Schock 40 News |
Estupendo is Back! |
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Schock 40 #1, which was originally launched in San Francisco for test sailing and then went to Acapulco, is back in San Francisco. Alfonso Sosa Cordero and Matt Brown drove to Acapulco in June, put the boat behind Alfonso?s pick up, and headed north. They climbed 10,000 feet into the Sierra Madre Mountains near Mexico City and then dropped down to Mazatlan. They loaded the boat onto a car ferry and crossed the Sea of Cortez to La Paz. |
The drive from there up the Baja coast to San Diego was incredible ? narrow winding roads and harrowing near misses. The four day trip over 2,500 non-freeway miles was an experience of a lifetime. Below are two photos of their excursion. Alfonso is now in the process of reconditioning Estupendo and is looking forward to an exciting racing season. |
| Mad Dog is Off to the Races | ||
Early Summer 2004 Schock 40 #9 Mad Dog, owned and skippered by Ed Feo of Long Beach, has placed in every event it has raced to date. They were second in PHRF-A in Cal Yacht Club's Cal Cup, a five-race series sailed out of Marina del Rey. The TP-52 Margaritaville was first, Mad Dog was second, and Black Knight, a Farr 39 was third. Mad Dog’s next event was North Sails Race Week June 25 ? 27. For twenty years, this regatta has been one of the premier racing events in Southern California. It is sailed inside the Long Beach Harbor breakwater and has been organized by a team of expert regatta managers put together by Bruce Golison. The conditions are typically perfect ? 8 to 12 knots in the morning, 18 knots true in the afternoon. Schock 40s have trophied every year since 2001. Unfortunately, the Golisons have decided not to have another race in Long Beach next year. The Schock 40 had a disappointing first race but went on to sail a sound regatta in a really competitive 13-boat fleet. Mad Dog was the lead boat at the first weather mark of the first race and was looking really, really good. |
Unfortunately, they shrimped the kite and fell back to ninth place. The races after that looked much better. Their 3 ? 4 ? 3 ? 1 ? 7 series put them in third place for the regatta. First place class honors went to Arana, a Choate 51. Second went to Chance, a very well-sailed Farr 395 from San Francisco, with a (shall we say) favorable rating. Ed Feo and Steve Schock also had a terrific Crew of Two Around Catalina Island Race. This annual PHRF event drew about 40 really qualified entries and takes the fleet around Catalina Island off the Southern California coast. Mad Dog was first in class, first overall, and first to finish. There wasn?t even a catamaran ahead of them. The second monohull to finish was 5 ? hours behind them. They sailed with a -18 PHRF rating. This is the third year in a row that a Schock 40 has entered this event. It has placed second the first two years and first this time around. The canting ballast makes the Schock 40 ideal for races that limit the crew to one or two. |
J Swift & the 2004 Race To Mackinac |
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July 24, 2004 The Chicago Yacht Club?s Race to Mackinac is typically sailed in pretty warm, fluky weather conditions. But this year a cold northeasterly breeze put the fleet on the wind for most of the race. Ron Nolan and his crew aboard J Swift (S40 #5) sailed on starboard tack hard on the wind for about 32 hours without a single sail change. Winds ranged from 10 to 12 knots. When they finally tacked to port, the breeze clocked around, and they were able to set a close reaching kite. At the 45th Parallel, which is the first checkpoint for the fleet, J Swift was in second place in her fleet (Americap Section 1), going 9 knots in 10 knots of breeze, feeling pretty good. |
Just one mile from the finish line, the wind quit and they sat, going nowhere, for four hours. They could see the finish line but just couldn't get there. A couple of boats closed in from astern, and J Swift lost two positions to finish fourth behind a DuB50 and two J145s. Ron tells us he had the J145s cremated until the lull. A N/M 43, a Schock 55 and three J125s corrected behind them. |
Skandia Cowes Week |
