Photo: David Glenn
Photo: David Glenn
March 31, 2006 St Barths Bucket in the Caribbean. The famous Charles Nicholson-designed J Class Endeavour will be back in racing action this weekend at the 2006 St Barths Bucket which this year is bigger than ever A notable yacht on the dock is St Barths this week is the fabulous J Class yacht Endeavour, the first and, some say, the best of the re-builds among the modern fleet of Js which includes Velsheda, Shamrock V and the recently re-configured Ranger. Ranger is also stern-to in the St Barths capital Gustavia.
Endeavour has been out of racing action for a number of seasons ever since her owner Dennis Kozlowski fell foul of the law and was eventually jailed for his part in fraud involving his company Tyco. The yacht's return to the race course, albeit in fairly modest mode, has been widely applauded by the superyacht fraternity. Endeavour is serioulsy for sale and the hopes are her Bucket appearance will help turn the right heads. She looks in terrific shape and it will be interesting to see how she performs against John Williams's Ranger which has just left Pendennis Shipyard in Falmouth where some 20 tons of internal equipment was re-distributed and five tons removed in an attempt to improve her.
Endeavour and Ranger are part of an astounding fleet gathering on the island for the famous Saint Barths Bucket Regatta, an invitational fun event for sailing yachts measuring over 100ft. And there are 30 beauties here crammed stern-to outside the new capitainerie with 10 more on the 'waiting list', hovering at anchor, just in case there are some last minute withdrawals.
The Bucket is meant to be not so much about the racing but about the gathering in one of the Caribbean's smartest destinations where every other shop has Cartier, Hermes, Louis Vuitton or Chanel glittering in its window. Owners all turn up and enjoy the intimacy and friendliness the regatta has engendered over the years although some say that with so many yachts in attendance it might be hard to maintain that atmosphere this time round. We'll see.
There are some other great yachts here including Victoria of Strathearn, Peter Harrison's Farr ketch Sojana, the mighty schooner Windrose and a clutch of Perinis including Perseus whose owned is having another yacht built at Perini, a lift keel, performance yacht designed by French naval architect Philippe Briand.
Three days of racing start here Friday, with an around the island pursuit race opening proceedings followed by the intriguingly named The Wiggley Course on Saturday. Protests are frowned upon by the committee and will only be accepted if accompanied by a case of good Champagne. The emphasis is on fun and safety. As the eloquent Hank Halsted says in his race committee notes - "Sail safely first, - David Glenn/Yachting World [ For article click here]
ASIAN Record Circuit 2006, Ellen MacArthur and her three crew passed the finish gate off Jeju Island, South Korea on Thursday at 18:14:13 GMT to complete the first of ten legs of the Asian Record Circuit, establishing the first leg record in a time of 5 days, 11 hours, 10 minutes and 51 seconds. The 900+ mile leg from Yokohama, Japan to the gate off Jeju Island, South Korea has proved to be a challenge for the crew onboard the B&Q trimaran.
Photo: DPPI/Offshore Challenges Sailing Team
Said Ellen, "We did not leave in the most favourable weather conditions, which meant that we were fighting a constant battle to stay on track and on target. The gale force conditions and damage to the rudder meant that we lost a lot of time and it has been an upwind slog all the way towards this finish gate." Just 3 days into the record, the B&Q team tangled a fishing line that did some severe damage to its starboard rudder, forcing it to be replaced with their spare. Later it was necessary to take shelter in the lee of Yaku Shima island to hide from the strong north-westerly gale that saw winds continuously over 40 knots and gusting 48 knots.
They were able to leave the shelter of this island in the early hours of Wednesday morning to navigate their way through a string of further islands off the southern Japan until they were in open water. Stated Ellen, "Its great to reach this first landmark on our circuit - shame its pitch dark but there you go. We are not stopping here but continuing straight into the second leg to Dalian on the north-east coast of mainland China. The weather is looking more favourable for this leg as the wind is expected to shift into the east and then further south in the next 12 hours so it won't upwind and we could get to Dalian within 48 hours. Hopefully, we will be able to get out of these survival suits soon."
Photo: DPPI/Offshore Challenges Sailing Team
The team has a planned stopover after this next leg, which will be the second of ten legs of their Asian Record Circuit that will take Ellen and the crew throughout Japan, China, Taiwan, Malasia, and Singapore.
ASIAN Record Circuit 2006 - to establish new 'crewed' record times over 10 different legs with 12 record opportunities between key ports of Japan, South Korea, Chinese mainland and Taiwan, Hong Kong SAR, Vietnam, Malaysia and Singapore.
March 30, Rolex Women's Match, St. Petersburg, Fla. (March 30 - April 2). Established in 2002, the Rolex Women's Match annually strives to improve opportunities for women sailors. The winner of the Rolex Women's Match will gain an automatic invitation to compete in the Rolex Osprey Cup, an ISAF Grade 1 match racing event scheduled for October.
Competing are Louise Bienvenu-New Orleans, La.); Chafee Emory (Newport, R.I.); Jo Ann Fisher, Annapolis, Md.); Debby Grimm (New Orleans, La.); Sandy Hayes (Scituate, Mass.); Kathy Lindgren (Sheboygan, Wis.); Sue McDowell (Bay Village, Ohio); Karen Park (St. Petersburg, Fla.); Rachael Silverstein (St. Petersburg, Fla.).
"This year we are thrilled that Betsy Alison will conduct the match racing clinic," said Pat Seidenspinner (St. Petersburg), co-organizer with Tom Farquhar. "In addition to being one of the world's most recognized competitive sailors, a five-time Rolex Yachtswoman of the Year, and a past world match racing champion, Betsy is an equally accomplished and sought-after coach."
USA 87
Photo: Gilles Martin-Raget
March 29, BMW/Oracle. America's Cup racing is a sport that's won by tenths, even hundredths of a knot of boatspeed, so anything that makes a boat faster-especially anything new and innovative that nobody else has-is, to put it lightly, very closely guarded. These guys make the Pentagon look like a billboard. And so it was with great anticipation and fanfare (literally, there was a trumpeter), that BMW Oracle unveiled their new weapon in the battle for the America's Cup: The at-the-very-least-$5-million USA 87-or at least some of it.
In typical hypercompetitive America's Cup fashion, the "unveiling" only revealed the bow of the U.S. team's boat, covering everything aft of the mid-bow (and, of course, everything under the waterline) to protect from the prying eyes of rival teams whatever bizarre hydrodynamic sculptures the engineers dreamed up. With the 32nd America's Cup over a year away, teams are taking no chances of giving away their edge. Except for one: As the new boat emerged from behind an artificial waterfall it was immediately clear that the new boat's bow is very, very different from every other AC class boat. USA 87 has a bowsprit. A really short bowsprit, and angled down, and structurally reinforced. And the whispers began.
3,000 gallons of Moet & Chandon later, the details began to trickle out. Skipper Chris Dickson told me that, yes, the new boat would still use a spinnaker pole. But it was another-and to remain unidentified-member of the crew who clewed me in on the real significance of the sprit. "Look at the forestay," he said.
