Please note that the Corsair 2012 US Nationals and Rendezvous, which shall be held from 15-17 July 2012 is open to all Corsair-built boats. It is not restricted to F27s only. For full details on the US Nationals, click here.
In addition to Russ Wesdyk being an F27 owner, he is also the primary contact point for F27 owners interested in the 2012 Nationals. Russ can be contacted by email. Read on to learn about Russ' various experiences and why he thinks building a racing class is so important and the pivotal role of the Corsair Nationals.
"We’re Doing What?!?? A cruiser's journey to racing a Snipe and Corsair F27 with his family." By Russ Wesdyk, F27 Owner.
Part 1: Cruising with the kids; why would we ever race?
Work done for the week we did what we always do. Load the car and head for the boat. The goal as always was to: 1.) stow the provisions as we motored out the creek and the kids eat their dinner, 2.) enjoy a sunset sail, and then 3.) drop the hook in a convenient anchorage. By that time the kids should be ready to go down to bed and the wife and I can enjoy our dinner and cocktails under the moon and stars. Two days of freedom before the boat had to be back in its slip and we had to be back at the house and office.
This Friday evening was a bit different though. We were not only rushing to stow the provisions as we motored out of the creek, we were trying to beat a front, which while it would pass quickly, was likely going to bring some intense wind and rain. Tices Shoal was to be our destination but it would also be a lee shore until the wind swung back, so prudence was in order.
Up went the main and chute and our cat sprung to life, eating miles while we watched a rolling cigar shaped cloud materialize on the horizon and announce change was on its way. As we closed on Tices, the cloud closed on us and soon enough it was time to first douse the chute, then the main, and just run under the jib. About ½ a miles from the anchorage and the lee shore we furled the jib and just drifted with the engine in idle; planning to wait out the worst of it in semi-open water. Behind us came some racing monohulls we had passed and we watched them broach under their chutes in the increasing breeze. They scurried into the anchorage, casually tossed out their hooks and the crews dove below while we watched from our pilot house.
And what a show we got. The sky turned a greenish-black and the puffs – reaching 50 plus knots – came from every direction while we slowly motored head to wind. The lightening that accompanied the crashing thunder revealed in brief flashes that the racing boats had both dragging their anchors and were up onto the beach. Soon they were calling the Coast Guard for help. For us it was a teaching moment for the kids – all about respect for the power of nature and how to plan and manage conditions on the boat to keep everyone safe.
The next day we planned to run an unmarked cut to the Barnegat Inlet channel, head offshore and parallel the coast up to Manesquan but for now we needed some sleep. In short order the winds settled down, shifted, and our lee shore became a sheltered shore we could anchor in the lee of. Perfect; we could hear the surf of the Atlantic Ocean pounding the beach on the other side of the barrier island. The only thing disturbing our peace was the lights of the SeaTow boats trying to free the racing boats from the shoreline. Ah, racers, we thought. So much work for 1/100th of a knot of boat speed and yet so little time on cruising skills. What nutters; no way would we ever…
Part 2: A cruiser goes racing
You want me to what? Race?? That’s crazy talk!
We were cruisers. But we were also cruisers without a sailboat and I really needed to get back on the water. We had moved to Annapolis and with the girls now attending school, suddenly our lives had filled with soccer, lacrosse, field hockey, swim team and dance! Before, the girls were devastated when the boat had to be put on hard for the winter, but in Maryland, basically living on the water and having so many distractions, the cruising boat rarely left the slip. My wife and I pined for the lost family time, the closeness the cruising boat engendered, and the responsibility it taught, but we had agreed it was time to move on and so the boat was sold. Before long though, I needed a sailing fix and I needed it bad. It was then a friend tried to talk me into crewing for him on his racing boat.
Racing? I thought of the Tice’s shoal incident and others like it and had my doubts. He talked of the excitement on one design racing but all I imagined was a bunch of mad nutters racing to see who could do something silly and break their boat first! But still, I needed a fix and so I found myself going racing.
OMG as my kids now text; like a fish on a line I was hooked. I could maybe blame the rum, or the fact that I just needed to go sailing, but no – racing was fun. There I said it. Racing was fun. I had become “one of them” to my wife but I tried to explain that the boats and crews were well prepared, the people were nice, and the great part of this one design thing was that the racing was very close and the opportunities to learn never ending. Blow a tack or gybe and you lost a position. Be on the correct side of a wind shift and you gained positions. Good mark roundings equaled gains and bad roundings equaled losses. None of the politics of wide band rating racing, or money and influence buying trophies, this was all about the sailors and anyone could do it! Young or old; male or female. What a great family sport!! Soon a devious plan emerged as I plotted to get my family back on the water. I needed to be careful though. My kids were absolutely convinced that Optis were the only thing worse than chores and my wife for sure thought I was headed off the deep end.
