Oslo Boatshow also provided opportunity to meet our oldest owner, 79 year old Viking, Truls Krogsrud who got his Seascape after test sailing her on a week long cruise in Adriatic. Reactions we got from visitors and journalists were very positive so together with our partner Seamax we are looking forward to the next season.

Next is Southampton boatshow from 10. to 19. of September, where Seascape will be shown for the first time for the UK customers. You can find us on the stand AO15, close to the boatshow entrance.

Also very interesting will be Grand Pavois boat show in La Rochelle held from 15. to 19. of September. Two Seascapes, one for checking out and other for test sailing, together with our French dealer and Seascape Technical director will be present.

And last but not least, test sailing event organized by our Austrian dealer on beautiful Mole west on Neusiedl see is taking place from 17. to 18. of September. 4 Seascapes will be available for test sailing and knowing the people around that circuit good time is guaranteed. More info with our east Austria agent.

If your french is good enough you’ll see that they covered all aspects of the boat use; from assembly, to ergonomics and off course sailing performance. In our camp this test was eagerly awaited since we don’t hide that concept of Seascape was partly based on 5.70. Our goal was to make a boat that is as fun and has similar performance as 5.70 but is even simpler to use, easier to assemble and launch and enables nautical camping.

From reading the test we are happy to see that it looks like we succeeded in all points. Seascape was assembled in 27 minutes, was showing speed potential comparable to 5.70 and was recognized as interesting boat to use for inshore cruising. In terms of performance let’s not forget that 5.70 had 8 years of race development behind her while Seascape is in her first race year so we firmly believe that trough races that started this year Seascape performance will keep increasing trough sail, trim and boat handling development.

Click on the photo to download the PDF of the test:

3rd weekend of one design racing on 10 meter Justinten and almost half shorter Seascape18 classes threw some challenging sailing conditions to the 5 crews sailing on Seascapes and 8 crewing their Justintens.
Saturday was under influence of sea breeze disturbed by southerly gradient wind that made race field looke like a minefield covered with big shifts and wind holes. At the end of the day SLO030 Žverca, with the crew of Janez Kustura, Ratko Štibrič and Nina Popovac managed to hold attacks of SLO007 sailed by Jakica Jesih, Marko Pihlar and Miha Slekovec. Teja Plešec returned to the class helming Igor Požar’s SLO008 to the third place. She already competed in first Seascape cup held in beginning of 2010 holding the helm of the all girls team.

Evening program was traditionally festive, with prize giving where crews received golden, silver and bronze stickers to put on their boat for future intimidation of their competitors.

Sunday provided different kind of excitement. Cold front which was dominating the air above the race field challenged boat handling and strength of the crews. First flight started in rain and 20 knots of wind subsiding a little bit later in the day. Despite that female skippers continued to dominate the race field with Jakica Jesih on SLO007 claiming the victory closely followed by Teja Plešec on SLO008. Damjan Vuk on SLO051 with his crew of Marjan Matevljič and his wife was closing the Sunday podium.

Last two races of the cup are planned for end of September.
All photos on Picassa.

Page of the cup (slovenian only)

Results (scroll down)

8 Seascapes joined the race and even though wind was not really cooperating race committee managed to pull trough 4 flights. But we have to point out that Velden is perhaps one of the best places to wait for the wind - you simply bring your boat on the side of one of the beautiful bars have a drink and return on the water when orange flag is hoisted announcing at least 4 minutes to the beginning of the start procedure. That’s also where Janez Kustura from SLO30 got idea for his answer at the prize giving:”the whole organization was perfect - one race, one beer”.

For most of the crews this was first race on Seascapes and it was nice to see quick progress of most of them due to exchange of information and tips at the end of the racing day.

One of the most prestigious European one design races, organized by French Naval academy lived up to our expectations. Seascapes joined renown classes like J80, J22, Open 750 and 570 and others in three day round the cans racing in the bay of Brest in beautiful Brittany.