Photo: Gilles Martin-Raget
And that was just about the only thing that was in any way clear the next morning: With the new boat lined up next to USA 76, BMW Oracle's boat from the last cup go-around, it was pretty obvious that 87's forestay joined the deck far closer to the bow (less than a meter), than the old one, which is well over a meter behind the pointy end.
Since the strict rules governing the AC class don't permit extending the forestay that far forward, it could only mean one thing: USA 87 was, at least structurally, shorter than the old boat. But racing boats aren't supposed to get shorter, because the longer the waterline the higher the hull speed (the fastest a displacement hull can move through the water without planning). What was this trickery the engineers were foisting on us??
American tactician Peter Isler cleared up some confusion this afternoon. Including the bowsprit, the boats are the same length, and because the hull slopes so gradually moving aft from the bow, the waterline of the boat is unaffected. And the only real purpose the extra long bow serves is to hold down an attachment point for the spinnaker. So why not get rid of the extra stuff, thought the engineers, and attach the kite to the bow sprit? And then Isler repeats the AC boat engineering credo: "Every pound you save in the boat is just another pound we can put on the keel bulb." And every extra pound in the bulb becomes extra righting moment, which means less heeling, which means more speed, which means the America's Cup is one step closer to coming home.
[For complete Popular Mechanics article click here]
[ For comparison photos of US 87 and US 76 - click here]
Tongues wag over Oracle's 'bowsprit' [ click here for article in New Zealand Herald]
USA 87 sailing for the first time on Monday.
Photo: Gilles Martin-Raget
March 28, BMW Oracle. The only American team in the America's Cup welcomed a boat with a bowsprit into its stable on Monday. "This is like a new child coming into the family," skipper and CEO Chris Dickson said by phone shortly before his wife, Sue, smashed a bottle of champagne across the bow of the 80-foot sloop.
And this one has quite the birthmark. Although Dickson said USA 87 has many high-tech advancements not visible to landlubbers, it does have one that stands out - the short spar extending from the bow used to attach an asymmetrical spinnaker while sailing downwind. Bowsprits also are designed to save weight and reduce wind drag while sailing upwind.
"It's the way the class rule has changed since the last cup," Dickson said. "Although it has quite a visual impression, it has a very minor effect on performance. It's one of many, many sail handling developments, although a very visible one."
Then again, many design tweaks are meant to try to save a second or two around the course, which can mean the difference in a multimillion-dollar campaign winning or losing - [ click here for full story in Seattle Post]
Marseilles International Match Race. Sébastien Col and his team-members, (Christophe Andre, Teva Plichart and Gilles Favennec), won the Marseilles International Mach Race, Grade 1 event, which took place during the week-end in Marseilles.
Second at the end of the 2nd Robin Round right behind Philippe Presti (Luna Rossa), Sebastien and his team-members won their semi-final against Peter Holmberg (Alinghi), and then the final against Paolo Cian.
Sébastien Col will sail once again in Marseilles next week, but this time in Mumm 30, for the Massilia Cup , then he will join the K-Challenge team the first week of April as training is starting again, since K-Challenge will have just settled down in its new base of Valencia.
Results for Marseilles International Match Race: 1. Sébastien Col (K-challenge), FRA 2. Paolo Cian (team Viano Mercedes Benz), ITA 3. Peter Holmberg (Alinghi), USVI 4. Philippe Presti (Luna Rossa), FRA 5. Dimitri Deruelle, FRA 6. Eugeny Neugodnikov, RUS 7. Mathieu Richard, FRA 8. Jes Gram-Hansen (Mascalzone Latino - Capitalia Team), DEN 9. Matteo Simoncelli, ITA 10. Staffan Lindberg, FIN[For web site click here]
Photo: Daniel Forster/Rolex
March 27, 33rd International Rolex Regatta, St. Thomas, USVI. Though Sunday's light breeze may have caused some frustration, it didn't dampen the spirits of sailors wrapping up three days of competition at the St. Thomas Yacht Club's International Rolex Regatta - especially for the winners in eight classes, who each went home with a Rolex Submariner timepiece as a prize. The event, held for its 33rd year, hosted hundreds of sailors aboard 92 boats, ranging in size from 24 to 80 feet.
From the Southwest and South were:
Burt Keenan Acadia New Orleans, LA. Cat Ketch 48 Ulrich L. Rohde Dragon Fly Marco Island, FL. Beneteau 47.3 Eduardo Gonzales Havana Miami, FL. Beneteau 50 Cynthia/Eduardo Ross/Luaces J. Doe Miami, FL. J30 30 Maurizio Costanzo Mascalzone Miami, FL. Malbec 290 29 John Holmes Sailaway Miami, FL. Hunter 36[For results click here]
Volvo in-port race, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Team Basilica from Britain wrapped up a triumphant week in the Volvo Extreme 40 Grand Prix series with three podium finishes, to win the Rio trophy after a challenging last day's racing in Guanabara Bay.
Faced with tricky shifting winds which never rose above ten knots, helmsman Alistair Richardson steered Basilica to a win in the second race, sandwiched between a second and a third, where they competed after repairing a broken winch.
Tommy Hilfiger, helmed by Randy Smyth (USA), finished third place overall in Rio, which was good enough to maintain first place in the overall rankings for the Grand Prix Series. Basilica moves up to second place overall and Motorola-CHR is one point behind in third.
The Volvo Extreme 40 was developed as a strict one-design catamaran for high speed racing both inshore and in short offshore regattas. It was created by dual Olympic medallist Mitch Booth and designed by Olympic Gold Medal winner Yves Loday and in the space of a year has created an explosion of interest in a burgeoning speed sailing market. The class is being showcased during five stopovers of the Volvo Ocean Race 2005-06.
The next leg of the Volvo Extreme 40 Grand Prix Series will take place Baltimore, USA, from the 28 April-3 May.
Final Results (after 16 races) 1. Basilica (1,1,1,2,3,3,1,2,2,1,4,2,1,2,1,3) 133 pts Alister Richardson (GBR), James Grant (GBR), Pete Greenhalgh (GBR), Jonathan Taylor (GBR) 2. Motorola-CHR (2,3,2,1,1,2,2,3,3,4,5,3,4,3,5,1) 110 pts Leigh McMillan (GBR), Conrad Humphreys (GBR), Will Howden (GBR), Hamish Oliphant (GBR) 3. Tommy Hilfiger (3,5,4,4,5,1,5,5,1,2,3,1,3,5,2,5) 98 pts Randy Smyth (USA), Jonathan Farrar (USA), Stan Schreyer (USA), Juliano Viana (BRA) 4. Holmatro (5,4,5,3,4,4,3,1,4,3,2,4,2,4,3,2) 96 pts Mitch Booth (AUS), Taylor Booth (AUS), Daan Koene (NED), Herbert Dercksen (NED) 5. Volvo Ocean Race (4,2,3,5,2,5,4,4,5,5,1,5,DNF,1,4,4) 91 pts Diogo Cayolla (POR), Gregg Homann (AUS) & various guests including; Emma Westmacott (GBR), Roberto Bermudez (ESP), Chris Nicholson (AUS), Dirk Neumann (NED), Eduardo Pinedo (BRA), Clinio Freitas (BRA), Marco Grael (BRA), Mauricio Santa Cruz (BRA). Overall Series Rankings (after two events) 1st Tommy Hilfiger 16 pts 2nd Basilica 14 pts 3rd Motorola-CHR 13 pts 4th Volvo Ocean Race 12 pts 5th Holmatro 11 pts Remaining Volvo Extreme 40 Grand Prix Series Dates: Baltimore, USA 28 April - 3 May, 2006 Portsmouth, UK 27 May - 3 June, 2006 Rotterdam, Netherlands 9 - 14 June, 2006
Photo: Team ABN AMROMarch 26, Volvo in-port race, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil - Mike Sanderson (NZ) and his crew on ABN AMRO ONE scored a dominant victory in the fourth in-port race of the Volvo Ocean Race 2005-06.
