Scuttlebutt Sailing News: Maximizing your fun ratio

March 23rd, 2018

While boats with technical and high performance attributes are rewarding, the skill they require can exclude a lot of people. Additionally, the increased amount of boat work needed to go sailing might not be everyone’s ‘cup of tea’. As Bob Hodges reports, there’s a lot to be said for just popping off the cover to get on the water.

As someone who also sails and races a foiling A-Class catamaran, I also really enjoy sailing and racing the Weta. This simple but brilliant 14.5-foot trimaran is one of the most fun and easy to sail high performance boats that is also very forgiving for smaller sailors like women and juniors.

Last year, the class held its US National Championship at the Columbia River Gorge and all the racing was held in 15-22 knots of breeze with two days having gust bands up to 30 knots. No racing was cancelled and the Weta sailors showed how fast and tough the boats and sailors were.

And now the Weta Class of North America is geared up and excited about hosting for the first time the US Multihull Championship on April 18-22 in Fort Walton Beach, FL.

The US Multihull Championship is one of several prestigious events hosted by US Sailing and sailed in selected one-design class boats. The perpetual trophy was presented and named the Alter Trophy in 1986 in honor of Hobie Alter, Sr. and his extraordinary promotion of one-design multihull sailing and racing programs.

This championship is being held concurrently with the 2018 Wetafest which was started several years ago by Fort Walton Yacht Club member and multihull and general go-fast guy Cliff Farrah (from J/30 to Corsair trimaran to Weta with also a Viper 640 and a Tesla Lamborghini killer).

Cliff was so enthused after he got his first Weta that he took the idea to FWYC and Wetafest is now probably the most popular Weta event on the annual Weta North American calendar.

This year’s championship already has 33 entries pre-registered and has two charter boats still available. The Weta is typically raced singlehanded but some entries are doublehanded. For the US Sailing championship, all entries will be scored for the podium finishes and there will be separate awards for singlehanded and doublehanded entries for the Wetafest portion of the event.

FWYC has a full schedule of dinners and breakfasts during the course of the regatta and there is even an afternoon Weta seminar with Olympic medalist Randy Smyth who will also be racing the event.

Source: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/2018/03/22/maximizing-fun-ratio/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook

NOR: http://www.regattanetwork.com/event/15798#_registration

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