I did not help matters much by buying a Laser and drysuit and deciding to go frostbite racing. “In the winter,” my wife asked? “Yes,” I replied! “Have you ever sailed a dinghy like a Laser?” “Well, no, but what better way to learn how to race?” A Laser is a one person, one design boat. I have to do and learn everything; helm, trim, and tactics. I am going to learn tons! Her reply turned out to be quite insightful: “You are going to learn how to swim!!” She was right of course. Wives’ usually are.
There was lots to learn. For all my years of cruising it was quite humbling to find somebody else could sail the exact same boat I was sailing, around the exact same course I was sailing, and do it about 25 per cent faster. Who was the nutter now? But I persisted. The fleet was great in helping, and eventually I reached a level where I was not a complete embarrassment to myself. Another, and unexpected learning, was that experience of sailing a small boat was much more intense and the feedback from the boat much more acute compared to cruising boats. One thing sometimes lost in big boat sailing – the simple joy of sailing – was back!
So now it was time to move on to phase 2 of the devious plan. I was going Snipe hunting and the family was coming along for the ride though they did not know it yet.
Part 3: Sailboat racing with the kids; the Snipes have it right
The Snipe is a 2 person one design dinghy that can be crewed by a husband and wife or a parent and child team. There are fleets racing everywhere and they are often sailed by family teams, especially in Annapolis. Because the design is so old there are used boats to be found and they can be had for quite affordable prices.
Soon enough we owned a Snipe. We will skip the part where my wife and I took it out to sail in a clinic one blustery spring day and I capsized and dumped her in the cold water – twice. Fortunately the kids did not witness Dad’s transgressions and in short order they were comfortable enough in the boat that Mom stepped out of the crewing rotation to relax on the club deck and Dad was taking daughter #1 out crewing with him.
On the Chesapeake, there are some great local travel Snipe regattas and soon we were doing those. Early on and still to this day, one of our friends and primary nemesis on the water was a certain green Snipe. Daughter #1 is a goal setter and here we had a goal. We needed to catch them! At our first Oxford regatta they were well placed and we just could not get them. Occasionally we would get out in front but they always got back around us by the finish. But finally we nailed a start – in more breeze than we were really comfortable in and led from the first shift working very hard given how light we were for the breeze. For leg after leg daughter #1 hiked for all her 80 lbs could get and on every tack the jib flew back into trim. Must. Beat. Greenie. We were first to the windward mark, first to the reaching mark, and onwards to the leeward mark and back to the windward mark we held onto a small lead. Our first gun signaling victory was only one a simple downwind leg away. Even better, the wind had shifted so it was to be a simple gybe set and straight to the finish with few tactical options for overtaking. If only Dad had not screwed up the gybe at the windward mark rounding.
We lost two boats, finished third in the race and third in the regatta. We did not get greenie but for us this was a pretty big deal. The fact that a lot of good sailors had skipped the regatta that year due to a conflict with Nationals did not change the sense of accomplishment we felt as a family team. From big boat cruisers to our first trophy as a family dinghy racing team. But this is really not about the trophy – it's about accomplishing something together.
Dad did pay a penalty however as the following year daughter #1 abandoned Dad and went to go crew on that green boat we could not beat. But in every cloud there is a silver lining, because seeing her sister survive and thrive, daughter #2 was now enticed to come out and crew for Dad.
We are fortunate in Annapolis to have a Tuesday evening casual racing series and I was lucky to be able to do that in the Snipe with both the kids. This is where they both first drove the boat – back and forth from the dock, then in a Tuesday evening series race and then in a Bay regatta. The plan was working well!
Soon enough Snipe Nationals came to town and we decided to give it a go. Daughter #1 would drive and Dad would crew in the special juniors portion of the regatta, then daughter #1 would step out to go crew the green boat and Dad and daughter #2 would race our Snipe in the regular Nationals against them.
On the last day of the junior portion of the regatta, with daughter #1 driving, we went into the Bay in 15-20 knots of wind and blinding rain – in a dinghy – racing in conditions that were way over our heads. We did something together that neither thought we could. We were hopelessly under the optimal weight and the upwind legs were painful long slogs which we knew would be followed by wild screaming reaches where we would be only marginally in control. She ended up with a trophy but all we were thinking about while sailing was survival and fun as odd as that was. I will forever remember the grey water, walls of grey rain, and grey sky all merging into one as the wind whipped the tops off waves. This strangely beautiful bleakness was all contrasted by the glowing smile on her face as we literally flew on the downwind reaches, a rooster-tail coming off the rudder. It was strangely demonic. “If Mom could see us now, she would kill us.” That seems to be a theme.