Overall race winners ABN AMRO ONE took an early lead in the race, which took place on Guanabara Bay in 10-14 knots of wind. They sailed well to extend throughout, going on to score their third race win in a row in the in-port races.
Behind ABN AMRO ONE there was a great battle for the remaining podium positions between Paul Cayard's (USA) Pirates of the Caribbean, Ericsson Racing Team, under the guidance of new skipper John Kostecki (USA) and with HRH the Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden onboard, and Bouwe Bekking's (NED) movistar.
In the end second place went to movistar who sailed a great race, moving up from third place overall to hang in behind ABN AMRO ONE and win a valuable three points to add to their score line. With the boat only going in the water 24 hours before the in-port race, the team have worked hard for this result. The final podium place went to Ericsson Racing Team whose week of training on Guanabara Bay paid off. Kostecki and his crew fought their way from fifth place to move up through the fleet to take third place overall.
In-port race results - PROVISIONA: 1st ABN AMRO ONE, Mike Sanderson (NZL) 3.5 pts 2nd Movistar, Bouwe Bekking (NED) 3 pts 3rd Ericsson Racing Team, John Kostecki (USA) 2.5 pts 4th Brasil 1, Torben Grael (BRA) 2 pts 5th ABN AMRO TWO, Sebastien Josse (FRA) 1.5 pts 6th Pirates of the Caribbean, Paul Cayard (USA) 1 pt[For Volvo web site click here]
Photo: Daniel Forster
33rd International Rolex Regatta, St. Thomas, USVI. Hundreds of sailors are competing aboard 92 boats, ranging in size from 24 to 72 feet, while a brisk 12-16 knot breeze under notoriously blue Caribbean skies kept the competition tight and the action non-stop on Saturday the first day.
From the Southwest and South are:
Burt Keenan Acadia New Orleans, LA. Cat Ketch 48 Ulrich L. Rohde Dragon Fly Marco Island, FL. Beneteau 47.3 Eduardo Gonzales Havana Miami, FL. Beneteau 50 Cynthia/Eduardo Ross/Luaces J. Doe Miami, FL. J30 30 Maurizio Costanzo Mascalzone Miami, FL. Malbec 290 29 John Holmes Sailaway Miami, FL. Hunter 36[For all results click here]
Team Holmatro - Thursday
March 25, Volvo Extreme 40 Grand Prix Series, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. With light winds (Friday) never exceeding ten knots and dropping to five at times, the competitors had a tough time as the sea breeze never settled in.
Basilica, helmed by Alister Richardson, managed the best day in the testing conditions, scoring a second and a race win to maintain first place overall. Team Basilica, comprising of Richardson, James Grant (GBR), Peter Greenhalgh (GBR) and Jonathan Taylor (GBR), have established a 19 point lead over second placed Motorola-CHR.
There was drama in the second race of the day for Team Volvo Ocean Race who managed to run aground as crew member Greg Homann explained: "As we were underway upwind in the second race we went parallel to Flamengo beach and the boat came to an abrupt stop with a nasty noise due to a collision with a rock. We had to retire immediately and went to port for inspection."
Going into the final day of racing, Team Basilica hold the top spot in front of Motorola-CHR. Tommy Hilfiger helmed by Randy Smyth (USA) is in third place, five points in front of Team Holmatro. Tomorrow will see a lay day for the fleet whilst the Volvo Open 70's take part in their in-port race. The Volvo Extreme 40's will be back out in force on Sunday for their final day of the Grand Prix Series in Rio.
Results, day 4 (after 13 races) 1. Basilica (1,1,1,2,3,3,1,2,2,1,4,2,1) 109 pts Alister Richardson (GBR), James Grant (GBR), Pete Greenhalgh (GBR), Jonathan Taylor (GBR) 2. Motorola-CHR (2,3,2,1,1,2,2,3,3,4,5,3,4) 90 pts Leigh McMillan (GBR), Conrad Humphries (GBR), Will Howden (GBR), Hamish Oliphant (GBR) 3. Tommy Hilfiger (3,5,4,4,5,1,5,5,1,2,3,1,3) 82 pts Randy Smyth (USA), Jonathan Farrar (USA), Stan Schreyer (USA), Juliano Viana (BRA) 4. Holmatro (5,4,5,3,4,4,3,1,4,3,2,4,2) 77 pts Mitch Booth (AUS), Taylor Booth (AUS), Daan Koene (NED), Herbert Dercksen (NED) 5. Volvo Ocean Race (4,2,3,5,2,5,4,4,5,5,1,5,DNF) 71 pts Diogo Cayolla (POR), Gregg Homann (AUS), Eduardo Pinedo (BRA), Clinio Freitas (BRA)[For web site click here]
Photo: Gilles Martin-Raget
March 24, Marseille International Match Race. Today Friday - the round robin finished at 2PM. The first six from the first Round Robin moved on to a second Round Robin which started at the beginning of this afternoon. There was only one flight as the wind fell off but it allowed Neugodnikov to beat Col, Deruelle to beat Holmberg and Presti to come in in front of Cian. The rest of the Round Robin should be raced tomorrow.
In the first flight of the second stage Round Robin, Peter Holmberg, representing Alinghi and a highly experienced match racer met Dimitri Deruelle, a young match racer just beginning to make a name for himself. On the starting line, Holmberg showed all his talent by taking a considerable lead - after the first turn round the windward mark, he was 8 boatlengths in front of the Marseillais just as the wind started to drop. Deruelle managed to reduce the lead on the downwind leg but it was the second windward leg which killed Holmberg off. Deruelle bore off to the right and the wind turning with allowed him to make the mark without jibing. When Holmberg managed to get back in touch, he was obiged to tack, getting stuck in the "Doldrums" just as Deruelle hit a fresh breeze giving him a lead he kept to the finish.
Deruelle's is the only crew to have beaten Holmberg since the start of the regatta. The spectators on the water were absolutely thrilled to share in this performance.
The 6 selected for the second round robin are:
Peter Holmberg
Philippe Presti
Dimitri Deruelle
Eugeny Neugodnikov
Paolo Cian
Sébastien Col
There was beautiful weather yesterday (Thursday) in Marseille where the wind was there for the first flights of the 4th MIMR. Between 15 and 20 knots S-SW, with a heavy swell in the morning which fell off slightly in the afternoon.
