10-16. June, the Tornado Worlds were held in Lindau, Germany. We know quite well the place as we were racing a lot there with Libera in the good old times during the Libera Cup and Rund ums.
Mainly it is a light wind place with flat water, but we know very well that some strange things can happen there.
We have started to work on the new sails just after the 2015 Worlds. We knew that we need something new for really light wind.
And the journey began...
We have made changes on the batten placing, draft positions and luff curve and a little bit of twist.
We have ended up in a totally, radically new mainsail.
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| Major difference in batten placing |
Jared tested it in April first and gave the following feedback:
The sail was very responsive once I found the "sweet spot", and only had to make minor sheeting adjustments to keep optimum speed.
We won all three races on yardstick over the f18's, winning one race by over 1 leg.
Very interested in how it would handle 15+ knots."
Brett started to play with the battens, and his choice was very stiff carbon rods for the Worlds.
Just about a month before the Worlds, Gavin Colby the current Hobie 16 World Champion came to me that he had downwind speed problems and he need a good kite. He ended up on the new 1D kite and he changed the jib too.
On the practice race day, I got the info from the great friend and partner Roland Gaebler, that Brett has a really impressive speed.
Brett's comments on the new main:
"Very flat but we sail with no cunningham and as long as we do not oversheet we are fast in flat water and light winds. Our speed was really pretty good, we were leading most of the race but lost out protecting the right on the last downwind although tthe final winner went even more right and passed us all.!!"
We had to make some changes on Gav's jib battens before the regatta to fit better to the light wind.
I have got the following feedback from Gav after the regatta on the new kite:
"The spinnaker certainly helped us immensely and we were never slow downwind."
We had an interesting week during the regatta, from 1-3kts up to 20+. It is nice to see that our sail worked really well and in the hands of real pros and in different conditions.
Now about the results. In open, Gavin Colby and Billy Leonard ended up at 2nd while Brett and Estele 3rd and they got to be the mixed World Champions. I am really happy and satisfied with these results and huge congratulates to the guys and to the girl :)
This regatta was very important to us. When we started our brand last February, we made a plan to finish as high as possible on big regattas. In 2015 the 2nd place on the F16 Europeans was really fine which was followed by 4th place on the Tornado Worlds. We saw that we have the opportunity to go higher so started to focus and develop. We knew that, so it was the proof too.
The Tornado class is very important to us as well. Not only, because we sail this boat, but it was the one of the most important classes for Giorgio and Pablo.
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| Gav and Billy downwind |
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| Brett and Estele ripping downwind |
