mm, and that was all that was changed.

Unfortunately the opportunity of alongside pacing with the Nacra 20′s never really presented itself but from what could seen the Viper still maintained its height but felt like it had better acceleration.

By observation the Nacra 20′s power-up much earlier. The leading 20′s were able to get in trapeze earlier than the F16′s and as such, would start pulling away at lower breeze levels! Two of the N20′s have become very competitive over the last two events with one of them showing greater downwind performance – how do those guys do it?

The Viper Spreader Rake will be left as is until we can pace directly with one of the 20′s to get a better gauge of its performance changes. In the meantime, we are looking to get more depth and more speed downwind under the kite. We have something in mind which will hopefully work because at the moment, the Nacra 20′s seem to steam roll us with better angle and speed. It is sort of ‘to be expected’ as the 20′s have a much longer waterline and spread way more sail area… but no one likes being steam rolled!

What the changes are exactly I can’t say yet as we haven’t applied them yet. In double trapezing conditions we know the Viper can hang upwind with the 20′s but loses out downhill. So it’ll be a good test to find some more performance on the downhill legs.

More on that later…