30 matchs, 10 flights were raced Thursday. Most of them were extremely close, with the umpires intervening a lot and contact between boats frequent... In other words, sport! But with this quality of crews racing, this was to be expected throughout the 4 days of the regatta.
Following in his Alinghi team-mate American Ed Baird's footsteps, Peter Holmberg dominated the first day of the Round Robin by winning all his matches. He is neck in neck with Philippe Presti in the provisional results, but is the only skipper to not have been beaten today. But it's hard to compare when you remember that Staffan Lindberg and Sébastien Col have only raced four matches.
The four French skippers in the regatta did fairly well during today's 10 flights. Philippe Presti is in the lead with 5 points from 7 matchs, closely followed by Dimitri Deruelle who surprised everyone with 4 points from 7 matches. Mathieu Richard got 50% by winning 3 matches out of 6 (just like the Russian Eugeny Neugodnikov) et Sébastien Col started off well with 3 matches out of 4 won.
The Italians Paolo Cian and Matteo Simoncelli have not been faring as well in the beginning of the Round Robin. The former has won 2 matches out of six he has raced, the latter lost all his matches. 30 matchs 10 flights - were raced with the following results:
1. Peter Holmberg, 7-0
2. Philippe Presti, 5-2
3. Dimitri Deruelle, 4-3
4. Sébastien Col, 3-1
5. Mathieu Richard, 3-3
5. Eugeny Neugodnikov, 3-3
7. Paolo Cian, 2-4
8. Jes Gram-Hansen, 2-5
9. Staffan Lindberg, 1-3
10. Matteo Simoncelli, 0-6
[For web site click here]
Photo: Julie Connerley
US Sailing's Hobie Alter Cup, Pensacola Beach Yacht Club, FL -- Robbie Daniel (Clearwater, Fla.) and
Hunter Stunzi (Marblehead, Mass.) have won the 2006 U.S. Multihull
Championship for US Sailin's Hobie Alter Cup. Competition was close
throughout the five-day event and the team fought vigorously for its
win.
With the top three finishers posting consistently solid results, second place finishers Nigel Pitt (Harwell, Ga.) and Alex Shafer (Eustis, Fla.) had been in contention for the top spot from the beginning of the regatta. Last year's winners Greg Thomas and Jacques Bernier finished third overall. The winners clearly enjoyed sailing the Nacra 20, a powerful jib, main and spinnaker platform they felt was similar to the Tornado in many respects.
Final results (9 races with 1 discard - 20 boats): top five: 1. Robbie Daniel/Hunter Stunzi 1-3-2-3-(4)-2-1-1-2 15 pts 2. Alex Shafer/ Nigel Pitt 3-(6)-1-1-2-1-3-3-5 19 3. Greg Thomas/Jacques Bernier 3-(5)-3-5-3-4-1-4-1 24 4. John Casey/ Kenny Pierce 2-1-2-2-8-(11)-4-6-8 31 5. John Tomko/ IanBillings 2-7-9-(13)-1-3-5-2-7 36[For web site click here]
Photo:Oskar Kihlborg
Volvo Extreme 40 Grand Prix Thursday, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Sailing close to shore in 10-14 knots of wind the five Volvo Extreme 40's enjoyed close racing with plenty of jostling for the podium positions and each race saw a different team take line honours.
A better day for Tommy Hilfiger saw Randy Smyth (USA) and his experienced team move into third place overall, two points in front of Mitch Booth's Team Holmatro. Smyth commented: "Today it was sailing at it's best! We even heard the crowd cheering when we rounded the leeward mark." He continued, "It was physically demanding today with tight racing and short legs in a good breeze and a lot of it, we are definitely not here for vacation! You need to have a good athletic crew with a lot of different additional skills. That's what we have and we are looking very much forward to the next days of the Volvo Extreme 40 Grand Prix!"
Racing continues tomorrow at 14 00 (local). The series concludes on Sunday 26 March.
Results, day 3 (after 11 races) 1. Basilica (1,1,1,2,3,3,1,2,2,1,4) 91 pts Alister Richardson (GBR), James Grant (GBR), Pete Greenhalgh (GBR), Jonathan Taylor (GBR) 2. Motorola-CHR (2,3,2,1,1,2,2,3,3,4,5) 79 pts Leigh McMillan (GBR), Conrad Humphries (GBR), Will Howden (GBR), Hamish Oliphant (GBR) 3. Tommy Hilfiger (3,5,4,4,5,1,5,5,1,2,3) 66 pts Randy Smyth (USA), Jonathan Farrar (USA), Stan Schreyer (USA), Juliano Viana (BRA) 4. Holmatro (5,4,5,3,4,4,3,1,4,3,2) 64 pts Mitch Booth (AUS), Taylor Booth (AUS), Daan Koene (NED), Herbert Dercksen (NED) 5. Volvo Ocean Race (4,2,3,5,2,5,4,4,5,5,1) 63 pts Diogo Cayolla (POR), Gregg Homann (AUS), Eduardo Pinedo (BRA), Marco Grael (BRA) Remaining Volvo Extreme 40 Grand Prix Series Dates Rio de Janeiro, Brazil 21-26 March, 2006 Baltimore, USA 28 April-3 May, 2006 Portsmouth, UK 27 May-3 June, 2006 Rotterdam, Netherlands 9-14 June, 2006
BasilicaMarch 23, Volvo Extreme 40 Grand Prix Wednesday, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Movistar watch captain Chris Nicholson took a day off from sailing today - to go sailing. Swapping 70 feet for 40, Nicholson took the helm of a Volvo Extreme 40 during the second day of the Grand Prix Series in Rio.
Sailing with team members Diogo Cyolla (POR), Gregg Homann (AUS), and Mauricio Santa Cruz (BRA) on the Volvo Ocean Race boat Nicholson, an experienced 49er sailor, managed to score a second, fifth and a fourth in mixed conditions to finish day two in third place overall. Nicholson commented: "I had a great day today. It was good fun and fast, although our results were not that good. This kind of sailing is very enjoyable. You don't need to coordinate nine other crew members and a shore team; you can just jump in and go."
Drawing a comparison between the Volvo Open 70s and the Volvo Extreme 40s, Nicholson said: "Both of these classes are at forefront of the sport and technology. The Volvo Open 70 is at one end of the spectrum and is extreme - one of the fastest boats that you will sail offshore. The Volvo Extreme 40 is at the other end and is the fastest you will sail in flat, inshore waters."
After seven races Team Basilica lead the fleet by two points from Motorola-CHR with Volvo Ocean Race third. Racing continues tomorrow at 14 00 (local). The series concludes on Sunday 26 March.