Daughter #2 was taking on more in the boat at a younger age than her sister, and she was not a fan of big breeze. The first day of a club regatta she drove – her first time driving a race on the Bay – we finished 3rd. The second day it blew stink. No way was she driving and I doubted she would want to even crew even though the race would be in the harbor. But she did. Maybe it was that Stuart Walker was serving as PRO and she knew who he was from the books at home. Maybe it was the fact that one of her friends was also out racing and we were ahead of them. Maybe she just wanted to finish what she started, but either way, she made the call to sail though it clear she was concerned about the conditions. We talked before the start and agreed we would play it safe downwind and not pole out the jib but rather run a triangle with only one gybe. We had a great first leg upwind and even though we were wildly under-weight compared to the other teams given the conditions, we found ourselves overlapped with the first place boat at the windward mark. I stayed outside planning on following her directions of running safer angles when she jumped up as we rounded and threw her whole body into launching the pole – huh??!! I was stunned as she turned back and said “why are you not working inside of him??” “Uh, because you said…,” I started to reply when she cut me off to insist, “lets go, I can do this.” Cool, I thought, but can I?
A year later daughter #2 and I found ourselves in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay during this year’s Frigid Digit Snipe regatta awaiting the start of racing while the breeze built to 15-25 knots which would again have me racing in conditions well over my abilities. “Do you want to give it a shot or go in,” I asked? “Lets try it and see how it goes,” she replied. We survived the first race and enjoyed amazing blast reaches which reminded me of the Nationals except they were maybe even faster. But on the second upwind leg of the second race, we lost it and capsized the boat. This was her greatest fear – and frankly I wondered if we would be able to right the boat in those conditions – but it ended with the boat upright, everyone safe, and some lessons learned. The boat also sustained some damage and I just assumed that due to a similar forecast for day 2, the need for repairs, and that the capsize would have only intensified her concern, that we would be done racing. But again I was in for a surprise. She wanted the boat fixed and to be back out racing on day 2 and so we did and we were. The breeze was still up for the first race of day 2 and we were tentative and had lots of boat handling issues, but by race 2 she seemed to have found her confidence. The breeze had come down a bit but was still above what she previously would have been comfortable with especially out in the middle of the Bay. Nevertheless she somehow put the concern out of her mind and got into race mode. We had a near perfect race and ended up beating a lot of boats crewed by good teams. That we also beat the green boat that her sister was crewing made it all the sweeter for both if us.
What I have come to love about racing – especially in the Snipe – is that it can be done as a family sport and that what it teaches is not just sailing skills. Its life skills like confidence, planning, and responsibility. In terms of the sailing, it’s a sport that all ages and genders can compete equally in and the class is filled with great people and many families.
We are far – very far – from being rock star sailors but we learned to sail this boat together. We failed and succeeded together. In an era where one on one time with your kids is so very precious, I not only get that one on one time with my kids, I get to do something fun and character building – together – week after week, year after year.
Dad may not be as dumb as he looks.
If you want to find out more about the Snipe class or racing as a family in general, check out this video.
Part 4: The joys of sailing a multihull; the challenges of finding good racing for it
So the Snipe is fun but is that all there is? I wondered if I could race with the whole family! This is what prompted our search for a boat that was large enough to be able to cruise with the family, fast and fun to sail like a dinghy, one could be crewed for racing by just a family, and easily trailered so we could go to travel regattas. Eventually we settled on a Corsair F27. No, we were not giving up the Laser or the Snipe, we were building a family fleet. I’m a lucky guy.
The Corsair F27 is a trimaran. It was designed by Ian Farrier, there were over 400 of them built by Corsair Marine, so like the Snipe they can be found at fairly affordable prices. They can be cruised by a family of 4, well raced by 2 or 3 crew, are easily trailered, and do double digit speeds at the drop of a hat. The Corsair F27 is in the US Sailing Hall of Fame and its obvious why, as it’s by far the most fun boat to sail that we have ever owned.
The problem is, while it’s the most fun boat to sail, the racing is the least attractive of the classes in which we participate. We bought the boat in part to go family racing so this a bit of a bummer. Of course it’s hard to be too sad while sailing along all nice and level at 15 knots with two fingers on the tiller and a Dark and Stormy in the other hand. The biggest problem is not being able to wave at folks as you pass them and there are some fun races!
