Hobie 18 and Hobie 17 North American Championships 2023

Early August 2023 saw the biggest Hobie 17 and Hobie 18 North American Championships in the last 20 years.
With 13 Hobie 17s and 25 entries in the Hobie 18 fleet coming from USA, CANADA and AUSTRALIA

15 races were scheduled for both fleets with just 1 discard. The conditions really showcased what Lake Quinault had to offer.
No wind in the morning with low fog and mist on the mountains until the mountains warm up and the breeze kicks in at about 1pm to be a competitors dream with oscillating direction and wind strength increasing over the remainder of the afternoon.
This allowed the Race Committee to hold at least four races each day of about 45 minutes per race in winds ranging from 6 knots up to 16 knots by the end of the day offering competitors a variety of conditions so it certainly was not the same from one day to the next.

A real boost to the event was the entry of John Forbes, 3 time Olympic and 7 times World Champion Tornado Sailor, Making the long Journey to compete and to showcase his ‘reinagined Hobie 18’ as featured in a previous episode of Show us your CAT.

This was the first time that John and his wife Caroline have raced together.

The new licensed Hobie Cat manufacturer Starting Line Sailing has made available again new sails for the Hobie 18 class and were kind enough to release a new colour combination just for this North American Championship called Quinault Sunset which many teams took the opportunity to purchase just prior to the event.

John & Caroline won 8 out the 15 races but it could have been more had John not hit the first mark of Race 1 whilst leading the fleet and lost 10 places whilst doing the 360 degree penalty.

– first US team was husband and wife John and Della Hoag in second place overall.
– first Canadian team was long time Hobie 18 sailor and regatta organiser Paul Evenden and Elianna Sutcliffe in 7th place which included a heat win in Race 11.

– John & Caroline’s dominance in the Hobie 18 fleet came from their superior upwind speed and height which no other team could match. Forbes and training partners Richard and Zoe Freer started every race at the pin end even if it wasn’t the favoured end. This was to avoid any trouble at the often crowded boat end of the start line where many teams gathered as they tended to want to get to the right side of the course. However Forbes and Freer often debunked that theory by banging the left corner to always be in the top group, if not leading, at the top mark each race.

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