Results, day 2 (after seven races) 1. Basilica (1,1,1,2,3,3,1) 60 pts Alister Richardson (GBR), James Grant (GBR), Pete Greenhalgh (GBR), Jonathan Taylor (GBR) 2. Motorola - CHR (2,3,2,1,1,2,2) 58 pts Leigh McMillan (GBR), Conrad Humphries (GBR), Will Howden (GBR), Hamish Oliphant (GBR) 3. Volvo Ocean Race (4,2,3,5,2,5,4) 40 pts Diogo Cyolla (POR), Gregg Homann (AUS), Mauricio Santa Cruz (BRA), Chris Nicholson (AUS) 4. Tommy Hilfiger (3,5,4,4,5,1,5) 38 pts Randy Smyth (USA), Jonathan Farrar (USA), Stan Schreyer (USA), Juliano Viana (BRA) 5. Holmatro (5,4,5,3,4,4,3) 35 pts Mitch Booth (AUS), Taylor Booth (AUS), Daan Koene (NED), Herbert Dercksen (NED)[For web site click here]
March 22, Houston Wednesday Night Sailors, As advertised on the CLRA website, the Skipper's Meeting for the 2006 season is tonight at Lakewood Yacht Club, not the Community Center as in years past. Registration starts at 7:00 pm, with the meeting to follow.
Volvo Extreme 40 Grand Prix,Tuesday, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil - The Volvo Extreme 40 Grand Prix Series got off to a flying start in Rio. After four races Team Basilica, helmed by British 49er sailor Alister Richardson, established an early lead over the fleet.
Team Basilica was quick off the starting blocks and the new addition of Jonathan Taylor to the experienced team of Richardson, Peter Greenhalgh and James Grant proved a winning formula on day one. The British team was unbeatable in the first three races but eventually in the fourth race of the day Motorola-CHR, helmed by British Tornado sailor Leigh McMillan managed to gain the upper hand. Motorola-CHR crewed by IMOCA single handed round the world sailor Conrad Humphreys, McMillan's Tornado crew Will Howden and Global challenge competitor Hamish Oliphant, managed to pass Basilica, when they decided to gybe early for the finish, to score their first victory in the series.
Overall series leader Tommy Hilfiger, helmed by two times American Olympic silver medallist Randy Smyth, ended day one in fourth place just one point in front of Team Holmatro, helmed by class creator and Olympic medallist Mitch Booth. Booth commented: "This breeze is exactly what these boats have been created for. It has been a great days sailing with 10-15 knots, which is the perfect range for these boats. We didn't have a great day on Holmatro but it is the first day our team has sailed together and you learn something new about these boats every day that you sail them." He continued: "It is really satisfying to see the fleet together again and in these conditions you get to see the boats full potential."
Results, day one , four races (10pts 1st, 8 pts 2nd etc) 1. Basilica (1,1,1,2) 38 pts Alister Richardson (GBR), James Grant (GBR), Pete Greenhalgh (GBR), Jonathan Taylor (GBR) 2. Motorola-CHR (2,3,2,1) 32 pts Leigh McMillan (GBR), Conrad Humphries (GBR), Will Howden (GBR), Hamish Oliphant (GBR) 3. Volvo Ocean Race (4,2,3,5) 23 pts Diogo Cyolla (POR), Gregg Homann (AUS), Mauricio Santa Cruz (BRA), Eduardo Perido (BRA) 4. Tommy Hilfiger (3,5,4,4) 20 pts Randy Smyth (USA), Jonathan Farrar (USA), Stan Schreyer (USA), Juliano Viana (BRA) 5. Holmatro (5,4,5,3) 19 pts Mitch Booth (AUS), Taylor Booth (AUS), Daan Koene (NED), Herbert Dercksen (NED)Racing continues Wednesday at 14 00 (local) and the series continues through until Sunday 26 March.
March 21, Lightning class - Southern Circuit. The Lightning class completed their Southern Circuit which began the week before in Savannah, GA, then continued on to Miami, FL and finally to St. Petersburg, FL.
Overall winners were Jeff Linton, Amy Linton, and Mark Taylor, who also won the second event, the Miami Lightning Midwinter Championships. David Starck and his team of Jared Drake and Ian Jones won the first event, the Deep South Regatta, while Jay Lutz, Taylor Lutz, and Jody Lutz of Houston, Texas, won the finale, the Winter Championships.
Volvo Extreme 40 Catamarans, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil - The Volvo Extreme 40 Catamarans will be unleashed this week when they participate in the second Volvo Extreme 40 Grand Prix Series during the Rio de Janeiro stopover of the Volvo Ocean Race 2005-06.
Whilst the shore teams are busy working on the Volvo Open 70s after a gruelling 6,700 nautical mile leg four from Wellington to Rio, in preparation for the in-port race on Saturday, the Volvo Extreme 40s will provide the entertainment out on the water. The Volvo Extreme 40, a strict one-design catamaran has already become one of the most dynamic multihulls on the inshore racing circuit, with boats reaching 35 knots in flat waters. In six knots of breeze, they can fly one hull, the main reason why they have become a spectator's favourite.
On Tuesday, five catamarans will line up at the start of the five-day Grand Prix series which will comprise a maximum of 18 races with a prize-giving set to take place at the end of racing on Sunday Skippers include Grael, Olympic Tornado champion Mitch Booth, who with French gold medal winner Yves Loday, conceived and developed the Extreme 40. Booth will skipper Holmatro while Open 60 sailor Conrad Humphries skippers Motorola-CHR and two times Olympic silver medallist Randy Smyth, the veteran multihull sailor, heads up an impressive line up on the series leader Tommy Hilfiger.
After Rio, the teams will pack up the Volvo Extreme 40s and head to Baltimore, USA, for the third leg from 28th April to 3rd May.
Current Volvo Extreme 40 Grand Prix Series Points Standings; Position/boat name/overall points 1. Tommy Hilfiger 95 pts 2. Volvo Ocean Race 90 pts 3. Holmatro 87 pts 4. Motorola-CHR 79 pts 5. Basilica 67 pts Remaining Volvo Extreme 40 Grand Prix Series Dates Rio de Janeiro, Brazil 21-26 March, 2006 Baltimore, USA 28 April-3 May, 2006 Portsmouth, UK 27 May-3 June, 2006 Rotterdam, Netherlands 9-14 June, 2006
March 20, Volvo. The American entry Black Pearl in pretty good shape, the best of any of the stopovers so far. We're tackling a huge job list but there's been a major change in this stopover. During previous stopovers we've had major repairs to carry out, but in Rio we're ticking jobs off which are purely maintenance based.
The Black Pearl was out of the water for a week and just went back in this afternoon. Every element of the boat has been thoroughly cleaned and checked to ensure she is in peak racing condition. With a new coat of paint on the deck, The Black Pearl will also be looking her best for the Disney and Pescanova VIPs, as well as a number of journalists, coming out sailing with us this week.
In the beautiful city of Rio, it's extremely difficult to do anything other than go to the beach (not that we've had the chance yet!). The heat is sweltering, so much so that we've had air conditioning installed on the boat for the guys working down below. The team has consumed in excess of 2,000 bottles/cans of fluids and we've only been here just over a week! The conditions for working have been virtually unbearable, but they've stuck at it and powered on. This stopover we've beefed up the shore team which has proven invaluable. We've learned by experience that it's crucial to have the right people in place.