All together 7 Seascapes joined making the most international class with crews from France, UK, Belgium, Netherlands and Slovenia. Having borrowed GER13 from our German owner (Armin thank you again) added to the national diversity.

First day was rainy and gusty due to the passage of the cold front, which resulted in very difficult sailing conditions. Seascapes shared the race field with 36 Open 570, and start line with I5.5 and J22. Especially racing together with Open 570 was a little taste of things to come for Seascape class. Both boats perform similarly which at times gave impression how will racing in Seascape one design class look like in few years.

second and third day ended up in almost perfect conditions with 10-15 knots of wind, sunshine and all in all perfect organization both on the water and on the land. At the end the sailmakers P. Guillomet  and  P. Allain, who beefed up their team with Seascape designer S. Manuard as helm won the first GPEN on FRA59. They were followed by FRA33 skippered by our French dealer Francois Coutant with Andraz Mihelin from Seascape sailing on GER13 closing the podium. Full results here.

Even though placed on extreme end of Europe GPEN proved to be a must for all of the Seascape owners who are looking for high level racing in the sailing heart of Europe. Hope to see you there next year.

More photos form GPEN here and here.

Race itself starts at 1300 counting on afternoon thermal breeze, a bit like on nearby Lago di Garda just a notch weaker. Like on Garda wind is stronger in the north and dies out in the south of the lake which provides extremely various conditions for competitors. From Seascape perspective that meant enjoying long surfs with up to 13 knots of speed on the north and spending almost an hour to travel last half a mile before the south turning buoy.

Alek Bartole who initiated the Idea to join the race also joined me on deck. Since we were the smallest boat in a lightwind race with average boat speed of 2.7kt our hopes were not high. 7th place overall and first in class in 42 strong fleet with boats like J80, Ufo22 and similar behind us was therefore nice surprise and a proof that Seascape can be fun also in light conditions. Full results here.

Saturday the 1st of may we raced the Seascape in the 50 miles double-handed race on the IJsselmeer.
Start and finish in Lelystad.
The race is non-handicap, double-handed and open for boats from 20 foot and longer. http://www.50mijl.nl/

The 20 foot length criteria was a bit of a problem but creative thinking and having a bowsprit of 1.4 meters helped to get the length of the Seascape 18 to 6.9 meter!
So we entered in the 20-30 foots class meaning that we were with margin the smallest boat in the class and therefore the entire fleet.
Helmsman for the race was Casparus Vlasblom and me being the crew.

Forecast for the day was wind 4/5B gusting 6B in showers, decreasing later in the day to 3/4.
We started good at 8:30 hour and after the first reaching leg we were lying second in class.
Of course this position was impossible to maintain the following legs, some beats, upwind and dead downwind. However we were having fun and the boat was doing very well upwind in the choppy conditions on the IJsselmeer. Sailing upwind meant being waterlined by all the other boats in the fleet so we gradually were loosing ground to the front runners, all to be expected of course.
Around noon a rain shower brought extra wind, perfectly timed with us entering a 5 mile reaching leg.
Boats around us started to broach and subsequently take down their gennaker/spinnakers but we decided to hoist our gennaker and just see what would happen.
And things started to happen!!
The little Seascape just took off and we were flying, overtaking a large part the fleet again and regaining a lot of places in the wet and wild 20 or so minutes that it took for us to
get to the next buoy.
Then again upwind and the bigger boats started to slowly overtake us again. We also made a navigational mistake and over sailed the last upwind buoy and lost minutes and places, not good!
In the afternoon wind was decreasing, sun was coming out and we were able to more or less maintain our position in the legs back to Lelystad.
We finished in Lelystad after 9:19:52 hours of racing just minutes behind two 8 meter boats (!) and beating all the minitransat’s!
End result is 9th in class, not bad for the smallest boat in the race and clear prove that the Seascape 18 can hold its ground in the typical weather conditions and club fleets that we have here in the Netherlands.