{"id":66077,"date":"2018-03-19T07:21:07","date_gmt":"2018-03-19T11:21:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/?p=66077"},"modified":"2023-05-06T21:29:08","modified_gmt":"2023-05-07T01:29:08","slug":"inside-the-classes-beneteau-36-7","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/regatta-series\/inside-the-classes-beneteau-36-7\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside the Classes: Beneteau 36.7"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Everyone knows of the Kraken, the legendary long-armed giant squid storied to have tormented ancient mariners off the coasts of Northern Europe and Greenland with its tentacles grabbing hold of unsuspecting seaman and ship. And much like its namesake, the Beneteau 36.7 raced by Thomas Shepherd and his crew, this fiberglass Kraken has a mental grip on the team as they make their climb to the top of the Southern California Beneteau 36.7 class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

Shepherd bought the boat five years ago, intent on sailing it with his young and growing family and racing it with his Oceanside, California, locals. While he does cruise it come from time to time, it\u2019s the racing demand that the Kraken has taken too best. For Shephard, it\u2019s been a humbling, but consuming path to the top of the fleet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur first NOOD regatta was our first one-design regatta and it\u2019s fair to say we got our asses kicked,\u201d says Shepherd, a gaming software developer. Since then, Team Kraken has focused on improving the crewwork and collectively getting better around the buoys.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe started with a lot of inexperience, which was fine in PHRF,\u201d he says, \u201cbut racing one-design was a big problem. We\u2019ve been working on building a comfortable but competitive atmosphere on the boat.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

\n\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\"Thomas <\/div>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n
\n Thomas Shepherd’s Beneteau 36.7 Kraken<\/em> powers off the line at the 2018 Helly Hansen NOOD Regatta San Diego. The Kraken<\/em> finished second overall to perennial champion, Chick Pyle.<\/span>\n Paul Todd\/Helly Hansen NOOD Regatta<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t\t <\/figcaption>\n <\/section>\n\t\t\n\n\n\n

The Beneteau 36.7 fleet in Southern California, says Shepherd, is extremely congenial, one with a robust Corinthian spirit. \u201cWhen I was learning and making a lot of mistakes, I was given a lot of forgiveness by the other skippers,\u201d he says. \u201cI still do, but I think I\u2019m giving some of that back now.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

Over the years, others in the fleet have taught him how to optimize the Kraken and make changes that ultimately made the trim-sensitive boat easier to sail. There\u2019s one problem though: as the whole fleet continues to improve, it\u2019s getting progressively harder to get to and stay at the top.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

Starting in the Beneteau 36.7 is a challenge because the boat needs momentum and full speed across the line. \u201cThe starting line has gotten more crowded and everyone\u2019s right on it now,\u201d says Shepherd. To improve their starts, accordingly, team Kraken puts in practice days to work on its timing. Still, the Kraken prefers a tried-and-true late port-tack approach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe typically sneak in on port and find the gap,\u201d he says. \u201cThere\u2019s nothing unique about that, but we do know we need 30 to 40 seconds to accelerate once we\u2019re pointing the right way.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

Shepherd crews on other raceboats, his lightweight frame perfect for the bow, so he does appreciate the occasional chaos he himself can create from the back of the boat every so often.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

\u201cI do appreciate the bow relying on the back not making mistakes to pull the maneuvers off smoothly,\u201d he says. Still, that doesn\u2019t stop him from throwing a few surprises on his bow team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

\u201cI do occasionally project my voice\u2026maybe they don\u2019t hear it,\u201d he says. \u201cBut we plan the moves as much as possible and know when things will happen.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

As far as tips on getting upwind, Shepherd\u2019s best advice is to keep it rumbling. \u201cUnless you do, it will side sideways at 5 knots. When it\u2019s light and sloppy, a lot of twist in the headsail to get the power up to get through the slop. With one-design racing, it\u2019s not always about getting to the mark fastest, but about the right position to the boats relative to you so you can take control of the positioning whenever possible.\u201d<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Everyone knows of the Kraken, the legendary long-armed giant squid storied to have tormented ancient mariners off the coasts of Northern Europe and Greenland with its tentacles grabbing hold of unsuspecting seaman and ship. And much like its namesake, the Beneteau 36.7 raced by Thomas Shepherd and his crew, this fiberglass Kraken has a mental […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23114,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"BS_author_type":"BS_author_is_guest","BS_guest_author_name":"Dave Reed","BS_guest_author_url":"","hydra_display_date":"20180319","hydra_display_updated":false,"_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":"157","_yoast_wpseo_metadesc":"Thomas Shepherd\u2019s Team Kraken is one of the busier J\/105 skippers in Southern California, where the sailing is good and the class racing even better.","_yoast_wpseo_title":"Inside the Classes: Beneteau 36.7 %%sep%% %%sitename%%","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","arc_story_id":"CGGBYNQ5NQLTYUHJG7GBRGNOVE","arc_website_url":"inside-classes-beneteau-367\/","custom_permalink":"","arc_subtype":"right-sidebar","arc_exclude_from_feeds":false,"sponsored":false,"sponsored_label":"Sponsored Content","sponsored_display_label":false,"sponsored_image":0,"post_right_rail":true,"post_right_rail_ad_1":true,"post_right_rail_ad_2":true,"post_right_rail_ad_3":false,"post_right_rail_ad_4":false,"post_right_rail_recirc":true,"fixed_anchor_ad":true,"post_top_ad":true,"post_off_ramp":true,"post_taboola":false,"labels":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[157],"tags":[181,292,768,582],"class_list":["post-66077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-regatta-series","tag-helly-hansen-sailing-world-regatta-series","tag-helly-hansen-sailing-world-regatta-series-san-diego","tag-inside-the-class","tag-san-diego"],"acf":[],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66077"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66077\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23114"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}