{"id":69173,"date":"2018-03-17T07:12:57","date_gmt":"2018-03-17T11:12:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/?p=69173"},"modified":"2023-05-06T22:49:00","modified_gmt":"2023-05-07T02:49:00","slug":"inside-the-classes-the-viper-640","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/regatta-series\/inside-the-classes-the-viper-640\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside the Classes: The Viper 640"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Sailing World<\/em>‘s Boat of the Year judges nailed it back in 1997 when they pegged Brian Bennett’s Viper 640 as the Boat of the Year. At a time when symmetric was about to become old school, the judges knew the 21-foot sportboat would be around for a good long while. It was solid in every measurement: “Fun and challenging to sail, a good value and appealing to a wide range of sailors,” wrote Betsy Alison at the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

She was right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

As a testament to this enduring one-design, fleets prosper in pockets around the country. Used boats trade hands easily while new boats arrive regularly from Rondar, the Viper\u2019s top-notch British builder. While the East Coast is where Viper 640 sailing got its start (and nearly died when the original builder walked away, to be rescued by Rondar) fleets are now anchored in the Southeast, the Mid-Atlantic, and the West Coast, with groups thriving in the Pacific Northwest and California.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

\n\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\"Garrett <\/div>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n
\n George Gluecksmann’s Viper 640, with Garrett Johns on the helm, finds its groove.<\/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

Southern California, especially with its sun, surf and year round sailing, is a natural environment for the Vipers to play. It\u2019s why Viper sailors like George Gluecksmann, Steve Orsini, and Garrett Johns have hauled their craft from the northern left-coast hinterlands of the United States of America. Gluecksmann recently bought the boat in Canada, from an owner who himself scored the boat in a customs-seized property auction. The boat is in excellent form, yet to be rigged properly, and the Helly Hansen NOOD Regatta in San Diego is Gluecksmann\u2019s first regatta with it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

He recruited Viper buddies Orsini and Johns who once served as the class secretary. He knows as many as most about the boat\u2019s place in the sport. The class is pushing upwards of 300 boats, with Rondar \u201creally cranking them out,\u201d says Johns. \u201cThe beauty is they are simple to sail and the class rules are strict, which keeps it affordable for guys like us to be competitive.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s \u201csuper cool,\u201d he adds, because the top guys are forthright with intel. \u201cThe top guys will come to you after a day on the water and give you tips to get you up to speed. It\u2019s not a paid-to-sail kind of class.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

Used, competitive, boats can be had for $15,000. New will run you 35K, with sails, trailer, and everything you need from the box. Logical improvements to the boat since Bennett\u2019s original setup greatly improved the performance and handling of the early-generation boats. The two biggies, says Johns, were a change to a carbon rig, adding more weight to the bulb to make the boat self-righting, and more recently, changing the rudder sweep. It\u2019s now more vertical, for better bite. It is a Viper, after all. It should bite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

When Johns and Orsini first sailed their own Viper back in Washington eight years ago, they were coming out of the ol\u2019 Santana 20 class. Making the switch from pole-back to pole-out sailing had it challenges, but Johns says the transition was just fine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe thought it was going to be a wet boat, but it turns out it\u2019s not the case. It\u2019s pretty beamy so when sailing to weather you\u2019re heeled out of the weather enough, and downwind you\u2019re just screaming over the top of everything. That said, it was a huge learning curve for us with the angles; the downwind angles comes so fast.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

\n\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\"Viper <\/div>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n
\n Everywhere the Viper 640 class thrives, the racing is good and the knowledge flows.<\/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

Gluecksmann, Orsini and Johns are each of the opinion the boat is simple to sail, and with a bit of effort, anyone can eventually be competitive. \u201cThere\u2019s not much in terms of operating the boat,\u201d says Johns. \u201cIt\u2019s about little bits of speed. It\u2019s easy to jibe and crashes softly, when it does crash. One thing we\u2019ve learned about it is that the more it\u2019s blowing, and the faster you\u2019re going, the more stable it gets.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

Once you\u2019ve got the rig dialed in, he adds, good races are simply a matter of boathandling and racecourse management. The performance subtleties are the same as for other sportboats, says Johns: Flat is fast going to weather. One trend, he notes, when racing in windier venues, sailing four-up is fast. During a regatta in The Gorge in 2007, \u201cit was super windy and the guys that had four…it was tough to keep up with them upwind.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

As much as he hated losing to the four-man squads, it didn\u2019t taint his own experience of tearing down the Columbia River with the boat creaming along in its ultimate planing glory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

\u201cTalk about a ride,\u201d he says with a longing grin. \u201cGoing downhill in gusts of 40 knots, I will always remember that for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What started as a good thing on the East Coast for the Viper 640s is now all good in the West.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":33170,"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":"20180317","hydra_display_updated":false,"_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":"157","_yoast_wpseo_metadesc":"George Gluecksmann and his Viper 640 find their groove on the west coast.","_yoast_wpseo_title":"Inside the Classes: The Viper 640 %%sep%% %%sitename%%","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","arc_story_id":"KRI6DSEIH3DUFVGD7PCDQGZ3FU","arc_website_url":"inside-classes-viper-640\/","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],"class_list":["post-69173","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"],"acf":[],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69173","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=69173"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69173\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33170"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}