Neil has been shooting a video of the worlds 2012 site. (notice the t-shirt Ethan is carrying, think how nice and warm it will be in april!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewJyeBw4Acw&feature=share

/Soren

(Information stolen from Stephanie Mah and Ethan Bixby)

The prime spot would be the actual regatta site, the TradeWinds Resort. 

But if you’d like a different approach
and cost level, here are some more ideas.

 

Search Craigs List for vacation rentals. http://tampa.craigslist.org/pnl/vac/
St. Pete Beach is the town that the TradeWinds Resort is, but you can look anywhere close by. If you are
renting a car anyway, as a measure of time it takes about 15 min to drive clear across to downtown St.
Petersburg, where the St. Petersburg Yacht Club is located.

A good system is by Vacation Rentals by Owner. A link to their site for St. Pete Beach is:
http://www.vrbo.com/vacation-rentals/usa/florida/central-west/st-pete-beach

There are also options on the St. Petersburg YC web site that are closer to downtown:
http://www.spyc.org/default.aspx?p=v35ArticleView&itemID=255823

I can also find homes with club members if you’d like to try that route, and have also accommodated sailors on
some boats at the downtown yacht club.

If you have questions, ideas or need advice, email Ethan at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

We've just located a five bedroom house (with 8 beds) that is available from April 14 to April 29, 2012. The grand total for the entire stay would be USD $4798 (for 8 competitors, that's $600 US per sailor, although they can take up to 16 people as several of the beds are queen-sized). More info is here: http://www.mountcastleproperties.com/id2.html. There's a kitchen, wi-fi internet, tv, etc.

The property is about 3 miles to the sailing site (a 20 minute bike ride) but it's also closer to the St. Pete Yacht Club:
Located here

I wouldn't wait too long to book since the USD isn't likely to get any weaker according to speculators (Andrea, any comments?). Rosemary Quinlan is the property manager - her email is: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and she's very responsive.

We'll send out more info on accommodations as we find it. Happy holidays!

Another option

Another really nice property is available. It's about a 30 min walk to the sailing area - with a 27 foot pool! This would be ideal for a couple of families or three couples who are looking to make the Worlds into a holiday as well (or you can make people sleep by/in the pool).

Check it our here

And yet another option

Another big house, about 2.5 m from the sailing centre (with a cheap mini cab service), with 5 bedrooms and a maximum of 10 sailors. The ad is here: http://www.vrbo.com/286072 with more info here:

Info

It is available from April 16 to 30, and the total cost would be $4250 USD (with a $500 damage deposit refundable after two weeks). That would be about USD $425 per sailor!

If you are interested, contact Mark Sigmund This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

If you have any concerns about any of these rentals and wiring lots of money to the states, Ethan has kindly offered to check into them first to make sure they are legitimate. (If you are booking via Hurley I wouldn't worry about it as I've booked with them before and they are fine.)

And yet an option

One more which would be ideal for sailors coming with families or anyone willing to split king sized beds/couches/etc. This one is $1575/ week + 12% FL tax with a $500 security deposit, refunded after departure.  The will give a slight discount for a two week booking and can also take a less than two week booking. The ad is here: http://www.vrbo.com/347453. Oh ya, this one is about 2.5-3 m from the sailing site.

Contact Adam Husseman (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) if you are interested (and again, if any concerns, check with Mr. Bixby first).

Info regarding the upcoming 2012 worlds in beautiful and sunny Florida.

The event takes place in St. Petersburg, which is facing the Mexican gulf.

The USA Open Championship will take place from April 19-21

The World Championship will take place from April 22-28,

The event website site is http://www.spyc.org/Contender here you can find notice of race, online entry and all the other usual information you would expect.

 

Hi Everyone,

I am so happy to bring you the fantastic work of Marco Versari and the Italian Contender Association. Together they have put together a professional DVD training video.

Marco worked hard to train and was able to be second at the Contender Worlds in Kingston Canada in 2008. He has trained with Marcus, Andrea, Christoph and is now a professional sailing coach. He brings his skills to the video and helps learn how to sail the Contender, as well as how to rig and tune the Contender.

The video is available online on our website here:
http://contenderclass.org/en/the-boat/howtosail.html
http://contenderclass.org/en/the-boat/setup.html

It is also available on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClhjyzLgdX8 - this is the first one then you will see the rest on the right.

It is also available for download from ftp so you can burn your own copy. The dvd cover is also available there for download.

ftp.altcon.net

username - altconguest
password - WeL0veNe!l

Thank you again for the hard work making the video, and I hope you guys enjoy it.

Neil

Hi Everyone,
I am so happy to bring you the fantastic work of Marco Versari and the Italian Contender Association.  Together they have put together a professional DVD training video.
Marco worked hard to train and was able to be second at the Contender Worlds in Kingston Canada in 2008.  He has trained with Marcus, Andrea, Christoph and is now a professional sailing coach.  He brings his skills to the video and helps learn how to sail the Contender, as well as how to rig and tune the Contender.