Last week the focus was on preparing The Black Pearl to go back in the water. This week we'll be welcoming the sailing team back and looking forward to our events shoreside with Disney, Zegna and Pescanova - Kimo Worthington, General Manager for the Pirates of the Caribbean team.
Ed Baird (USA) and crew at Angra Dos Reis, Brazil.
Brazil Sailing Cup, Stage 5 of the 2005-'06 World Match Racing Tour. Angra Dos Reis, Brazil (Sunday) - The Final Round featured two crews that advanced from distinctly different paths. James Spithill (AUS), Luna Rossa Challenge, entered the final as the favorite having won seven straight races. Throughout the week observers commented that he was sailing fast and smooth. Thierry Peponnet (FRA), K-Challenge, advanced to the final after coming through the repechage round, and that after having survived a 1 point penalty that nearly knocked him out of the regatta.
Peponnet drew first blood in the final. He defeated Spithill when the Aussie got fouled up at the start. But Spithill rallied to win three straight races, including a riveting finale, and captured his second career World Tour victory. Spithill's crew included Magnus Augustsson (bow), Michele Ivaldi (tactics), Jonathan McKee (mainsail) and Joe Newton (headsails). They finished the regatta with a 10-1 record and won $35,000 of the $100,000 prize purse. Peponnet's crew included Benoit Briand, Tanguy Cariou, Herve Cunningham and Thierry Douillard. They finished the week with a 10-7 record and won $20,000.
Spithill and Peponnet advanced to the final after 2-0 wins in the semis. Spithill beat Ben Ainslie (GBR), Emirates Team New Zealand, and Peponnet took down Gavin Brady (NZL), Beau Geste Sailing Team. In the Petite Final, Ainslie closed out Brady 2-0.
Brazil Sailing Cup Final Results (Prize Purse: $100,000) 1. James Spithill (AUS) Luna Rossa Challenge, 10-1, $35,000 (Crew: Magnus Augustsson, Michele Ivaldi, Jonathan McKee, Joe Newton) 2. Thierry Peponnet (FRA) K-Challenge, 10-7, $20,000 (Crew: Benoit Briand, Tanguy Cariou, Herve Cunningham, Thierry Douillard) 3. Ben Ainslie (GBR) Emirates Team New Zealand, 7-5, $15,000 (Crew: Kelvin Harrap, Richard Meacham, Tony Rae, Rob Salthouse) 4. Gavin Brady (NZL) Beau Geste Sailing Team, 4-7, $8,000 (Crew: Jon Gunderson, Brett Jones, Tony Rey, Geordie Shaver) 5. Magnus Holmberg (SWE) Victory Challenge, 5-2, $7,000 (Crew: Anders Dahlsjo, Niklas Carlzon, Lars Linger, Mattias Rahm) 6. Ed Baird (USA) Alinghi, 3-4, $5,500 (Crew: Rodney Ardern, Nils Frei, Murray Jones, Piet Van Nieuwenhuyzen) 6= Dean Barker (NZL) Emirates Team New Zealand, 4-4, $5,500 (Crew: Don Cowie, James Dagg, Jared Henderson, Terry Hutchinson) 8. Ian Williams (GBR) Williams Racing Team, 5-6, $4,000 (Crew: Bill Hardesty, Gerard Mitchell, Mal Parker, Mark Williams) 9. Staffan Lindberg (FIN) Alandia Sailing Team, 3-6 (Crew: Nils BjerkÂs, Robert Skarp, Carl-Johan Uckelstam and Daniel Wallberg) 10. Cameron Dunn (NZL) MascalzoneLatino Capitalia 3-6 (Crew: Matteo Auguadro, Maciel Chicchetti, Marco Constant, Antar Vigna) 11. Daniel Glomb (BRA) Brazil Match Race Team, 0-10 (Crew: Eduardo Birkeland, Rene Garrafielo, Jose Paulo, Daniel Santiago) World Match Racing Tour Standings: (After 5 of 9 Stages) 1. Peter Gilmour (AUS)* PST, 48 points 2. Ben Ainsle (GBR) Emirates Team New Zealand, 45 points 3. Staffan Lindberg (FIN) Alandia Sailing Team, 37 points 4. Ed Baird (USA) Alinghi, 32 points 4= Gavin Brady (NZL), 32 points 6. Peter Holmberg (ISV) Alinghi, 29 points 7. James Spithill (AUS) Luna Rossa, 25 points 7= Jesper Bank (DEN) United Internet Team Germany, 25 points 7= Dean Barker (NZL) Team NZ, 25 points * Gilmour unable to attend this event due to passport/visa problems[For complete report click here]
March 17, World Match Racing Tour. Magnus Holmberg was the clear winner of the Group A round robin at the Brazil Sailing Cup, Stage 5 of the 2005-'06 World Match Racing Tour at Angra Dos Reis, Brazil. Holmberg and his Victory Challenge crew advanced to the Quarterfinal Round of the $100,000 match-racing regatta after winning the round with a 4-0 record. Behind him there's a three-way tie for second between Ed Baird (USA), Gavin Brady (NZL) and Thierry Peponnet (FRA). The three finished with 2-2 records. Local qualifier Daniel Glomb was fifth in the group at 0-4.
Group A enjoyed a pleasant 10- to 12-knot northeasterly this morning that made for fair racing. As Baird said, "Yesterday was very frustrating. Today was much better." After Group A finished its round Group B took to the water and completed two flights before the wind died away and an almighty tropical squall, complete with thunder, lightning and buckets of rain, put a halt to racing for the day. It was a good call by the race committee. Mascalzone Latino - Capitalia crewman Antar Vigna got a shock from lightning while touching the boom vang.
Ben Ainslie (GBR) and James Spithill (AUS) are tied for the Group B lead with 2-0 records. Dean Barker (NZL) and Ian Williams (GBR) are 1-1, and Cameron Dunn (NZL) and Staffan Lindberg (FIN) are 0-2. Group B is scheduled to complete its round robin tomorrow morning.
The format of the Brazil Sailing Cup calls for the top three teams from Groups A and B to advance to the Quarterfinal Round. The bottom teams from each group advance to a Repechage Round that will determine the other two quarterfinalists. In the event of a tie between three or more teams the Sailing Instructions call for a sail-off among those teams, if time permits. If time doesn't permit, the tiebreaking system in Appendix C of the Racing Rules of Sailing will be applied. The race committee hasn't decided whether it will conduct the sail off. If they decide to use the system described in the appendix, Baird and Brady would advance to the quarters.
[For Event web site click here]
Photo: Jose Olimpi
March 16, Movistar Sailing Team skippered by Dutchman Bouwe Bekking arrived in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, today (Thursday) at 16:11:46 GMT after 25 days, 14 hours, 41 minutes and 46 seconds at sea. The team were having a highly competitive leg four until just before Cape Horn when they suffered a major leak surrounding the keel box. They suspended racing and motored into Ushuaia, Argentina, for repairs before finishing the leg in fickle and light winds.
The fairing system developed by Farr Yacht Design for the Volvo Open 70 keels allows the designer to place the hinge axis for the canting keel up to a maximum of 150mm above the hull surface. The higher position for the axis is attractive to the designer because this provides a longer lever arm for the keel and moves the bulb further to windward.
