North Enews

by Julian Plante on 4 Apr 2010

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Inside North Sails Norths Sails One Design Wrap

As the summer season draws to an end, for the North Sails One Design team, it has been a chance to reflect on a successful season and start planning for winter development and the new season ahead.

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Inside North Sails Etchells Australian Championships

Defending National Champion, John Bertrand, sailed another dominant regatta in ‘Triad' to win back to back championships. Sailing with dual Laser World Champion Tom Slingsby and Star Class Olympian Andrew Palfrey, Bertrand and team firmed their credentials as one of the teams to beat in the 2010 Etchells World Championship to held in Dublin Ireland in September.

The winning team aboard ‘Triad' used full North Sails inventory including PC-F main, GM-S and LM-2 Jibs, plus Full Radial and VMG Spinnakers. Second placed Damien King also used a full set of North Sails, as in fact did six out of the top 10 boats.

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Inside North Sails Contender Australian Championships

As regatta organizer, Queensland Contender Class President Matt Mulder was busy showing the way, to run out as convincing winner of the 2010 Contender Australian championship. As a pre-worlds lead up event, a quality fleet of 57 boats competed including 7 time World Champion and class legend Andrea Bonezzi.

On top of quality boat handling, Matt added straight line speed and this, when added to his extensive local knowledge of the Moreton Bay race area, gave him a significant advantage over his rivals.

Mulder said ‘I have been lucky to get space near the committee boat, because I've been heading right off the line with the current working well. The conditions have suited me, but off the breeze my new North's CM5 has been particularly fast.'

Fourth placed GBR sailor Simon Mussell made note of this speed and commented, ‘Matt has been very quick downwind; he just consistently sails through us'.

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Inside North Sails Dragon Australian Championships

This year's Australian Dragon Championship was hosted by The Royal Freshwater Bay Yacht Club and sailed on the Swan River. Twenty-nine boats competed for this prestigious trophy between the second and 7th January.

It was a championship sailed in wind conditions from almost no wind to the usual 'Fremantle Doctor', with winds up to 24 knots at its most. So it was fantastic all-round conditions to find this year's Champion and best team!

The result was that this year's winner was Richard Lynn's AUS-191 'Puff', powered by new North sails and showing fantastic all-round speed and height.

The mainsail used was the very well known A-7 model but in a firmer cloth now named the A7+.
Theis Palm said,' I am pleased that we decided to put this mainsail back on the market, it gave us the opportunity to point higher when we needed it, and on the straight leg sailing we had a little extra compared to our competitors. It made the tactics much easier in order to win the regatta'.

The genoas used were from the well known MJ series, with the MJ-8 for the medium conditions and the MJ-8H for the heavy wind range.

On the spinnaker side Theis said, 'We choose the CX-8 full cross-cut for the whole event knowing it is built for the lighter wind range, but one thing is for sure we never struggled in any conditions and we made gains on every downwind leg'.

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Inside North Sails Spiral

The Spiral Nationals were held in the usual variable conditions from 4 to 20 knots on Canberra's Lake Burleigh Griffin, with North Sails proving dominant across the entire wind range. Murray Gordon backed up to defend his Australian title and win for the second year running. Only 4 points separated the top 3 in a closely fought series, the tricky conditions ensuring each competitor had a couple of double digit finishes to drop.

For 2010 North Sails Spiral class leader Billy Sykes and sail designer Andrew Lechte developed a new radial sail, which is offered to suit 3 different weight ranges. The pay off was a dominant performance with North Sails first, third, fourth and fifth.

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Inside North Sails Sydney 38

Michael McMahon's X3 used great speed and conservative tactics to put together three consistent days of sailing to win the 2010 Sydney 38 Australian Championship, hosted by the Royal Prince Alfred Yacht Club, on Pittwater today.

Although only a few points separated the top three boats going into the last race, X3 lead the series throughout the regatta, and featured two race wins, a second and a third on the scorecard.

X3 featured North Sails 3DL Carbon/Aramid working sails and V-series Spinnakers, and Sales and Marketing Manager Julian Plante as trimmer.

North Sails featured across the podium with new class recruit Mark Griffith with ‘Old School' finishing his first class nationals in second and class stalwart and yachting legend Lou Abahams and his ‘Challenge' team a close third with some very consistent sailing. Tony Walls defending champion ‘Acuity' had a slow start to the series to be out of contention early, but came home strong with a string of top three places to vault up the leader board into fourth.

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Inside North Sails Flying Tiger

The Flying Tiger Australian Championships were run as part of the Audi Sydney Harbour regatta in March.
The regatta was won convincingly by Andrew Bristow with his sons Toby and Marcus on Hello Tiger with a score of 4,1,1,1,1,1. Hello Tiger used the latest CSD sails including the MN-1 mainsail, APH-1 jib and MH-1 spinnaker. Five String Circus and Ophir both also used North Sails to finish third and fourth overall.

Conditions were challenging with a 15-25kt sea breeze which kept the fleet on their toes with plenty of wipe outs seen from all boats.

Hello Tigers crew commented to class leader Alby Pratt that the new sails enabled a height advantage over the opposition, which allowed them to recover from any mistakes they made in the testing conditions.

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Inside North Sails Farr 30s

Kirwan Robb and crew aboard ‘K2' from Sandringham Victoria, have regained the National crown after a two year reign by Guy Stening's ‘Optimumm'. Aaron Cole from North Sails Melbourne was part of the team that put together a super consistent regatta to be never out of the top three.

‘K2' featured North 3DL CDP upwind sails which were built in 2007 and proved the staying power of North Sails 3D moulded sails. When he saw the 2007 date, Kirwan asked where the new sails were, but speed proved to be no problem, and he commented that they were ‘very quick in the light, and able to match the best of them in the breezier stuff'.

‘Optimumm' also used some North Sails 3DL in her upwind inventory as did third place ‘Goa'