The video is available online on our website here:

http://contenderclass.org/en/the-boat/howtosail.htmlhttp://contenderclass.org/en/the-boat/setup.html

It is also available on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClhjyzLgdX8 - this is the first one then you will see the rest on the right.

It is also available for download from ftp so you can burn your own copy.  The dvd cover is also available there for download.
ftp.altcon.net 

username - altconguest

password - WeL0veNe!l

Thank you again for the hard work making the video, and I hope you guys enjoy it.

Neil

A great time was had by all (I think) superb afternoon thermal winds giving exciting racing for all in an interesting atlantic swell/ chop.

A big thanks to all the organisers, JFD  and FR especially of the Fench Association for putting a lot of time in and making it happen and an enormous thanks to Ron Duffield for coming over and measuring us all.

Thanks also to the team at SRR for running the event and of course thanks to all 92 competitors for making it the sailing event it was and of course the people who came 5th and got the special privilege of writing a report too, now there's something to aspire to!

Overall results were Andrea Bonezzi 1st, BB Johsen 2nd, Simon Mussell 3rd, Soren Andreasen 4th, Jan Von der Bank 5th.

first lady was Jaqueline Rufenacht

fist Junior was Tom Hooten

first master was Stuart Jones

and first Veteran was Emilio Betta

full results can be found here http://www.srr-sailing.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/co-id_46382_c.htm

don't forget to check out some of Neils video interviews on youtube, here's a couple of links

 
 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yh2K9PJm98

and if you'd like to read more,  race by race reports are in the French area of the forum

and fiinally see you all in Weymouth next year for more of the same!

Just today i got hold of this great video, showing Jan von der Bank in real Mode. See yourself

Having spent a lot of time over the last couple of visits to Highcliffe staring at a glassy flat calm and fiddling with boats bits that should otherwise be well left alone, the Contender fleet were itching to climb into their foul weather winter wear and face a cracking weekends forecast. The weekend of 1^st and 2^nd May didn’t disappoint.

 

The first race set off in an increasing force 3. A pattern was set for the weekend with Simon Mussell, built for a breeze, followed down the pumping reaches by current champ Graham Scott and with local Gary Langdown in 3^rd. This group pulled away from the bunch to finish in that order with Keith Paul, rolling back the years finishing 4^th.

The wind was up a touch for the 2^nd with solid trapesing upwind and down. Again Mussell lead to the finish with Scott sniffing around his stern. Stuart Jones joined the cosy front four levering Langdown to 4^th, his cause not helped with mast and sea meeting.

The 3rd race saw the wind decreasing a touch and becoming a bit patchy. Martin Jones took advantage of this, arriving at the windward mark with a good lead. The cosy group weren’t about to have someone spoil the fun however and Martin was slowly reeled in. At the finish the front four were slightly shuffled with Langdown taking the gun from Scott with Mussell down to 3^rd. Stuart Jones then made up the usual group.

 

The evening was all banter and chilli, stoked up with a few brews and talk about how the forecast was lighter for Sunday. That’ll stop fattys gallop, he’s had a few too.

 

Forecasts are just that however, and it was a shifty force 4, straight off the cliffs as Mussell took the lead that morning. Jones followed at a distance and was pleased to get the lead when Mussell misjudged the layline, having to put in a couple of extra tacks. It stayed this way to the end, with Scott and Langdown a distance off the leading pair.

The wind then turbo charged up, catching out a few with their light weather settings. The start of the final race was problematic as the wind shifted wildly before settling. At the second attempt the fleet headed off into a stonking, gusty, sometimes up to 30 kts, patchy force 6. Scott noticed a huge shift out to sea to be over the horizon at the first mark. Mussell lead the rest, with Langdown, despite a dip tacking, in third. Jones completed the cosy group again, but boat handling was the thing and he was gone for good on the reach. Scott cruised round on his own to win in the wild conditions. Mussell held a meeting winning 2^nd and Mr 100kg, Nick Noble, broke up the group pushing Langdown into 4^th.

Simon showed again that blistering boadspeed and better than average handling pays dividends. He thanked ex-contenderer Paul Walker for his improved race officering, a pointed barb at last years Nationals result that has rumbled on at the Highcliffe bar ever since. Does Paul care, I think not…….

 

HSC Contender Open 1st/2nd May 2010

Overall

Sailed: 5, Discards: 1, To count: 4, Entries: 28, Scoring system: Appendix A

Notice of Race is given for the Contender 40th Anniversary regatta to be held 19-20 September in Italy.  In addition to the information below, you can download a PDF which contains full and further information in English and Italian. 
Download the file here:  Notice of Race

We interviewed the women sailors to see what they thought of the Worlds - up from 2 women last year to 9 registered this year.
Direct link to YouTube video

Here are a few links to photographs taken during the Worlds in Denmark.  Click photo for link.

