- Mardi Gras Race Week 2012 is in the books March 2, 2012
Feb. 24-26, 2012
New Orleans, LA
Minimal photographic evidence exists at press time to indicate that Mardi Gras Race Week actually occurred. Perhaps this is an effort to protect the innocent — whatever happens in New Orleans, stays in New Orleans, lest you find yourself lost in the bayou and show up the following MGRW married to a nutria and sporting a wicked sunburn and Cajun accent. In any case, we’ve seen the results, and we’ve seen a couple of other accounts of the regatta, and know that 15 Vipers made the trip for the 2012 Gulf Coast Championship for the first stop on the EFG Pan American Championship as one of the regional regattas. Wisconsin sailor Tom Peterson and his team won over California road warrior Jim Sears and his Ullman Sails team, with fleet newcomer and local boy Lee Eikel ...
...read more - Approval of New Tooling For North American Production March 1, 2012
Dear Class Members and Fellow Viper Owners,
As many of you know, Rondar Raceboats is building two new sets of molds for the Viper in order to establish North American Production at the factory in Peabody. This is an exciting development for our Class. We have been asked by a number of members how the Class Association supervises this process and how we review any proposed modifications or refinements to the tooling. We thought we would share our answer with everyone.
One of the great strengths of the Viper Class is that we are a strict one-design class where the builder is appointed by the Class Association and the rules are controlled by the owner members. Importantly, our class has a proven track record of introducing occasional refinements to the boat that keep the boat modern and user friendly but at the ...
...read more - Alamitos Bay Yacht Club Rolls Out Red Carpet for 2012 SCYA Midwinters February 23, 2012
Feb. 18-19, 2012
Long Beach, CA
For those who pay close attention to the front page and class news, you know that Alamitos Bay Yacht Club in Long Beach, California, will be hosting the 2014 Viper North Americans. Outside the fleets in Arizona, San Diego and Seattle, allegedly no east coast Viperers have made the trip to the L.A. area. Sure, we’ve all read about the legendary sailing conditions in Southern California, listened to the Beach Boys classic “California Girls”, heard of the infamous “Timbo”, maybe even staged our own Speedpuck photo with a thumbs up, a smirk and a wink. But we haven’t visited, and we should. So I did…
Every President’s Day weekend, clubs from Santa Barbara to San Diego play host to the largest regatta in the United States (and maybe the world): the SCYA Midwinters. 100 one design classes ...
...read more - EFG Bank Pan American Championship Series Trophy January 26, 2012
This is the gorgeous perpetual trophy that has been commissioned for the Pan American Championship series.
The trophy is a solid bronze sculpture that stands two feet tall. It will be mounted on an eight inch high carbon plinth that is being manufactured by Ben Parker. The total height of the trophy is 32″
The trophy will be presented by EFG to the 2011 series champions, Glyn Locke, David Chapman and Ian Nicholson at the opening event for the 2012 series, Bacardi Miami Sailing week, March 12.
The results for the 2011 series will be posted here as soon as our class web turks have downloaded the pdf
The 2012 Pan American Championship series has a couple of important innovations.
The series will consist of three regattas.
1.The opening event remains the Bacardi in Miami.
2. For the second event, each competitor has a choice of their best ...
...read more - Houston 2013 January 25, 2012
The 2013 Viper North American Championships are being hosted by Houston Yacht Club in October 2013.
HYC’s commodore, Pat Gibson is ready for y’all. He loves his new Viper and he put on a show at the HYC Commodore’s Ball to give us a taste of what we can expect. The Gulf promises to live up to its reputation for big breeze, great parties, beautiful ladies and lots of SHRIMP!
In the meantime, we look forward to seeing a strong Texan contingent at the Mumblehead 2012 NAs this coming September. In order to reduce transportation risks, the Texans fully intend to collect the North American Trophy and bring it home with them. “Come and Take It” !
...read more - 2012 Arizona YC Birthday Regatta January 17, 2012
This past weekend Arizona Yacht Club played host to their annual Leukemia Cup regatta, also known as the Birthday Regatta. There was an added incentive this year as Ullman Sails Newport Beach sponsored Friday’s Centerboard Challenge. The Portsmouth, PHRF and Viper Fleets all turned up to do battle for centerboard dominance. The Viper fleet also included the day as part of their Leukemia Cup series. The wind was strong in the morning, but the afternoon included a 180-degree shift and light air, which made for an interesting and challenging racecourse. READ MORE
Final results
...read more - 2012 Arizona Leukemia Cup January 17, 2012
Arizona Yacht Club’s Birthday Regatta is like the “Cochella” of sailing… There’s a festival-type of vibe with everyone staying on houseboats or camping in RVs right next to the lake. When not racing, most sailors can be seen “campfire hopping”, hanging out at the yacht club tent, or watching NFL playoffs at the marina bar. And, with cell signal a bit weak, it was definitely a weekend “off the grid”. If I could freeze time to a single weekend, this might be one of them. Great racing at a fun venue with a bunch of crazy Viper sailors…
Lake Pleasant is traditionally a light air venue… so my pre-regatta planning included the bright idea of down-sizing my spinnaker halyard/retriever to a class-minimum 4mm super-light line. This was going to be our “secret weapon” as our current retrieval line was pretty heavy ...
...read more - Miami, Miami, Miami January 11, 2012
Racing Vipers on Biscayne Bay has deservedly been described as a dress rehearsal for heaven on earth. Crystal blue water, breeze from 10-18 day after day, followed by an evening among the bars and restaurants of tropical Coconut Grove. What could be better in the middle of a cold winter??