The downside is that at the surface of the hull a large opening is required to accommodate the keel fin swinging through an arc. The challenge is to fair this opening while respecting the ¦no hollows' requirements of the VO70 Rule, and in particular Rule 2.2.1 which requires that no point in any transverse section be lower than anypoint nearer the centerline. The team at Farr Yacht Design developed a system to fair over the required opening in the hull with a sliding plate. The plate moves with the keel by way of a barrel that slides vertically on the fin as it cants. The plate, which extends fore and aft of the fin, is retained with two ¦wedges² that fit full length of the sliding plate into a recess in the hull. This system offered a fair geometry for the water flow around the keel fin in the search of the least drag at all angles of cant.
The moviestar team now face a race against time to repair the boat and get it ready for the in-port race on the 25 March; something that Bekking feels is achievable: "Our mission now is to get the boat out of the water, remove the keel and replace the keel wedges. This will take 5-6 days if everything goes according to plan and then the next aim will be the in-port race."
Despite the set back on leg four, Bekking explained how important it was to finish the leg: "It was hugely important to finish the leg, for the team as a whole and for ourselves onboard. It was a big disappointment as we were going really well just before Cape Horn and then it was a slap in the face to be last in the fleet, but we just had to get on and finish the leg with as many points as possible." He concluded: "The boat goes nicely. We have had our fair share of issues but hopefully we can get all of those sorted now."
Australian Navigator Andrew Cape described the high point of the leg: "We had a near record run just before we suffered damage. We were pushing the boat hard that day and the speed was just awesome. It was typically hairy but not too scary as you get quite used to doing those kinds of speeds now. Those days are always good days." Looking forward Cape commented: "We are naturally disappointed with the damage but we never felt that we were not safe and we had other boats around us. We now need to concentrate on fixing the boat, having some rest and then getting back out there and getting stuck into the race again." Movistar is currently placed fourth overall, just two and a half points behind third placed Pirates of the Caribbean.
[For Volvo web site click here]
March 15, ISAF Women's Match Racing Championship. The twelve skippers who will compete for the title of 2006 Dexia Private Banking ISAF Women's Match Racing World Champion in Copenhagen, Denmark from 24-28 May have been confirmed. Defending champion Sally Barkos (USA) heads the list of competitors, with the 25 year old American aiming for a hat-trick of Match Racing World titles.
The Championship will be contested in DS 37s off Skovshoved Harbour, about 10 miles north of Copenhagen. Each skipper will be joined by a crew of five. The Organizing Authority for the Championship is the Royal Danish Yacht Club in association with the Royal Match Race Centre and ISAF.
Claire Leroy (FRA) Marie Björling (SWE) - 2 Sally Barkow (USA) - 3 (Defending Champion) Nina Braestrup (DEN) - 4 Klaartje Zuiderbaan (NED) - 5 Lotte Meldgaard Pedersen (DEN) - 6 Malin Källstrõm (SWE) - 7 Christine Briand (FRA) - 8 Linda Rahm (SWE) - 10 Betsy Alison (USA) - 11 Christelle Philippe (FRA) - 12 * One wildcard selected by the host Royal Danish Yacht Club, the Danish Sailing Association and ISAF - to be decided at a qualifying event from 22-23 April. Event site: http://worldcup.kdy.dkmovistar QFB Leg Four, Day 25 . It's 0600 local onboard time and it is already getting hot, even though the sun is not totally up. It has been a beautiful night, full moon, but hardly any wind and the little bit there is, is coming from dead behind us, so a direct course is not possible. At least we are getting plenty of light-air practice for the next leg. Not to forget, the best sleeping conditions you can have, only the little noises of the water passing along the hull, one motion, you don't get rocked violently in your bunk, and you don't have to wedge yourself in. It is nearly like sleeping back home.
Will this be the last daily of the trip? The forecast is still not very flash, 3 to 4 knots for the next 24 hours: speak to you tomorrow, unless we are in before midnight - Bouwe Bekking, Team movistar.
Leg 4, Day 25 1600 GMT Position: 152 n.m. to finish.Crew changes for Ericsson Racing Team. In order to improve the team's performance in the Volvo Ocean Race, the Ericsson Racing Team has been analyzing every element of the campaign. Today (Wednesday), the team announced that American sailor John Kostecki who has sailed with the team as tactician during the in-port races, will sail as skipper for leg five from Rio de Janeiro to Baltimore. The team also continues to develop the sail program for the next legs, and focuses on other improvements such as working methods and communication - two areas where Kostecki's experience will be invaluable.
"Neal has been Ericsson's skipper since the beginning of the campaign, but considering our current situation in the race, it has become clear that we need to improve team dynamics and performance. Following long discussions with Neal, John and other team members, we decided that a change of organization onboard is necessary for leg five," comments Ericsson Racing Team Project Director Richard Brisius. "We are in a unique position to have two world class skippers within the team and everyone has done their best to put their personal interests aside, for the benefit of the campaign, especially Neal and John."
Winner of the 2001/02 Volvo Ocean Race as skipper onboard illbruck, Kostecki is one of the world's top sailors. An Olympic silver medalist (1988) and 10-time world champion in a range of one-design classes, he has also been involved in four America's Cup campaigns as tactician.
Neal McDonald commented: "It has been a tough race so far for the Ericsson Racing Team and we haven't had the results we expected. John Kostecki has a proven track record in both inshore and ocean racing and we all have a lot of respect for him, which is why he was associated with the team to begin with."
Ericsson is currently in a disappointing sixth place on the leaderboard, having failed to show its full potential. There are still five legs, four in-port races and more than 10,000 miles to sail. For the Ericsson Racing team, a new race is starting.
Post Mortem on Ericsson in Leg 4 - took a turn towards discovering the root of their problems yesterday when the boat was found to have a damaged propeller box. A failure of the fixing between the box and hull was exposed when the boat was hoisted from the water for inspection, but the likelihood of the team's decision makers accepting that excuse alone for a fifth place finish which leaves them bottom of the leaderboard appears to be doubtful.
Members of the team's hierarchy are said to be considering their options for an improvement in results, and a crew change is believed to be the route that will be chosen. Any decision is likely to also take into account the findings of Farr Yacht Design, who will assess the damage's effect on performance, but at least one change, aside from those necessary if Damien Foxall and Tom Braidwood fail to recover from their injuries, is expected to be announced in the coming days.
"We don't know how long it (the propeller box) was off. It could have come off a day after we left Wellington in which case it explains a lot," said Richard Mason, who also suggested the team, containing more experience of this race than any of their rivals, should be doing better considering the quality onboard.
Jason Carrington insists the boat he built and sails is not the source of the team's problems. It was built from the same mould as the Pirates' and has the make up to match The Black Pearl, but the poor results indicate it is not being sailed effectively. "There're so many aspects when you think about the boat," said Jason Carrington, "There're sails, there's the mast, there's the crew, there's where you put the boat, obviously we haven't got it all right. I know the boat pretty well and I know the other Farr boats pretty well. I certainly know the Pirates' boat extremely well and in terms of that and in terms of stability and performance we should be just fine, but clearly we are not.