This photo and more by Stefan Schafft.

This photo and more by Stefan Schafft.

This photo and more by Ann Seidel.

More links?  email them to Nikky - This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

So, the 2009 Worlds are now over. Click on the file for results!  WorldsResults2009

1st Andrea Bonezzi (ITA 11)
2nd Jono Neate (AUS 2)
3rd Jacob Lunding (DEN 2418) 

Andrea Bonezzi was our 2009 champion - congratulations to him!  Click below to listen to his take on the championships.   Direct link to YouTube video 





 

Jono Neate (AUS 2) talks about how his competitions went   Direct link to YouTube video

Danish Jacob Lunding (DEN 2418) won 3rd place overall.  Listen to his story.  Direct link to YouTube video

Day 3 (Wednesday) of the Contender Worlds, the final day of seeding to determine who would be in the gold and silver fleets, opened with overcast skies and not much wind (4 – 5 knots). Racing was postponed for an hour, and then race one took place in around 6 knots. Bjarke Johnson  and Soren Andreasen scored bullets in their respective fleets. The wind began to build for the second race, and in decent chop and 14 knots, 2008 European champ Giovanni Bonzio scored a bullet.

The rumours around Sonderborg Yacht Club were that Day 4 (Thursday)of the Worlds would have a lot of wind, and the rumours turned out to be true. At 9:30am, the anemometer at the club already read 8 metres per second (which is roughly 16 knots). By 10:30, half an hour before racing was to start for the gold fleet, the wind meter was ready about 13 m/s steady with 15 m/s gusts – and a helpful “hold onto your hats” was running underneath the wind readings. Even the Aussies looked a bit hesitant. Several sailors had already departed for the racecourse, which resulted in some impressive capsizes (one contender did a backflip going upwind when the wind caught its bow at the peak of a wave and flipped it backwards), and unfortunately Ann Siedel, one of nine women racing, snapped her carbon mast on the way out.  The decision was made to wait until 4pm to determine if any racing would happen for the day.

Day 2 (Tuesday) for the Blue Fleet dawned with the wind around 14-18 knots (around west). The wind increased a bit from 3rd to 4th race.  Simon (GBR-2420) was first around 1st mark, after him, Matt, Christoph, Jan and Jacob. We were trapezing on the reaches. 2nd upwind, the wind was the same and the direction changed just as much as earlier races. Simon was first and Jacob second around the top mark. Simon was fast on the running and increased the distance to those behind him. On the last upwind Simon stayed in front all the way to the finish line, Christoph 2nd , Matt 3rd , Jörg 4th , Jacob 5th .

The 5th race started in a fair 8 knot south easterly. The race committee did a good job keeping the fleet postponed until a steady wind had settled in. The start saw Simon and Matt from GB and Chris Sutherland from AUS commit left and lead at the first mark.  Andrea and Soren also had good starts, however the first reach revealed one of Andrea's weaknesses (reaching in light wind).  The final lap was really exciting with close racing between the top 5. At the end Soren sailed the best with only 15 seconds seperating 1st and 5th. All in all good fun racing in Blue Fleet.

Jono Neate

Yellow fleet race 1 was a classic race between Graham Scott from UK  and Andrea Bonnezi from Italy. Graham won, 3rd and 4th were Jens and Australian Jono Neate. The other interest in the race was a number of boats missed the course change and the resluts will change this evening as its sorted out.

Race 2 was another classic, Jens and Andrea headed left from the start, with Joachim Harprect doing well in the middle, Ben Holden (UK) and Chris Sutherland (AUS) were pushed right and went hard to that side, as the fleet merged Jens, and Andrea were ahead.  The reaches changed nothing but the leading 10 were close at the bottom, Chris Peile, Chris Sutherland and Ben Holden headed left, and did well up the work. The run changed nothing but the fleet bunched and 8 boats rounded together.  Ben Holden and Chris Peile again headed hard left and Ben won the race, Andrea 2nd and Chris Peile 3rd.

The yellow fleet got away first time for race 3 in a building breeze of approx 12-14 knots, shortly after the start a large left shift favoured the boats on the left side of the beat. Bonnezi got it correct and led round the mark from Scott and Holden. These positions remained down the reaches. The race committee changed the position of the windward mark which caused confusion amongst some of the fleet including Holden. At the time of writing there are approx 30 protests from the race committee pending aginst boats that sailed the wrong course. At the top of the beat although going quicker Bonnezi misjudged the layline and allowed Scott to close followed by Neate, Langdorf and an improving Langdown. Scott passed Bonezi on the run and held on to take victory with Bonnezi second followed by Langdorf, Neate and Langdown.