It was odd though that we found so many families and kids having a blast in the Snipe – a boat designed almost 100 years ago – but few or no families or kids racing in the local multihull fleet where you find the cool modern boats. I struggled to understand why though part of it may be that many multihull fleets have adopted fairly wide band rating racing, over class racing. There also is no national rating system for multihulls; instead there are different regional rating systems – each with their own politics and vested self interests. The end result in my neck of the woods was there were no kids, the rating bands were so wide you often would not even be within sight – or the same weather – of your competitors while racing, and if you travel to a regatta you were forced into a whole different system. OK, I could understand why the family enjoyed day-sailing the boat, but was less interested to race it. It became a toy for Dad and his friends. So, what to do?
In talking with other owners we found that there is a group racing F27s as a class on the west coast and it got folks thinking, with over 400 boats out there could we do the same on the East coast? With Corsair holding a Nationals regatta smack-dab in the middle of the east coast – on the Chesapeake Bay in July, 2012 – there was a vehicle to try to do exactly that. Here is a video of the west coast guys having fun racing their F27s: Click here.
The Corsair Nationals focuses on class (narrow band rating) or one design racing and this may be a positive step. The range of multihulls in many fleets is such that 300 per cent plus differences in speed are quite common. Thus, the challenge of wide band rating racing – beside the virtual impossibility of any one system fairly rating boats as dissimilar as multihulls are – is that because the boats are so spread out on the course the entire learning aspect of one design racing is lost. You can not see the benefit of good roundings, being on the correct side of a shift, or good boat handling skills. The concept builds on some good work done by others such as a Fort Walton regatta which appears here:
Check out this link on You Tube.
So the challenge was clear. The F27 is hands-down the most fun, fast multi-purpose racer/cruiser there is. It’s easily raced by a family. And a venue for class racing exists. OK, time to step up and see if we can make it happen.
Part 5: Helping Plan a Regatta and Rebirthing is Hard Work!
So we had a fun, fast, multi-purpose, family boat with the F27, a fantastic venue with the Screwpile Regatta and Corsair Nationals in the Chesapeake, but a diminished class on the east coast. And where were the kids? One sure sign of life and growth in a class is to look for families and kids. They carry on the tradition and the fun generation after generation. It can be seen in the Snipes. Can it be done in multihulls? A group of F27 sailors were determined to find out.
If it was going to be reborn, however, we would need help and fortunately, we got a lot of it. In the time before that announcement of the Corsair Nationals went public, the designer – Ian Farrier, Corsair and most all its dealers, and various regional authorities and sailors all helped contribute names they knew of F27 sailors to a class list. Thanks to their help we have been able to locate and reestablish contact with over 1/3rd of the current owners of the boats in the class.
The most exciting part is 6 months before the regatta – in the middle of winter – we have 15 F27 owners already saying they are planning to come with many others interested. Even better – at least from my perspective – is some of them are family racers. I am looking forward to seeing some junior trophies being handed out in the class to some of our visiting families.
We have been able to reach out to a number of well know sailors and sail makers and they agreed to provide some go fast tips on trim and boat handling that will be distributed to the class to get everyone on as level a playing field as possible. We also have some local hotshots offering up tactical advice – again, free to all in the class – to the sailors coming in from out of town.
So if you hate to spend money, like to go fast safely, and think racing with your family might be a fun thing to do and the growth experience all in one – it is!! – then go get yourself a Corsair F27 and come to Corsair Nationals. (Ed's note: The Corsair Nationals is also open to owners of the Sprint 750 MK I / MK II, DASH 750, C24, C28, C31, C36, C37, F-27, F24 MK I / MK II, F-28 and F-31.)
Corsair Nationals will be held from July 15-17th at Solomons, Maryland, as part of the Screwpile regatta.
Not officially part of the Corsair Nationals but potentially of interest to both Corsair racers and cruisers alike is the Annapolis to Solomons race which takes places on Friday night, July 13th and for which there is a multihull class. We already have more than enough F27s for a class in both events.
I am not affiliated with any company or club involved here but I have done both of these regattas and they are very well run. Great facility with a pool, good dockage, well run racing, debriefs to help folks learn, and fun family friendly parties. Corsair and the Screwpile regatta organizers have really planned a great event at a fantastic and easily accessed venue. The cruising is also great and if you can, I encourage you to stay a while and cruise the Bay. This is the southern Chesapeake so expect warm temps, a building sea breeze (7-12 SE is typical) most every day. This has and continues to be one of the best attended events on the Chesapeake even before Corsair joined the fun. There is a reason the locals have supported this and keep coming back year after year in huge numbers… it’s a blast!
For details, click here.
I hope to see you there. I will be the guy with the smile and the kids!
The views and opinions expressed in this article belong to the author and may or may not reflect those of Corsair Marine International and its Dealership Network.
