Foiling Week Garda 07.07.2017

Press Release – July, 7rd 2017

Foiling Week GARDA 2017

The first day of the 2017 Foiling Week was bathed in warm sunshine and

humid sailing conditions on Lake Garda with the typical ‘Ora’ afternoon

breeze never really building to full strength. It did however prove ideal for trial

sailing onboard the armada of foiling craft on show.

Classes including the Flying Phantoms, S9 and a host of prototypes took part

in organised racing as part of a Foiling Week regatta series whilst a varied

selection of foiling craft were made available for trial sailing. The list grows

each year at Foiling Week Garda and now includes: the Waszp, S9, F101,

iFly15 and the Whisper.

Jerry Hill from the F101 was particularly pleased with his first day of trials

onboard the new F101.

“We had a good day on the water today, conditions were a bit light at times

but we had enough wind to go foiling, we had a number of people trying the

boat for the first time and these were guys who sail Lasers, Dragons and

other boats but had never foiled before. We managed to give all of them

about 15 minutes in the boat and out of 9 people on the boat today, 8 of them

successfully foiled. This included a disabled sailor. All came in with a massive

grin on their face saying it was phenomenal! So I think we put that down as a

good day.”

The S9 continues to develop and each year the class grows at Foiling Week.

With established fleets in the US and in Italy and growing interest in the UK

market the small foiling catamaran is an ideal entry level foiling boat for all

ages, sizes and abilities. Alfredo Bernad from Spain is racing the S9 this year

after a trial in the boat at last years Foiling Week.

“The S9 is a very clever boat, its like a sailing school boat for flying, it is a

good boat for a beginner and can be handled very easily. I think it is a good

boat for the future. It’s an ideal boat for kids and female sailors because it is

not so much about the strength but technique. Its like an entry level

catamaran.”

There are more and more Moths arriving every day to practice on Lake Garda

ahead of the Moth World Championships taking place at the same venue in

Malcesine in a few weeks time. The entry list has more than 220 boats and

confirms the venue as one of the foiling capitols of the world.

Exhausted sailors came ashore after long day on the water to the now

infamous Foiling Week pasta party at host club Fraglia Vela Malcesine to

replenish the energy reserves and share their experiences with other first

time foilers.

Results link: https://myregata.it/en/2017/22/The-Foiling- Week-2017

Gurit Foiling Week Forum Day 1

The first day of the Gurit Foiling Week Forum focused on the core subject of

Safety.

John Craig – (PRO 2013 America’s Cup and deputy PRO 2017 America’s

Cup) and (Regatta Director for the Extreme Sailing Series), spoke about the

lessons learnt from the last two editions of the America’s Cup and the need to

continue to improve race management at major high performance regattas.

After discussions at Foiling Week Newport in 2016, a World Sailing (Safety

Working Group) was established to initially draft racing rules and safety

requirements for ‘fast boat events’ predominantly aimed at professional

events with on the water umpires.

With accidents at both the 2013 and 2017 Americas Cup still very raw and

close calls at other regattas including the Extreme Sailing Series, particular

attention focused on the 3 boat length zone and the ultimate requirement for

much greater room for safe mark rounding and also the training of support

boat/media boats as part of the race management safety plan. Even with

chase boat qualifications the support boats/media boats need to be much

further away from race course marks in Craig's view.

“We still have a long way to go” he said on progress, “but at least there is

momentum.”

International Moth Class President, Scott Babbage has come straight from

Bermuda as part of SoftBank Team Japan to get some valuable practice time

on the waters of Lake Garda. With an entry list of more than 220 boats, this

years Worlds will be the biggest fleet ever and a logistical hurdle in terms of

race management.

Scott is aware of the issues and advises us that the fleet will be split into

groups and raced on separate race courses. Scott also told the Forum that

the class has a great respect for the 3 boat length rule in the zone and that

the class is to a degree self policing, but that specific race rules have not

been necessary for big regattas to date, but it is something the Moth class

continues to monitor.

At the Forum experts like Francesco Feletti, an extreme sports medicine

specialist and Marcello Bencini from Dainese, who created the body armour

for Emirates Team New Zealand, showcased the protective gear created

specifically for high performance sailing competitors.

Davide Tagliapietra, a structural engineer for Groupama Team France said,

“Its up to us to put pressure on the rule makers to include human safety in the

design packages of our foiling craft, for example impact and protection

around cockpits”.

The Forum then heard from teams involved in the 35th Americas Cup in

Bermuda. Andy Claughton from LandRover BAR shared his perspective on

how the kiwis got the upper hand in the 2017 Americas Cup by providing an

insight into the strategies that helped the team win back the ‘Auld Mug’.

On the successful Emirates Team New Zealand team he said,

“It took 5 years for the sailors to expand their confidence and sail this design

without freaking out”

“The kind of mentally that ETNZ had was, “Throw the ball as far as you could

and try and reach it”

“Sailing these boats is like balancing a pencil on the top of your finger.”

The Round Table discussion included Bobby Kleinschmidt (Appendage

designer at ETNZ) who briefed the Forum on the trickle down effect of

knowledge and analysis from the Americas Cup.

“The exciting thing for me is that we are able to use technology developed in

industry and apply it to sailing”

“The immediate trickle down is that people working on these cup boats will be

working on other boat designs in the future.”

The Forum on day 2 (Friday) will focus on the core topic of ‘Sustainability’

including a sustainable Mini 6.5 craft and innovative ways to reduce

emissions in regatta management.