Tornado_ALIVE

Not even close. The only competitive platforms at the top leave would be a carbon rigged Marstrom, Windrush or Graham Eeles. That said, if you are the average club racer, even an alloy stick Reg White or the like would be great fun and competitive in a local fleet.

Both about the same, The T doesn’t need as much weight as the F18 due to its beam and probably has a bit wider range.

No min for the Tornado class. Ideal is about 140kg but upto 165 is still very competitive. F18 min is 150kg without additional corrector weights. Ideal I would say is 150 to 160kg.

How about this, I like many of my mates have supported other classes, spent a lot of money racing them trying to stay at the front with the lates gear. Right now, with a young family I cannot afford to play like I use to and if I jump back into the F18 class, I would not be happy unless I get a new or very good boat and strive to be at the top. Buying a Tornado, I have paid nearly a third of the price for a boat that is 2 foot longer, 2 foot wider, 25kg lighter, better built, larger sail area, a lot more refined to sail and faster. I only plan to enjoy club racing now with the odd regatta, possibly a Worlds here and there. We have a lot of good T’s sitting in storage around Australia. We are locating them and getting them into the hands of active sailors. Other owners who have put sailing off for a while due to personal and work reasons, are dusting their boats off as we speak and are looking forward to hitting the water again. The T is great bang for buck racing. It is a more rewarding sailing experience than most other cats out there. The T is making a comeback in Oz

Revitalising the East Coast Australian Tornado Fleet. Late January, this year I returned back to the Tornado class after about a 13 year absence, buying a Marstrom. After many enquiries from people wanting to buy Tornados, I started a three month project locating boats for sale, convincing their owners to part with their boats and bringing these boats down to Melbourne. Two months later, I have managed to sell these boats and get them into the hands of owners who will give the T’s a refresh and actively sail them. I managed to find 2 x Marstrom’s and an Epoxy Reg White in Darwin, nearly 4,000 km away. Co-ordinating with the owners, they packed the three Tornados onto a trailer whilst dealing with a direct hit form a cyclone I then arranged for them to be trucked down south to Melbourne on the back of a flat bed trailer. On arrival, a mate of mine helped me to unpack the trailer and assemble the three boats. This mate bought one of the Marstrom and is already on the water, keenly sailing through a Melbourne winter. We will be racing against each other at our local club very soon. A gentleman from South Australia travelled over to Melbourne to pick up the Reg White and will keenly race it against a very quick M20 and will hopefully build the SA fleet. I was then contacted by a gentleman in Qld regarding his father looking for a boat, I pulled apart my Marstrom and loaded it onto the trailer, driving up to Sydney to meet the new buyer half way. The new owner is an old Tornado salt from way back and is very excited with his new boat. The last remaining Marstrom, I will be giving a make over, joining the other T racing out of Port Melbourne. The last few months have been a little stressful owning four Tornados, looking to sell three coming into winter. Fortunately, I managed to find three keen sailors and nearly broke even, coming away with few spare parts. I will not be buying and selling multiple Tornados ever again, however if anyone is looking to buy or sell in Australia, I would like to assist with getting boats into active sailors hands. I have already located a very good Windrush and Marstrom for sale. With keen new Tornado sailors in Qld, Vic and SA, I expect interest and fleets to grow further. Many are talking about the boats at the moment and we are yet to hit the water racing this coming season.

Beat me to it Scarecrow

Some good footage of a few Pulse 600’s racing in Tahiti.

Not sure how he fell of but was picked up by the committee boat. 2 x MOB’s, 4 broken masts and apparently a small yacht sunk. It was a little full on at the end.

If it is past 90, it would not be much. I thought she was more 90. The shape of the rotation arm may give the impression it is past 90 though. Just fully releases as we do on beach cats off the breeze.

No big ‘park it’ stuffs, I have certainly stuffed it deeper however the breeze was building further and we had to harden up on the breeze a bit more. There were a lot of boats getting into trouble around us. We were coming into the finish so I was not concerned about stuffing into a bag if we did not plan on resetting. Was certainly quicker and easier, particularly running 2 up. Not sure on boat speed.

I may have talked it up a bit ...... here is the video.

Second bag, great idea

I was on the Corsair 760. BTW, congrats on the win, you guys sailed very well in some testing conditions.

I would rather have pussstralians than mentalmericans