Weary crew put in massive effort on Day 1 of Viper World Championships

by Lisa Ratcliff on 9 Jan 2017 Winners of the opening two races of the Viper Worlds 2017, Jack Felsenthal and Shaun Connor, shrugged off the fact they both finished different regattas in Adelaide on Sunday and found enough mojo out on Geelong’s Corio Bay to commence their world championship series the next day, and send the international field a strong message.

Back at the host club Royal Geelong Yacht Club after two races on Monday January 9, 2017, the first in 6 knot easterlies and the second in a fading 12 sou’east seabreeze, Felsenthal said, “It was a good day. We didn’t know how we’d go first-up jumping on the boat straight off a few days of racing in Adelaide.
“We had a good start in the first race and went the ride side and in the second race we had another good start. It was really close racing and upwind was really tight and tricky. We picked it well and were able to climb over the top of the lead boat on the last beat.”

Shaun Connor travelled to Geelong from his 49er nationals at Adelaide’s outer harbour and Felsenthal from his 420 nationals at Brighton & Seacliff Yacht Club and both arrived into Geelong the night before the Viper Worlds’ opening day. “We had a little speed pack up yesterday at different ends of Adelaide and flew across late last night,” Connor said. Jack’s father Brook arranged their registration and had their Viper called Charter World ready for their rock star arrival.

The talented pair reckon they were operating at less than 50% out on Corio Bay on Monday, in terms of energy levels. Even worse news for the other 21 teams is the fact they have only sailed the Viper together for four days since Easter 2016, their very first regatta together.

On the competition Felsenthal says it’s fantastic to have the French world champion Emmanuel Le Chapelier and his crew Tho Constance plus the Van Kerckhof brothers from Newcastle, who have been top of the class tree on a world scale for some years, as the benchmark among the starters.

Daniel and Nathan Van Kerckhof (Send It Marine) posted a second and fourth to be second overall and third is Le Chapelier and Constance with SailingTeamCatamaran.

Principal Race Officer Greg Sinclair leads a large team of race management officials responsible for running the scheduled 12-race series presented by Rex Gorell Land Rover and due to conclude on Sunday January 15.

The Port Phillip forecast for Tuesday is winds tending southerly late in the morning and increasing to 15 to 20 knots in the afternoon and for Wednesday winds tending south to south-westerly 15 to 25 knots in the morning.
An upper wind limit of a consistent 22.5 knots exists for the Viper catamaran.

The Viper comes under the F16 umbrella and attracts a lot of youth, especially internationally, as a pathway to the only multihull class at the Olympic Games, the Nacra 17, which made its Olympic debut in Rio in August. The Viper Worlds 2017 at Geelong is the class’ first major event outside the Northern Hemisphere.

Series Results [OD] up to Race 2

Place	Ties	Sail No	Boat Name	Skipper	Crew	Sers Score	Race 2	Race 1
1		351	CHARTER WORLD	Jack Felsenthal	Shaun Connor	2.0	1.0	1.0
2	2.0S	422	SEND IT MARINE	Daniel Van Kerckhof	Nathan Van Kerckhof	6.0	4.0	2.0
3		1	SAILINGTEAMCATAMARAN	Emmanuel Le Chapelie	Theo Constance	6.0	3.0	3.0
4		345	THANKS AGAIN DAD	Tayla Rietman	Lachie White	8.0	2.0	6.0
5		218	NDEA	Jake Liddell	Emma Jones	10.0	6.0	4.0
6		245	BOATY MCBOATFACE	Michael Pfeffer	Leopold Mcallister	14.0	9.0	5.0
7		324	BOZO	Zoe Greer	Beau Delaine	16.0	8.0	8.0
8	5.0S	369	FORWARD WIP	Jack Challands	Harrison Rietman	19.0	5.0	14.0
9		2216	PLEINE MESURE	Hugo Lottin	Alexandre Gaborieau	19.0	7.0	12.0
10		363	UNFINISHED BUSINESS	Lachlan Hughes	David Hughes	22.0	11.0	11.0
11		243	.	Luke Donovan	Michael Doherty	23.0	13.0	10.0
12		165	THE WILD TOY	Kym Luitjes	Tom Luitjes	25.0	16.0	9.0
13		311	MR BUMP	Simon Dubbin	Chris Campbell	26.0	10.0	16.0
14	12.0S	215	SEA N SEE	Claire Campbell	James Moeller	27.0	12.0	15.0
15		166	CRACK-A-LACKIN	Michelle Bursa	Meagan Bursa	27.0	14.0	13.0
16		313	GOODALL DESIGN	Brett Goodall	Campbell Mcewan	30.0	23.0R	7.0
17		14	CATACARE.BE	Laurent Verbeeck	Stef Haazen	32.0	15.0	17.0
18		289	V-QUICK	Jon Sims	Cameron Alderson	35.0	17.0	18.0
19	2R	290	TFS	Ross Bennett	Bridget Mccartan	39.0	19.0	20.0
20		182	NERFHERDER	Gary Purcell	Ross Purcell	39.0	20.0	19.0
21		180	VANESSA	Robert Morris	Michael Lamb	41.0	18.0	23.0R
22		326	AEROLIQUE	Beau White	Tristan White	46.0	23.0C	23.0C