L’il Hip
We’ve known Erik Shampain since he was a little kid, and have watched him grow up to become one of the best and sought-after sailors on the west coast. Erik and owner Tim Fuller took an 1D to Hawaii and caught up with Erik to find about about the race…
SA: You just sailed 2,225 miles (many more actually) double handed on an 1D 35. What did you learn?
ES: For starters I / We learned that the process in which maneuvers are conducted are important. We skipped a step on a routine spinnaker takedown and 4 minutes later we had a soaking wet 4A kite with a 25 foot long hole in it. You learn patience. You learn to drive downwind very well. We hand drove 99.99% of the time so 12 hours a day for nearly 13 days will do that!
SA: The boat looked pretty trick. What did you guys do to it, in terms of mods for the race?
ES: "Relentless" featured a bow sprit in addition to an oversized pole. On top of that, the spectacles for the spin halyards were removed to give the spinnakers a small hoist increase. We had a small square top main as well ( a slightly shorter foot). Smaller things included a world class dodger, changing the jibs over to hanks and building a custom tiller to allow for more comfortable driving. And of course we fitted a new head to replace the standard one which was questionable at best! It worked flawlessly.
SA: What else worked, what didn’t?
