2022 nacra 17 worlds

[david r]

From a random spectators view, it was perfect foiling on Sunday. They were doing 20knots upwind on Sunday.
There is good video of it.

 

[martin 'hoff]

Yeah Tita/Banti are just on their own race, pretty much every time. And overall the skills on display are just insane.

Tita seems to be driving it upwind like a moth.

 

[david r]

Yes, all 3 Italian teams were 1,2,3 in one heat and they all were going upwind with nice windward heel. That entire team seems to be ahead of the rest of the world in solid foiling conditions.
In the heats with steady wind i would think hitting the line at speed would be a good way to break out in the lead right away, rather than crowding the line and sheeting in at the gun. The boats at the pin were maybe going pretty fast at the gun then jumping on the foils more quickly than the boats up the line involved in pinching battles. It was interesting to see a big foiling fleet with long lasting heats. The cats are still interesting in floating mode whereas the moths in floating mode are looking parked up.
Also was great to see usa 50 win a heat in the middle part of the series. There is YT video of that day too and it is also interesting to watch.

 

[martin 'hoff]

Yes, all 3 Italian teams were 1,2,3 in one heat and they all were going upwind with nice windward heel. That entire team seems to be ahead of the rest of the world in solid foiling conditions.
In the heats with steady wind i would think hitting the line at speed would be a good way to break out in the lead right away, rather than crowding the line and sheeting in at the gun. The boats at the pin were maybe going pretty fast at the gun then jumping on the foils more quickly than the boats up the line involved in pinching battles. It was interesting to see a big foiling fleet with long lasting heats. The cats are still interesting in floating mode whereas the moths in floating mode are looking parked up.
Also was great to see usa 50 win a heat in the middle part of the series. There is YT video of that day too and it is also interesting to watch.

Tempting to think of doing time and distance. But foilers don't have a consistent speed so without T&D GPS+software assistance you just can't do it. And the fleet is large, the line short, boats wide, foils sharp.

it'd be literal carnage - not good.

Otoh the boats are light and accelerate fast, so in 6-8s (and 2 boatlenghts or so) you are at target speed. So everyone parks it 2 lengths behind the line, you trigger at 8s and that's the "easy" (read - doable with human skills) way.

For start line shenanigans, look at Tita&Banti port tacking the fleet. Ufff that was tight. And for all the straight line speed, these boats are damn slow tacking. If you aren't making it, have no openings and are forced to tack... uf!

 

[Olsalt]

The Italians are the only Nation really working together. There is no A Team and the decision who fights for olympic gold is made pretty late. All teams sail for a living.

In other nations it's more important to be the best team in the country just to be able to afford sailing. They try to keep national competition down. Best example is a nation who was stupid enough to place the decision who will compete at the olympics before they even had a ticket. So instead of completing for the ticket one of the teams made sure that the other one's not going. Placed second to last and last. Almost like this famos battle in between Ainslie and Scheidt. So this guy made sure he's going and was lucky enough to get his ticket at the very last chance.

I was lucky enough to spare a lot with the Italian teams. There was this one time at the Italian nationals were we were the only foreign team competing. So instead of focusing on who wins the national title they used us to figure out when it makes sense to foil upwind and when not. That was before the new ruder system and we were quite fast skimming upwind. It was about 16-17 knots or two stalls when we made it fist to the top mark. Unoftunatelly they always got us downwind.

 

[SimonN]

The Italians are the only Nation really working together. There is no A Team and the decision who fights for olympic gold is made pretty late.

You might be interested to learn that the most successful Olympic team every (Team GBR) has found that in most circumstances, late selection hurts medal winning potential. Research based on results of events before the Olympics and medals won shows that if you have the right selection criteria in place and somebody meets that criteria, then even if there is another sailor very close in performance, it is better to select as soon as the criteria is met. We are talking about criteria such as top 3 in a worlds while being a medallist from last time. The problem with late selection is that generally, you miss out on the development work that can be done between selection and the games, a period when you often find the biggest gains. In the case of Team GBR, you might be surprised at how many win medals having been selected more than a year ahead, even though the squad has great depth.

 

[mpenman]

Those are some serious sailors, wish there was more in it for every team, they're world class sailors.

 

[Olsalt]

You might be interested to learn that the most successful Olympic team every (Team GBR) has found that in most circumstances, late selection hurts medal winning potential.

In my opinion training and sparing has drastically changed after the 2016 games. Before it was much more common to train in multinational groups. There was still one group left with AUT, ARG and a team von GBR but that was the exception. Since you have no possibility to test your skills in training other than your national sailing team it makes sense to push the whole team to a top 10 level.

I also think that problem is specific to the N17 class since even in the 49er sparing races and low level regattas are much more common.

There will be no definitive answer here the Italiens brought home gold, the British silver. But the Italians have all teams in the top 20 and thats something.