Chris Sutherland AUS 2443

German SailorKay Rethmeier writes:At the start I decided to start at the vessel with nobody behind me. I went to the right side. After a tack I was able to observe the drama with the second yellow mark, where „Backe“ (Jan von der Bank) was sailing to.  But Sören crossed my way and I was sure to take the orange one.

The next downwind course didn’t change a lot except Dirk Müller was taking a bathJ. I guess I was something about 10th. The next upwind course I decided to go to the right side again, nearly alone. By this I got 2-3 boats. The wind was changing a bit between a lot and plenty of wind. With a flat sail and a bit loose in the sheet I was flying the new mark 1. The downwind didn’t change a lot.

The last upwind course I took the left side up the half, and right through the middle. I reached the finish from the left side, where Sören won the race and was waiting.

Bye

Kay Rethmeier GER 539

It was a perfect day for Contenders in Sonderborg the wind was from 14 to 18 knots

Yellow fleet race one was a classic race between Graham Scott from UK  and Andrea Bonnezi from Italy. Graham won, 3rd and 4th were Jens and Jono Neate. The other interest in the race was a number of boats missed the course change and the resluts will change this evening as its sorted out.

Race 2 was another classic, Jens and Andrea headed left from the start, with Joachim Harprect doing well in the middle, Ben Holden UK and Chris Sutherland AUS were pushed right and went hard to that side, as the fleet merged Jens, and Andrea were ahead.  The reaches cchanged nothing but the leading 10 were close at the bottom, Chris Peile, Chris Sutherland and Ben Holden headed left, and did well up the work. The run changed nothing but the fleet bunched and 8 boats rounded together.  Ben Holden and Chris Peile again headed hard left and Ben won the race, Andrea 2nd and Chris Peile 3rd.

Chris Sutherland AUS 2443

Day 1 of the World Championships finally dawned in Sonderborg, Denmark.  The 100+ competitors were divided into Yellow and Blue fleets following qualifying races.

The start line for the Blue fleet was slightly biased to starboard, with a clean first start in 10-12knts of breeze. Andrea Bonezzi made the most of the first leg, tacking over to starboard early, using the right hand side of the course and shift to the right and showing strong speed to get him first around the top mark. The group that went middle-left off the start didn't fair as well with the wind shifts, with the best placed of those that went left being Chris Peile in 7th position around the top mark.

Thanks to the Italian Sailing Federation (F.I.V), the Italian Contender Association (ICAI) was able to display a fully rigged contender at the 'Big Blu', the latest Nautical Expo held in Rome between the 26th February and 3rd March. 

The boat was borrowed from Mario Mambro, a contender sailor with 30 years' experience. The boat, a beautiful fibreglass Nordest built in Italy, was rigged with Avantgarde carbon sticks and the new Elvstrøm laminated sail just tuned by the 2008 European Champion Giovanni Bonzio.

read more>

The 2009 Danish Boat Show was hosted by the town of Fredericia.  It was held over two weekends, the last weekend in February and first weekend in March. Despite the gloomy economic climate, the exhibition was very crowded, with many more visitors than anyone had dared hope; more than 37,000 visitors spread over 6 days.



The Danish Contender Association was represented at the exhibition in the form of a fully rigged dinghy kindly lent by the Danish President (a 1 year old Schappi boat with wooden deck). Our stand was situated in an extra exhibition tent, where we and other dinghy classes were present, including showcases from the Hobi, Moth and 29er. We were next to the Danish Olympic Gold 49er which also drew an extra crowd. We made sure that they didn’t steal our boat on the final day!

This year’s World Championships will take place in Sønderborg, Denmark, from the 25th -31st July, with registration starting on the 24th,and the first race on the 27th.  A colourful new website has been created to help you find out all you need to know, and more importantly, enter!  This promises to be a great event, so, go now to the 2009 Worlds website at www.contenderworlds2009.dk

www.contenderworlds2009.dk

    Online entry, city info, accomendation info and all the other information that you need is now online.

    The notice of race still needs a few minor changes, but should be up there shortly.

    Dates are still July 25 to 31.

    Accomendation information. There are two options.

    Option 1 (Andrea style) stay on the grass(tent) or the harbors parking(caravan/ motorhome) , use the harbor's facilities(showers/ toilets), this cost you 20 euro for the week(this cover electricity and cleaning etc). They hosted more than 200 caravans at a youth regatta last year, so there is space enough!

    Option 2, right behind the harbor there is an real campsite with space for caravans, tents and mobilehomes, they also have small houses/cabins for rent. There is a kids playground and everything else you find in normal campsite, there is a 20% discount on the tent/caravan/ mobilehome space rental fee, remember to mention the contenderworlds during your registration.
    (I don't believe the 20% applys for the rent of the small houses/cabins but ask) There is much more information off the campsite on www.contenderworlds 2009.dk and also information around youth hostels and hotels.

