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Viper 640 North American Championship

The Viper 640 North American Championship was held last week (July 24-27), as part of the Marblehead NOOD regatta.  As a new owner of a Viper 640, I was thrilled to be offered the opportunity to charter a boat for the regatta, and jumped at the chance to attend the event.  After all, what better way to get up the learning curve quickly on the Viper 640 than to attend the North American Championship? 

We had 26 boats registered, and a very deep, competitive fleet.  The number of competitors has increased by 45% for two consecutive years mirroring the growth of interest in this modern 21 foot sportsboat. The Class Association has grown from a mere 20 boats 2 1/2 years ago to 100 boats in North America today. What makes this growth particularly remarkable is that it occurred without the extensive marketing and promotion usually associated with the launch of one-design sportsboat classes. The Viper class pursued a different formula.

Quoting Justin Scott, current president of the Viper Class, “It was back to the future.  The great classes of yore like the Lightning and the Etchells and the Star were not launched with a large marketing campaign and expensive advertising budgets, They were beautifully designed, well built boats and the classes grew by word of mouth because they were fun boats to race and sailors told other sailors about them.  It seemed to us that the age of the internet made ‘word of mouth’ possible again, and that we had come across a beautifully designed, well built, modern equivalent of those great classes”.  Justin and the other founders of the Viper 640 Class Association believed there was a place for such a boat and furthermore that if existing owners spread the word and if sailors could buy the Viper directly from the builder, costs could be kept down and the Viper could provide a much needed value for money modern one-design boat for the North American sailing community.  So far, the ‘word of mouth’ formula has been a huge success, with new Viper 640 fleets starting around the country and the builder of the boat, Rondar Raceboats, shipping new boats as fast as they can build them.

Our adventure began Wednesday, July 23rd.  Our crew was converging from far and wide:  Charles, my old high school friend, who would be trimming the kite (and hereafter shall be known as “The Kite Man Trimmeth”), was flying up from his home in Annapolis (lucky dog).  Knox R., who would be splitting the charter with me and co-skippering the boat, was flying in from Atlanta, and I was coming from Austin, TX.  The plan was for all of us to fly in to Boston on Wednesday evening, and meet at the boat bright and early Thursday morning to launch the boat, and get some practice time (the three of us had never sailed together) before the beginning of the regatta.  Riiiiiight….  

Well, the trip out to the east coast was fairly eventful, as there was bad weather in the northeast, which backed up flights into Boston from all over the country.  We eventually made it in, but didn’t get to our hotel until around 3 in the morning, not looking forward to starting the regatta on only 3-4 hours of sleep. Knox never made it out of Atlanta, so we thought we’d have to find someone else to race with us the first day of the regatta.

However, the weather deities had other plans in store for us.  Thursday, the official first day of racing, dawned with unstable weather, and after waiting around for several hours for things to settle down, the race committee finally cancelled racing for the day just as some Texas-size thunderstorms started moving through the area, complete with torrential rain and a tornado warning.  So in lieu of racing, the Viper fleet spent the afternoon enjoying a tech-talk with Brian Bennett, the designer of the Viper 640, and Paul Young from Rondar Raceboats.  Brian and Paul had flown to the regatta specifically to support the fleet with tech talks, on-the-water coaching assistance (more on that later), and to answer any and all questions from the Viper sailors.  Having them as a resource was a wonderful addition to the regatta, but at this point I had no inkling of exactly how much I and my boat in particular would benefit from Brian’s presence.  I was about to find out!

On Friday, the first day of racing, the owner of the boat we were chartering insisted that we sail with a friend of his, as a sort of “check out ride”.  And who was this “friend”? None other than Brian Bennett, who is not only the designer of the Viper 640, but also an America’s cup sailor, Whitbread Round The World helmsman, Contender Dinghy Junior World Champion, etc. etc.   In other worlds, we had one of the true rock stars of the sailing world crewing on my boat!  When I bought my Viper, I never imagined that I’d get the chance to sail with the designer and builder of the boat, never mind have him call tactics and coach us in a regatta…  As an added bonus, the owner of the boat let Brian borrow his brand new suit of sails,  which we took out of their bags for the very first time that morning.

