Anarchists Fredo and Blunted aboard the C-Cat Off Yer Rocker show what they've got in store for Steve Clark's legendary Cogito when they do battle in Toronto next month. The daggerboard T-foils are controlled by Prowler-moth style wands, while the rudder foils are controlled by a twist-grip in the tiller.

The legal wrangling and backroom dealing currently plaguing the 33rd America's Cup is grinding down many of its fans. If you're tired of commercialization, huge budgets, slow boats, and lawyers running the show - but you still love the spirit of research and development in sailing, there's another event for you - and this year, for the first time in a long time, it looks like a real battle.

The International C-Class Catamaran Championship (ICCC, or "I4C") is an informal little event with a rich, sexy history. Originally sailed for the right to claim the title of "fastest sailboat in the world," boats built to the C-Class rule are still the fastest boats in the world around an inshore race course. The C-Class was the birthplace of the working iterations of the rotating wingmast, the rigid wingsail, and much of the foil technology that has allowed the development of boats like Groupama and Orange II.

I've always had an image of the ultimate C-Class warrior - with the hair of Albert Einstein and the body of a triathlete, they walk around with a notebook jotting down drawings of boats, rigs and foils. Steve Clark may not look the part, but he's that guy, and his Cogito has held the C-Cat Cup for over a decade. Only one challenger will attempt to take the Cup from Cogito next month - the challenge is from Canada, and after interviewing her skipper, Fred Eaton, I think Cogito might go home empty-handed for the first time in a long time.

-Mr. Clean
21 August, 2007

MC: It takes some serious dedication to have a go at Steve Clark in the C-Class. Where'd you get the drive?

FE: I remember reading articles about C-Cats back when I was 16 years old. I know that, because I still have the articles. At some point, I looked at a buddy and said "One day, we've got to sail these boats!"

MC: What kind of sailing have you done that's made you ready for these creatures?

FE: I've been sailing International 14's for seventeen years. I'll never win a World Championship on one, but the boats we built took the top 3 spots in the 2006 I-14 worlds. I learned the concepts of high-performance sailing from the 14, and building them enabled us to build our C-Class Cats.

MC: Cats, plural?

FE: Well, after the '04 I4C, we went to visit Steve and learn about the C Class. They were looking for viable challengers, and we bought Patient Lady VI from him as our trainer. We sailed her while we built Alfa, which we launched in late 2005.

MC: Alpha is the boat that you raced against Clark in Newport earlier this year. What's she like?

FE: Alpha was always intended to be competitive. She's the lightest C-Class ever built, but we lacked experience - in fact we had only sailed the boat for a month before Newport, and we learned loads from Steve.

MC: So you've got Patient Lady VI and Alpha - and then the boat that showed up on an SA thread last week. That's the one I called about.

FE: You've seen the pics, so now you know it happened. Off Yer Rocker was designed from the beginning to be foilborne, and she flies. Same hulls as Alpha, although they have to be closer together, since the rule measure max beam from the tips of the underwater foils.

MC: How'd you decide to go with foils, specifically with a very moth-like system?

FE: For the amazing speed that a C-Cat has around a race course, their top speed is unimpressive - 22 knots or so. We weren't looking for anything revolutionary - but an additional few knots or few degrees of depth downwind seemed possible with foils. If it didn't work, we'd still have Alpha to sail.

MC: So how has Rocker been to sail for you and Magnus [Clarke, crew]?

FE: We started towing her behind a motorboat, and the first time we put sails on her, we were foiling almost immediately. She is very stable - not twitchy like a moth, more like a truck. Something else very different from the moth is that she likes a lot of weight aft.

MC: What about heel? Can you heel her to windward for extra lift upwind?

FE: We're experimenting with windward heel, leeward heel, no heel - we're not sure just yet.

MC: What's takeoff speed?

FE: About 10 knots, which translates into 6 or 7 knots TWS.

MC: Top speed?

FE: I'll let you know after the I4C. Hopefully, fast enough to beat Cogito, one of the best of all time.

MC: Does Steve Clark know?

FE: Yes, but not for very long. I honestly think he was surprised when I told him.

MC: For all their complexity, these are still boats that can be built by a few guys in a garage. Can you tell us a little more about the design and build?

FE: We built her in the same place we build all our 14's - pretty much the entire Toronto fleet came from the Multimatic Race Car Shop in Toronto. Our designer is Steve Killing. Steve worked for a couple of AC campaigns, and has dozens of designs to his name including the Fusion 15, which won SW boat of the year. One of the more interesting multihull projects he had was with Team New Zealand during the Big Boat AC - Steve helped TNZ create velocity predictions for Dennis Conner's catamaran.

MC: What happened to the Aussies and Pommies for the Little AC?

FE: Not the Little AC - we are not allowed to call it that...The others just weren't going to be ready in time, but we might sail against Cogito in our other two boats anyway. He doesn't mind if we have a three-boat team.

MC: Is there anything that you want to tell the Anarchists?

FE: The I4C is hosted by the Royal Canadian Yacht Club on September 17th-23rd, and will be raced just South of Toronto Island, about 2 miles offshore. Everyone would really love it if some Anarchists from the area would come out to cheer us on, or maybe organize some spectator yachts. It's really a spectacle, and we're sure that we have a fast boat, and a legitimate challenger.

MC: Thanks, Fredo - sail fast.

FE: Thanks, Mr. Clean.

8/22/2007