    If we get the first 50 entries in within the next 2 weeks then the Danish contender class will sponsor free beer to everybody after the saturday measurements.

Most of the class members live in places where Contender fleets are strong and also close by.  Within North America, we have neither.  The class here is very small, but due to the efforts of Gil Woolley, Neil Smith, and a few other committed members, it is growing and gaining traction and exposure.  But wow, some of these guys drove for days to get here.  Let’s see, Gil probably drove 60 hours each way, Mike 21 hours, and the Canadians drove 24 hours.  Either they are desperate to get out of the cold Canadian winter, or as I prefer to think in my blind optimism, they are committed to the growth of the class in this continent.  And it is finally happening.  This is our second Florida midwinters, and for most of you eight boats is a very small fleet.  And it is.

Jono Neate is the only name that you need to know from the 2009 Australian Nationals, sailed from Royal Freshwater Bay Yacht Club in Perth.  The short story for 2009 is that there was a sea breeze every day, and Jono won 9 out of 10 races.

The longer version is the regatta started 2nd January. RFBYC is a fantastic facility, plenty of grass for rigging, nice beach, and we raced on Melville water which is the wide river that flows through Perth - very flat water, minimal land influence, but a left hand track.  Each day the afternoon races had a good sea breeze building. It ranged from 12 knots with holes on day 1 to 22 plus on the last day.  We were always flat out and low on trapeze and the reaches were tight enough to mean that we were on the wire down the reaches also mostly flat out.

If you want to know why the top 10 Contenders at the 2008 Worlds were so fast, take a look at the boat data below.

 worlds_2008_boat_data

visit Velocitek.com

Light winds today meant only one race was sailed on the Foxtrot course.The fleet eventually got away in light winds with the wind shifting at times up to 90 degrees. A busy start line saw a couple of sailors get OCSs on the score sheet.Christoph Homeier, Christoph Engel, Ethan Bixby and Marco Versari led at the top mark with Marcus Hamilton the defending World Champion back in 9th place with Soren Andreasen from Denmark behind him. On the second windward leg with the wind shifting as much as the first Marcus used his lotto ticket to choose which way to go and came round the top mark in 2nd position which he held onto down the run to the finish with Max Billerbeck in 3rd and Soren in 4th. Oliver Brandt was first over the finish line but was unfortunately one of the boats over at the start along with Soren giving Marcus the win. Christoph Homeier leads the series at the end of day 2 after putting a 4th in today.So it’s all to play for as we wait for day 3 of the 2008 World Championships! 

Duncan Ellis

Video - shot in beautiful Fort Henry - the gang went in a school bus had a bunch of fun.

Neil

Today the first day of the 2008 Worlds the fleet was ready after measuring in and sailing the Canadian Nationals for two days in the nice South Westerly’s that make Kingston famous.
The fleet at this event consists of members from 8 nations with ages ranging from 20 to the early 70s.  Can you imagine jumping under a Contender boom at 70+ years of age.  Gil Woolley is an amazing athlete.
We are sailing out on the Foxtrot course and several competitors can’t resist taking shortcuts through the rocks by Snake Island – some great damage of rudders and centreboards continue.  More to come I am sure.
Race 1
The forecast for today was wind for the North.  This makes for a crapshoot with the wind moving easily 30 degrees and varying pressure from around 5-12 knots throughout the course.  We started right on time at 12:30 about half the fleet went left and the wind made its first of many shifts to the left.   Some sailors including Christoph Homeier and Soren Andreasen who had both been on the right hand side tacked over and were above most of the fleet.  Marcus Hamilton (current world champ) and a few others were just 5 seconds late in the shift and were quickly left behind.  The right hand side of the course had less wind and was not able to make up the ground.

Videos about sailing a contender can be found at video.google.com or at youtube.com. Several Contender helmsmen upload their videos to the google or youtube Servers to make them available for public viewing. You can do the same if you'd like to share your movies with the contender world.

Most of the videos are homebrewed stuff. There are a few professionally taken films. The most famous one is about the World Championship, held at Lake Garda 2004. Its about 60 min long and worth every minute. If you don´t know much about this beautiful Contender dinghy this will convert you!

http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=contender+sailing will give you best results on video.google.com

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=contender+sailing&search_type=&aq=f on youtube.com

You can choose a direct link to a movie. Just click the thumbnail below to open the first movie. You can scroll through to the others. Each video plays in a new window.

---

World Championship 2004 Lake Garda

The 2008 International Contender European Championships took place at Punta Alta , Tuscany in Italy from the 31st May through to the 7th June.

The regatta was held at the PuntAla Camping Resort who catered for the 92 competitors from all over the world including Australia , Austria , Canada , Denmark , Germany , Holland , Italy , Spain , Switzerland and the UK .

