PODIUM SWEEP AT THE E SCOW ECESA CHAMPIONSHIP

Learn About the New 3D Designed Mainsail Tested at the Event

The ECESA Championship “Easterns” took place at Chautauqua Lake Yacht Club with twenty-four teams competing over three days of great, competitive racing.

Chad Hillyer with Ryan Bailey and Jimmy Kennedy on T-17 “Hunter” won three of six races using a new North Sails AP Mainsail, LM Jib and AP spinnaker. Chad said “we really focused on keeping our eyes out of the boat looking for pressure, especially in the last two races when it was very light. I thought upwind we were higher & same speed as the fleet, and we were able to reach towards pressure with the AP spinnaker”.

North Sails E Scow experts Jeff Bonanni and Eric Doyle sailing with Chris Bigos and Colleen Obrien finished second using a North Sails R&D mainsail, R&D jib and Whomper spinnaker. Jeff commented “we were very confident in our boatspeed and it showed in the consistency of our results with four top 3 finishes in a row. We were able to have conservative midline starts, hang in thin lanes and not have to take excess risk. I thought our bow down / speed forward mode upwind with the R&D sails is where we really excelled, dropping both traveler tracks and eating up the course when we were in good pressure”. “It was very puffy, and the Whomper spinnaker enabled us stay low in the lulls while we waited for pressure, it never really paid to chase it high. Once we were set up lower in the pressure, we jumped lots of boats on gybes and were able to defend going into the leeward gates or finish line more successfully”.

Carl Horrocks with Kirby Slack and Dean Thompson on T-12 “Might As Well” finished third using a North Sails R&D AP mainsail, LM-2 jib and Whomper spinnaker. The team on T-12 used North Sail’s first E Scow mainsail designed in North Sails 3D molding software “Flow”. Carl commented:

“The new North 3D designed mainsail is identical to our AP mainsail, but it’s incredibly smooth with no distortion or wrinkling when we vang hard”.

North expert Jeff commented “Carl returns to skippering after many years crewing for Chad Hillyer. Carl purchased my boat last year, so we’re able to use their team as a benchmark in the sail design and tuning process. The two masts are as identical as possible, and all the sheets have the same trim marks. I’m able to change on a week to week basis, scan the sail photos and make incremental changes to tuning while the North R&D team of Allan Terhune, Eric Doyle and Mike Marshall suggest design changes. Each week we have been a little bit faster and this result for North clients at the Easterns is satisfying, however we won’t stop pushing to design and produce the fastest sails for our E scow clients”.