BOOGIE BACK TO TEXAS: ETCHELLS NORTH AMERICANS

North Clients Top The Leaderboard On Road To World Championship

A small but uber competitive Etchells fleet gathered last week in Houston, Texas for the 2019 Etchells North Americans. Almost all the participants used this event as a lead up to the Worlds which will be sailed just down the Texas coast in Corpus Christi later in June.

The event, organized at Houston Yacht Club by class stalwart Marvin Beckman and his wife Melodye, saw moonsonal type conditions as a very active front stalled just north of Houston. The night before the first races saw rainfall accumulations as high as 8 inches. Mark Foster, PRO and his team did a great job to get 7 races in over 3 days under pretty difficult and variable conditions. Mark will be the PRO for the upcoming Worlds in Corpus.

North Sails’ Etchells class leader Chris Snow was on site leading up to the event and offered this insight to the event. “While the numbers were low, this was a very high quality fleet, including past World Champions, Olympic medalists and the like on many of the boats. Most of the teams in the top ten are just coming off a winter of racing and training at the Jaguar Series in Florida. A top finish in this fleet is quite an accomplishment!”.

“While the numbers were low, this was a very high quality fleet, including past World Champions, Olympic medalists and the like on many of the boats.”

Once the dust, and rain cleared the top boat, winning on tiebreaker was Scott Kaufman’s Rebel. Scott and his team of Lucas Calabrese, Austen Anderson and Diego Stefani scored a bullet in the last race to tie Marvin Beckman on The Martian and win the event. Marvin and his crew of Bill Hardesty, Pilar Calabese and Keith Swinton sailed a great consistent series to just be pipped in the end. They will be a formidable team in Corpus.

After the event, Kaufman was very complimentary of his team who have been together for just a year. He also explained his philosophy on racing and boat prep (Kaufman is a renowned naval architect).

“Sailboat racing is getting hundreds of little details right. Before the event we spent two days just working on our boat refining and making some of the systems work a little better and more smoothly. We probably worked on twenty different items. One small example is we have taken our pump out of the bow of the boat. The exit for the water now runs aft near where I sit. I think at times this can take up to 20 pounds of weight out of the forward portion of the boat.”

Kaufman was also complimentary of the North Sails tuning guide. “We stick very closely to the numbers in the North guide, it works well for us. We make small adjustments which are sometimes needed for a particular boat (rake for example) but generally we are quite close to the guide.”

“We stick very closely to the numbers in the North guide, it works well for us. We make small adjustments which are sometimes needed for a particular boat (rake for example) but generally we are quite close to the guide.” – Scott Kaufman

Top 10 Powered by North:

1st – Scott Kaufman
2nd – Marvin Beckmann
4th – Bruce Burton
5th – Jim Cunningham
6th – Alex Lacy
7th – Chris Hampton
8th – Donald Mense
9th – Andrew Wills
10th – Jose Fuentes

Kaufman’s team used all North Sails to win the regatta including the PC+ main, LM-2L jib, LM-2HR Jib, Full Radial and Runner Spinnakers. If you are heading to the Worlds or just to your local Etchells event North Sails has sails in stock for immediate delivery.

Browse the Etchells Sails Inventory.