With measurement over, the practise race was held on the Monday to acclimatize the sailors and the race team to the championship ahead.

Because of the size of the fleet, the competitors were split into 4 groups who all sailed against each other in the initial qualifying rounds of the regatta.

Congratulations to the new European Contender Champion Giovanni Bonzio.
More Infos will follow soon.
Here are the final Results.

 eur2008cl

A light and fluky day.  The first race was abandoned after 4.5 legs when the wind shifted and died.  After a spell ashore the race was restarted later in the afternoon.  Gernt Guertz was first around the windward mark with the seaward side of the beat paying off well.  The race was shortened at the leeward mark at the end of the second round.
1st Martin Muerner
2nd Gernt Guertz
3rd Marcus Hamilton
4th Stuart Jones
5th Giovanni Bonzio
6th Roger Gates


Overall results to follow but Marcus is now in First followed closely by Andrea.

Neil Smith

The Chairman reports:

Day 3 Race 1 Blue - Green

1.    Christoph Homeier
2.    Matt Aston
3.    Graham Scott
4.    Joachim H
5.    Gary Langdown

The race started in a solid trapezing force 3 which dwindled during the race. The left side of the course was favoured and it was from here that the leaders emerged. Christoph Homeier led from the first mark and was never caught. Richard Batten arrived here second only to find that his start was a few yards too early. Matt Aston followed up his win of the previous day to consolidate with a second. With the fleet too timid to try the right of the beat the race became a boat speed procession the left with a minimum of place changing until the nip, tuck and shouting of the finish area.

Day 3 Race 1 Yellow-Red

The weather forecast for Race 5 was a 5-8 kt southwesterly. ...

See full Detailed Result List from Italy Day 2.

 ec 2008 day 2

See full Results from Day 1 in Italy.

 ec2008_day_1

Here are Race reports for three of the races (still waiting for the fourth Roberto) and current results.

Race 1 – Red/Green
Race 1 for Red and Green fleet got underway in 15 knots of breeze with a cleat start 1st time.  Andrea Bonezzi stamped his authority on the race early and led from beginning to end pulling out a commanding lead by the finish.  Behind him Homeier, Holden, Langdown, Jones and Aston had a tight battle for the remaining positions.  Eventually Homeier’s superior downwind speed told the story as he took 2nd.  Holden finished 3rd and Aston got a lucky shift up the last beat to sneak 4th from Landown.

1st Bonezzi
2nd Homeier
3rd Holden
4th Aston
5th Langdown

North Sails update...
North Sails is looking forward to 2008, another year of ongoing involvement in the Contender Class. The North CM-3 model is going strong, and for 2008 we will be moving onto a new cloth style.
Following two seasons of hard use in the proving grounds of classes like the Finn and 505’s, from 2008 we will be using a laminate cloth with Technora fibres to carry the loads. The fibres are black in appearance, rather than the golden yellow of the Kevlar fibres used previously. They have plenty in common though, with good longevity and a high modulus to retain the designed racing shape as long as possible. Our experience suggests the cloth is slightly more supple to the touch, the films stay visually clearer for longer and the fibres are fractionally less prone to UV degradation than the Kevlar fibres. With this change in fabric we have taken the opportunity to update the panel layout of the sail. The cut now has vertical radial panels in the tack area, specifically to manage the cunningham loads even more effectively. The clew patch layout is also modified, and a panel along the foot (which sees relatively low loads) is cut partially from sailcloth with less fibre passes, for increased visibility on the race course. The World Championships are being held in Canada this year, and North Sails’ Ethan Bixby will be in attendance. In his new boat he’s looking forward to a great regatta. Wishing you all the best for your racing in 2008.     Kind regards Joel McDonald	©www.progressivetechnology.co.uk

Hi,I’d like to remember you that March, 31st is the deadline for the entry to the
Europeans without additional charges.You only need to send your name and sail number to marialuisa.cionini@campingpuntala.it or by fax at 00390564920379. The entry fee can be paid at the sailing club when you’ll arrive in Punta Ala from May 31st to June 2nd following the schedule of the Sailing Club Secretariat. Pls. read the NoR as pdf below, or visit the event website:
 www.contender.it/euro2008.
 It’ll be updated soon with news and an entry list.Also remember to remind this note to your sailing friends that don’t use the Internet. Do not hesitate to write to marialuisa.cionini@campingpuntala.it for more Informations. See you in TuscanyRoberto
 Notice of Race European Championships 2008

Hi,

Find out the latest information about the 2008 World Championships in Kingston, Canada at the following blog:

http://contenderworlds2008.blogspot.com/

Warning - attempts at humour are embedded in the site.

Neil

Below is a short report on the 2008 Australian Championships Brisbane that finished on Sunday the 6th of January. 

Tim Hill won from Marcus Hamilton. 