Charles graciously agreed to hop on to another boat that was missing crew for Thursday, and Brian sailed with us the first day, coaching us on Viper-specific boat handling tips, speed secrets, and calling tactics.  We could hardly believe we had the designer of the boat onboard…  A really nice guy, fantastic coach, and a magician on tactics.  He seemed to always keep us in good pressure, and put us in the right place at the right time to take advantage of every lift and puff.  He worked us pretty hard on boat handling, practicing roll tacks and gybes before and during the first race.  It was surprising how well the Viper responded, and how much faster it seemed to maneuver, when you snapped off a good roll tack or gybe.  Essentially, he had us sailing it like a big dinghy instead of a small keelboat, and it was an absolute hoot.  It seemed like the best of two worlds:  The nimbleness and maneuverability of a dinghy combined with the security and stability of a very beamy boat with a weighted bulb.  But I digress… Getting back to the race, by the first windward mark rounding, we were in second place, just a couple of boat lengths from the leader.  We rounded, set the kite and immediately gybed, heading left on the first downwind leg, while the leaders went right.  We made the right call (or got lucky!) and coming back together near the leeward gate, we were in front.   Unfortunately, on the second beat they passed us again, and then held the lead to the finish.  But we were still ecstatic with the result. 

Our original goals for the regatta had been to have fun, meet as many of the sailors in the Viper fleet as possible, learn as much as we could about making the boat go fast, and never finish dead last in any race.  A second place finish in this very competitive fleet was never part of the plan, so we were a little in shock after that first race.  J

In the second race, with Knox my co-skipper driving, we also did quite well, with a 6th place finish.  We finished day 1 of the regatta in third place overall, hardly believing it ourselves.

On day 2, Brian left our boat to spend the rest of the regatta on the Viper fleet “coach boat”.  The fleet coach boat had been organized by our class leadership, and is one of the things that made this regatta so great.  For this event, the Viper fleet waived the “no outside assistance” rule for our class, in order to allow Brian Bennett and the builder of the boat, Paul Young from Rondar, who is also a world-class sailor, to coach the fleet from a RIB that spent the weekend zipping around the race course, giving real time feedback and advice on boathandling, trim and tactics to anyone who wanted it. 

Sailing with Brian was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.  We learned a ton in the couple of races we had him on the boat, and also figured out what we needed to work on.  By the end of the regatta, we were much more comfortable with our boat handling, roll-tacking and roll-gybing the Viper like it was a 420 dinghy, and carrying the kite REALLY deep into the leeward gates, snappinng off mexican takedowns without shrimping the spinnaker, feeling like rock stars. :-)  The breeze picked up enough in the last race on Saturday for sustained planing runs, with extra bursts of speed as we surfed down the gentle Atlantic rollers with huge smiles on our faces.  The day ended with a power three-sail-reach all the way back in to Marblehead harbor under the kite, clocking sustained double digit speeds.   It was one of those sailing days you really hate to see come to an end.

For the rest of the regatta, with our original crew back together, our results were more in line with our original expectations, given that we no longer had our star tactician onboard, and perhaps also due in small part to the much older sails we were now racing with (but let’s be honest, I’m sure that Brian’s absence had a lot more to do with it! J).   We had moments of brilliance intermingled with complete brain-f*rts, but never stopped having fun.  Our scores ranged from a 15th, to a 22nd, to end the regatta in 17th place overall out of 26 boats.

We accomplished all of our goals in spades, and can’t wait to race the Viper in a one-design event again.  Once we’ve had a chance to practice a bit more, we expect to give the fleet a little more competition. 

Our whole crew agreed: The regatta was an excellent event, the people we met were competitive yet friendly and helpful, and the boat was fantastic.  Now I just need to figure out how to get myself one of the gorgeous new Viper 640’s being delivered by Rondar.  Hmmm… let’s see:  If I sold mine and saved my pennies for a new one???…    Does anyone local want to buy my gently used, rock solid Viper 640 so I can get a new one and we can kick-start the AYC Viper fleet? J J J

More photos from the regatta are here:

http://dantucker.smugmug.com/gallery/5543874_VeqyJ#339633137_k9dEC

and here:

http://picasaweb.google.com/pbfein/Nood2008

 If anyone is interested in seeing online replays of the races, visit our Viper Fleet online replay page here: http://www.sailhack.net/gps_replays/2008_viper_na/

Races from Friday and Saturday are already posted online, and we should have Sunday’s races posted in the next couple of days.  I organized the GPS-based replays for the fleet, and even got a nice award for it at the end of the regatta (totally unexpected and very flattering).