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August 7 - 14, 2004 Cowes Week, which is held each year on the Solent off the Isle of Wight in England, is one of the most amazing sailing events on Planet Earth. This year?s regatta drew over 950 entries and thousands and thousands of racers and spectators. There were about 25 one-design classes ranging from the wooden X Boats (built in the early 1900s) to Etchells and Dragons, a new RS Elite 24 ft. keelboat, and a class of medium-sized multihulls. Sunsail even chartered fleets of their 36s and 37s. And there was every offshore boat imaginable. Schock 40 #10, with owner Iain Hall coordinating the effort, sailed as a member of the Skandia Team, having been recognized by the regatta sponsor for its contribution to the sport of sailing. During eight continuous days of racing, wind conditions ranged from zero knots to 35. The current ran up to four knots. And the weather went from hot to cold and back again. As the saying goes, if you don?t like the weather, just wait. There is one race per day for each fleet, no matter what the conditions. To even things out, the overall regatta scores are based on six of the eight races. Because the individual boats don?t necessarily enter all of the races, the number of boats in our class varied from 20 to 35 starters. And there was no predicting how many would finish. The boats in our class ranged in size from a Swan 65 to a 35 footer. Our races were from 25 to 35 miles in length; and of the 99 marks on the race course, we rounded a minimum of 10 buoys and up to 19 in a single race. Through all of this we had to safely maneuver around the Brambles (a large shallow spot in the middle), the bricks (or rocks) scattered here and there, and big globs of black weed floating just below the surface. It wasn?t unusual to see boats high and dry; and we had to back down three times in one race to shed the weeds. Because of the extreme currents, anchoring at a mark in order to keep from getting flushed off the race course was common. We anchored at the windward mark one day in zero knots and a cold drizzle. The next day, we anchored at the leeward mark in 80 degrees, with sunshine and no wind. Twenty-five degree wind shifts were not uncommon. |
The courses and conditions put a real demand on navigation, local knowledge, and crew work. Although it is buoy racing, it is nothing like the typical windward leeward races we are accustomed to. The teams that have sailed this event on a regular basis have an enormous advantage. And winning doesn?t come easily. Needless to say, all of this was a huge challenge for the brand new Schock 40 and its uninitiated Cowes Week crew. We put the boat in the water the week before the regatta, hoping to get in five days of practice. Unfortunately, the practice days dwindled to two as we scrambled to complete the commissioning of the boat. The biggest lesson learned was that it isn?t real smart to take a new boat straight from the boat yard to the race course. Although our score was really disappointing, we felt the boat performed really well. With Dave Ullman at the helm, we got really good starts, and the crew worked well as a team. It seemed, though, that we were up against a rating that makes it nearly impossible to win. We had a good, competitive rating when we started the project. But this all changed in the wake of Wild Oat?s amazing success. For now, the canting ballast factor in the IRC rating formula is a difficult factor to rise above. We sailed boat-for-boat with the two DK46s and a IMX45 ? big powerful boats that are especially efficient upwind. The Schock 40 was faster downwind, but the way the rating went, we had to give them time. The rating factor is bound to change with time. All in all, Cowes Week was an incredible experience. The Schock 40 will be a real threat with a little more time on the water. Tom Schock |
2004 Chicago Yacht Club Verve Cup |
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A Great Event for Lightning August 20 - 22, 2004 This three-day series of races around the buoys is a huge event and draws the best, most serious Great Lakes racers. Lightning, the Schock 40 prototype, with its partnership of relatively new but extremely competitive Polish sailors, took third place. They are ecstatic! Lightning got two firsts, a third, three fourths, and an eighth. The wind the first day was 5?8 knots (occasionally less). The wind on Saturday was 7?11 knots, and on Sunday it picked up to the 15-22 knot range. Unfortunately, Lightning broke its jib halyard during the last race and had to finish without the jib. |
They were flying a brand new genaker during the regatta and flew past seventy footers downwind. A N/M 46 was first in class, a Santa Cruz 70 was second, and Lightning was third. The other boats in their class were a Trip 47, another SC70, a frers 50, two J125s, the Schock 40 Swift, an Andrews 68, and a N/M 43. |
Schock 40 Race Results 2003 Southern California and Chicago
From Docile "Dandelion" to "Mad Dog"
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Schock 40 #10 is on its way to England
Schock 40 #10 left the factory May 24, bound for a ship in L.A. Harbor. It is scheduled to reach England on June 29, where it will be commissioned and launched in time for a busy racing season that includes Cowes Race Week.
The boat sits low on a custom cradle, with the mast boxed separately.
The strut and canting mechanism (foreground), the bulb, and the rudders |
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