The weather pattern was very unusual in that there was an intense low that affected the whole regatta.

Days 1 and 2 were blown out with too much wind. 

Day 3 was 4 races all in 22k plus, one very gust came through the fleet well above 30k in race 3. 

Photo credits: "Tim Hill" - Scott McInerney, "Day 3" - Yle Mareliati, "Top Five" - Ian Kirkwood

In northern Europe with its hundreds of Contenders, Wintertime is not far away. Most of you, we think, do warm their feet indoor at the stove and got a hot drink. Some fearless Champions will held there Traning also in temperatures below zero, but most Contenders are stored away for next season. But what about your Sails. These precious Artworks from Skillfull craftmanship.

How do you treat them before storing? Contenderclass.org was interessted in and got hold of an Expert. Joel McDonald from North Sails UK gave us a closer view to this topic. If you follow him, he says, your sails will last longer, and give you an advantage to the guys who leave them in the dingiyard while snow falls.

About the team 
Chris Somner:
"I started boat building in 1998, working for Bob Hoare Ltd, building Contenders and Poole AB’s whilst undertaking a City and guilds in Yacht and Boat building which I completed in 2003. I then left Bob Hoare Ltd and joined Latham’s Boatyard repairing wooden yachts and involved in running the office until April 2006 when I set up my own business building and repairing dinghies and small yachts. "
 

Hull Type : Wood or Composite
aprox. Hull Price: 1500€
special : catlike wave behabior

As our Chairman Soeren  announced via mailgroup, heres the preview of the new poster.  There will be 5000 copies, that will be distributed to the world. At Medemblick you can get your personal copie from Soeren directly. If you are not attending the worlds, but want to have this Poster in Original quality, just download the extra high resolution pdf version and visit your local copy shop.
Contenderposter high quality 4.35 Mb

Peter,

Applying Pro-Grip is best done with at least 4 hands. That suggests
a significant other, wife, fellow sailor or intelligent child as a helper.

Most of the pieces that you are putting down are roughly rectangular.
Three hands hold their corners up and the fourth smart hand is carefully
putting down the first corner.

In addition to avoiding moisture, avoid applying Pro-Grip in any breeze
at all. The stuff just loves to whip around and stick to itself. You can
never separate it again after it has stuck to itself.

Clean tin cans are handy and removable weights to help hold the
sheet of Pro-Grip down while you wait 15 minutes or more for the
glue to dry enough to be ready to apply. You can wait a bit longer
until any wet spots in the glue have lost their gloss indicating that
they are dry.

Do not count too heavily on the pieces remaining the same size
after you have applied the glue. Ian Renilson told me that the
pieces become larger with the glue on them. My own experience
says that they return to about the original size. Your mileage
may vary.

Wrap the Pro-Grip that is along the rail right around and to the
underside of the rail. It will be less apt to peel loose later when
your size 47s are tromping up and down the rail.(;-) In addition,
you can precisely follow your glue line on the topside with one
edge of the Pro-Grip and be a little less precise on the less visible
underside.

Gil Woolley
USA-204

Hi All!

I just finished our boat with ProGrip all over
(meaning the complete back deck and all the way
up to the shrouds and the compete inside bottom).

I started to do one side with Henkel Tomsit R710.
The 2-component glue is easy to work with, but it
did not stick after one hour. After about 2 1/2
hours the cement started to become 'tacky' enough
to keep the foam on the shape of deck (wich
happened to be some time after midnight...)
The next day I did the inside of the boat with
the Henkel glue. Here on then early flat areas
it worked very well and easy. There is enough
time to move the material in place and then just
wait to let the cement cure. You can even do this
single handed, without any assisiting person.

The other outer Deck was done with the contact
glue Terokal 2444 (wich looks like Pattex, smells
like Pattex, comes out of the house (Henkel) like Pattex).
It is important to have a helping hand here to
handle the sheets (I made the area in two pieces)
but the work went much faster than with the Tomsig glue.

There is quite a lot of room for improvement to
make the work look better, but the sheets were solid on the boat.

This Saturday was first test sail (including the
first Club regatta of the season...)
I was surprised about the no-slip effect of the
material - I never felt so safe on the boat and
nothing seems co come off so far.

Looking back from my point of view I would say
that the Tomsit is nive to work with when you are
on your own, but when working in a team, the
Terokal 2444 (Pattex???) is the faster solution.

With best regards from Osnabrück,
Uwe

I want to pro grip an old rondar. It has pimples on the decking, so do
I need to sand down the pimples or have those who have done it found
that it sticks ok without having to do so. Reminder of best adheshive
please. Thanks.