We’ve been working hard and we’ve finally established a Miami winter series with mast up storage. In 2013 we will have 3 events, but for this year, we have two events scheduled. We now have a home at the US Sailing Center in Coconut Grove, which will provide storage and launching for the Viper Class from now on. All Viper attendees can store and launch out of one location. Storage contract and details are here.
Our first Miami regatta for 2012 is the First Annual Valentine’s Regatta, hosted by the US Sailing Center on February 11th & 12. We’ve arranged something pretty ...
...read more - Viper 640 Sails Update December 29, 2011
It’s cold here in southeastern Connecticut and our local Vipers are tucked away for at least a couple months. Hoping to hit the road and make Bacardi Miami Sailing Week in March…
Thought it might be a good time for an update on what’s going on with sails in the Viper Class. Unlike a lot of other one design classes, we enjoy and appreciate the active participation and support of a relatively large group of different sailmakers. There are currently 12 Class approved sailmakers, with Schurr Sails and Mauri Sails being the most recent additions. Sail shapes have evolved and improved – they are fast and easier to trim. And we all benefit as sail buyers from some healthy price competition. From a Viper owner perspective, life is pretty good. For the full list of Class approved sailmakers and links to ...
...read more - Viper Class News – New Class Leaders December 9, 2011
Your Class Executive Committee is pleased to announce two important changes to the Executive Committee. We welcome Dawn Kozak from Perth Amboy, NJ, as the new Class President and Garrett Johns from Anacortes, WA, as the new Class Secretary.
A quick bit of background and explanation:
Dan Tucker is stepping down as Class President in order to accept a full time job with the new North American Rondar Raceboats, USA facility in Peabody, MA. Dan will be responsible for marketing, sales and customer service. This in itself is very exciting news for the Viper Class. Dan will be describing his new role in more detail elsewhere, but suffice to say that we will be seeing increased professional promotion for our class and we can expect Dan to bring his passion for customer service and for Vipers to the role.
Jay Harrell has been ...
...read more - ABYC Turkey Day Regatta November 21, 2011
This past weekend was the ABYC Turkey Day Regatta – their largest regatta with 220 boats sailing. Saturday turned out to be a beautiful day; the sun came out pretty early, so we had some good wind during the day. We had 7 Vipers attend the regatta, with two boats traveling from as far as Seattle to compete. We were able to get in 4 windward/leeward races with close competition at each mark rounding. There were a few “disagreements”, but for the most part we all played nice.
Full report and videos of Vipering in 30+ kts after the jump.
Team Viral’s first race got off on the wrong foot with a bad start and leeward mark rounding; we ended up finishing 4th like ducks in a row. Our next three starts were great and we ended up finishing 1st in each ...
...read more - Venues Selected for Next Three North American Championships November 17, 2011
The Executive Committee has selected venues and approximate dates for the Viper 640 class’s next three North American Championships. Going forward, bids will be accepted up to 3 years in advance for future North Americans in order to allow the class to work with organizers and host clubs to plan great events and to maximize turnout.
North Americans
2012: Marblehead, Massachusetts (Eastern YC) Sept. 6-9, 2012 (Pre NAs / Labor Day Regatta Sept. 1-2, 2012)
2013: Houston, Texas (Houston YC) October 10-13, 2013
2014: Long Beach, California (Alamitos Bay YC) Sept. 3-6, 2014
As many of you already know, the 2012 North Americans will return to the unofficial “birthplace” of the Viper class, Marblehead, Massachusetts, for the first time since 2008, hosted by Eastern Yacht Club. There will be a Labor Day Regatta the weekend before the NAs to allow out-of-towners to come and practice ...
...read more - Class Governor Justin Scott wins US Sailing One-Design Leadership Award November 17, 2011
Congratulations Justin!
I am happy to report that our very own Class Governor and former President, Justin Scott has won the prestigious US Sailing One-Design Leadership Award. This award is presented in recognition of individual initiative, enthusiasm, organizing ability and leadership in creating the outstanding fleet building program. All of us in the Viper Class know well how Justin has brought us from oblivion to success, from a dead class as a result of a bankrupt builder to vibrant, growing example that a grassroots class can thrive in today’s world. It’s recognition that Justin deserves for all of the hard work he has put in over the past years.
Here’s the US Sailing announcement:
BAY HEAD, N.J. (November 15, 2011) – Last Saturday night at US Sailing’s 2011 One-Design Sailing Symposium, presented by Gowrie Group and hosted by the Bay Head Yacht Club, five awards were ...
...read more - Eight Bells. Tito Bacardi, beloved patron of the Star Class and the Bacardi Cup October 20, 2011
He will be sadly missed. Best summed up in his own words at the 2004 Bacardi Cup
“I think the sailors like coming here because we treat them like family. When they’re here, they are part of the Bacardi Family. We take care of them. Yes, we pay for many things; certainly that is nice for them. But, it’s more than that. It is the family feeling that makes Bacardi Cup so special.”
“Each year, following the last race, I throw a bottle of Bacardi to the winners. Most times, they miss! They are tired, the boats are moving. Sometimes, I throw 6-7 bottles until they catch it. This year, I hope Mark and Magnus will catch it on the first throw!”
“The Coral Reef Yacht Club has been home to the Bacardi Cup since 1962, but Bacardi’s dream is to take the ...
...read more