---

Chris Somner Dinghy Services
40A Salterns Road, Poole, Dorset, BH14 9HF
T: (01202) 736704
M: 07941 301742

---

Here is a picture of a vertical crack around the gooseneck of a procter C mast. I have been given advise to strap stainless around it and I'm leaning towards that but, I've also been told by a respected boat rebuilder, in my area, to have it wielded by a paticular person. I do understand the properties of annealing metal or glass and that no way could I fit a 22' mast in oven so, I'm throwing this out here to see what you would do.

---

Dave!

let us take it that way:
The mast will go - the big question is only, when....

All you can do is drilling a hole (3/16'' (or 5 mm)) just at the end
of the crack (in doubt a bit further away from the visible crack
line) to_hopefully_stop the crack growing.

A very skilled alloy welder_may_be_able to weld the damage. But this
changes the properties of the material and you can expect the
appearance of a new crack somewhere in the proximity .

I personally would not expect any help from a S/Steel (or whatever)
cladding on the damage except you can not see it any more. Duck Take
will have the same effect, is cheaper and easier applied.

In my humble opinion you should not trust that bit to more than the
usage as a flag pole.

---

This remains me of my good old Boeing 707 repair days.
This is a typical case of stress corrosion cracking.
It started at the top where you can see deep corrosion
pits. The pits created stress concentrations and this
started the cracking.

The first think you should always do is to drill a
hole at the tip of the crack. About 3mm diameter
should do it. This will stop the crack from growing at
least for a while. There is for example a smaller
crack running forwards at the bottom edge of the upper
fitting.

Once you stopped the cracks you can think about
replacing the material that is not effective any more.
The bolts in the area look quite chunky and I'm not
sure what they are there for. If they carry
signifficant loads I would wrap a sleeve around the
outside and rivet it with blind rivets. I would use
aluminium sheet and pop rivets. Aluminium because it
has the same stiffness as the mast and you don't have
galvanic corrosion problems. If you use stainless your
patch is much stiffer than the mast tube and you will
get high loads in the patch. Welding is usually not an
option because as you mentioned you would have to heat
treat the mast afterwards to get the strength in the
heat affected area back.

Good luck,

My general idea is to peel up the pro-grip, cut a big hole in the
floor of the cockpit, and add one or more floor frames to brace the
CB trunk.

Questions

How many frames should I add?

What is the best to use for the floor? 3mm ply or glass-foam-glass
sandwich/
How to attach the floors to the CB case and hull? use glass tape or
is a fillet of glass-filled epoxy good enough?

Is epoxy the right glue or should I use something else?

---

Kirk,
Here's the way I'd do it- using my limited
boatbuilding skills :-).
Can't you just cut a few width ways slits (the same
width as some ?6mm plywood), with a skillsaw/ jig saw.

Then cut a bigger fore and aft cut along the case, so
you can get ya hand in (for gluing/coves), and put
some fore and aft stringers around the case. To finish
just Epoxy/ glass (did you say Carbon- Gil?- sounds
good to me for an older boat!) her up.
If weight is a problem- just sand all the Gel coat off
under the progrip to help.
The best guy to ask is probably Joachim - the guru,
if you can track him down.
Regards,
andyg

---

Videos about sailing a contender can be found at video.google.com or at youtube.com. Several Contender Helmsmen upload their videos to the google or youtube Servers to make them Public. You can do the same if you like to share your movies to the contender world.
Most of the videos are homebrewed stuff. There are a few professional taken films. The most famous one is about the World Championchip, held at Lake Garda 2004. Its about 60 min long and worth every Minute. If you don´t no what it is with this beautiful Contender you will get a real clue.



http://video.google.de/videosearch?q=contender+sailing will give you best results on video. oogle.com

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=contender+sailing&search_type=&aq=f on youtube.com

You can choose a direct link to a movie. Just klick the thumbnail below. They open a new window.

---

World Championchip 2004 Lake Garda

This article has some information taken from an old Contender Newsletter, written by Mike Beggs after the Worlds in Imperia in Sept. 1973.

---

Results of Wordls 1973 Imperia

67 participants from 12 nations, 7 different nations in the top 10. The top three were the same people in the same order as in the worlds 1972. Unfortunately, the results list only sail numbers, not names. The first eight were:

1. KA 99
2. K 160
3. IR 1
4. G 15
5. KR 9
6. G 4
7. I 2
8. G 17 

Committee members of the ICA

President: Freddy Gale, Hayling Island (previously Secretary)

Chairman: Jack Hollis, Brisbane 

Secretary: Mike Beggs, London

Hi all

Most people have now arrived, we are still missing a few Germans a Dane, 2 Dutchies and some Brits.

Measurements was going very smooth today, I recon that half the fleet has gone through the measurements already.

Tomorrow is the practice race. Weather seems to be very unusual with a 7-9 m/s forecast and thunderstorms..(still 30 degrees temp)

More after the practice race. (and with some pictures of the harbour and the boats, maybe also from the race cource).

Regards
Soren
Chairman Int Contender Association