"They (The Pirates) do and it's frustrating because they came out of the same mould. Ericsson was built in eight months and very carefully. Consequently it's a lot lighter boat with a bigger keel bulb, and Pirates was built in about four and a half months and it's performing quite a bit better than us. They are not one design boats, the boats are very different, there's a big choice of sails, there's how you sail the boat. We have to take a look at ourselves." - Volvo Ocean Race website
[For Volvo web site click here]
March 14, Acura Miami Race Week and Key West Week -- for Gary Jobson narrated video Click here
moviestar QFB, Leg 4, Day 24. These are the last 400 miles for Xabi (Xabier Fernandez) onboard movistar. We are hoping for a lot of sail changes, as we promised to wake him up for each of them. Xabi is going back to sail the 49er together with Iker Mártinez, so that they have some months to get back into their old winning routine. Of course we hope that both of you will have some time to join us for an inshore along the remainder of this race, but we know the schedule is tight.
Bouwe Bekking: "Xabi even though we still are racing, I want to thank you for all the miles we sailed together. You are a talented yachtie, a team player. You have a golden personality and never give up. I am sure, besides the 49er, you will have a great future in ocean racing. Your lifestyle has changed a lot during this campaign, and another big one is coming up with a new family member due later this year. Remember one team rule: family comes in first place. Thanks on behalf of the entire team for everything you (and Laraitz) did for us. We will miss you!!!!!!! We will announce soon the replacement crewmember for Xabi. A little tip, he is coming from in-house, and has been hugely successful with the movistar sailing team.
Oh, yes, all well onboard, finally the breeze is freeing up a bit, still the forecast doesn't look too flash, but so be it."
Position Report Tuesday 1600 hrs GMT: movistar 301 n.m. to finish.March 13, moviestar QFB Leg Four, Day 23. Still hard on the wind, and it is bumpy, so foullies are on once again as the spray is flying over movistar. But what a difference the full moon is making. It would have been nice to have some of this light in the Southern Ocean where on several nights we could not even see the mast, it was so dark.
So we are counting the miles, 1 Hobart distance to go. Lots of talking on the rail, mainly regarding the families, hobbies and other yacht races. The only sea life we have seen in the last couple of days, was a big turtle trying to find some shade under a floating plastic fish bin. But there is plenty of trash in the water, and amazingly it gets all of our attention, you just want to know what it is. A small game is for how long can you follow the object. Jono (Swain) has the eyes of hawk on the boat, but I am happy that I'm a close second, not bad for an old man - Bouwe Bekking
Position as at 1600 GMT Day 23, Mondayday: movistar 531 m.m. to finish[For Volvo web site click here]
Acura Miami Race Week. There's nothing more thrilling than to have a major sailing regatta come down to the last race of the last day. That proved the case in multiple classes at Acura Miami Race Week. Just ask Eamon Conneely, owner of the Irish TP 52 Patches. Conneely and crew captured the inaugural Rolex TP52 Global Championship in dramatic fashion, placing second in the 10th and final race to overtake Pegasus 52. Pegasus, skippered by Philippe Kahn of Waikiki, Hawaii, entered the day leading by three quarters of a point and wound up 1† points behind after finishing one place behind Patches in both races on Sunday.
"I am very, very excited. I was very nervous last night because the pressure was on us," Conneely said. "We beat Pegasus, which is what we needed to do. It was incredibly close. In fact, you couldn't get much closer?"
Actually, the IRC 1 class was closer as the Swan 601 Moneypenny nipped the Ker 55 Aera by tiebreaker after both boats totaled 13 points. Owner Jim Swartz and his team aboard the recently launched Moneypenny broke the deadlock by winning the last race. "It reinforces what I was saying about how close the IRC rule has gotten these two boats," said Moneypenny navigator Mark Rudiger, part of an all-star afterguard that included helmsman Mike Toppa and tactician Gary Weisman.
Things were tense on the Farr 40 dock as a result of a protest involving on-water winner Heartbreaker. Skipper Robert Hughes vaulted from third to first on the last day, edging week-long leader Norwegian Steam by a mere point. However, the Italian entry Nerone protested Heartbreaker for tacking too close in Race 10 and that led to an uneasy two-hour period of waiting for the outcome. Hughes, who owns an employee benefits company in Grand Rapids, Mich., was ecstatic when word came the protest had been dismissed. "To win a biggie like this is incredible. I'll be walking on the tips of my toes for a week," said Hughes, who took home the Acura Trophy as overall Boat of the Week and the Baxter Trophy as top performing Farr 40.
Tactician Bill Hardesty and trimmer Wally Cross were key crew members for Hughes, a two-time winner of Farr 40 Nationals. Heartbreaker stood third, six points behind Norwegian Steam and five astern of Mascalzone Latino going into Race 10. Hughes admitted his team benefited from a tacking duel between the Norwegians and Italians, who finished ninth and 11th in the last race. "We got a great start and sailed our own race while those two covered each other. It worked out perfectly," Hughes said. "One of the reasons we were going so fast is because the crew hiked so hard."
Five other classes were decided by two points or less with all but one coming down to the last race. Skipper Rick Wesslund and El Ocaso led PHRF 2 from start to finish, but almost suffered disaster at the end. The San Francisco-based J/120 was winning Race 10 when a lifeline broke and dumped two crew members overboard. "By the time we stopped and picked them up we were in last place. Fortunately, we were able to claw our way back to fourth," said Wesslund, a resident of Tiburon, Cal.
El Ocaso, which won five of the initial six races, held off hard-charging Peregrine by one point and was rewarded with the City of Miami Trophy as PHRF Boat of the Week. "We felt really good about the way we sailed early in the week, but we faced some challenges the last two days. The level of competition got better each day and we feel fortunate to win." Wesslund had high praise for Acura Miami Race Week, which has been dubbed the "SORC Renaissance." Organizers with Premiere Racing have revamped the renowned regatta, providing more professional management on and off the water. "I sailed this regatta four years ago and wasn't happy with the way things were run so I didn't return. Premiere has made this a high-quality event again in every aspect. We will definitely be back next year," Wesslund said.
There figures to be more Melges 32s in Miami come 2007 after a strong debut showing this week. Brothers Brian and John Porter got the gun in half the races in leading Full Throttle to a one-point victory over Rick Orchard and Grins. "It was great racing all week. The boats are a blast and very evenly-matched," said John Porter, who steered while getting tactical calls from his brother. The Porters, who grew up sailing on Lake Geneva in Wisconsin, have enjoyed tremendous success in Melges 24 class the last decade. They thoroughly enjoy the larger Melges and predict rapid growth for the new fleet. "This was our first time on the 32 and we had a lot of fun. We had a little difficulty figuring out when to heat it up going downwind. We broached a couple times and dropped the spinnaker once," John Porter said.
A tiebreaker was also required in PHRF 3, where Scott Taylor's B-32 Defiance and Jeff Rubin's Tripp 33 Triptease scored 19 points apiece. Peter de Ridder's Mean Machine and Deneen Demourkas' Groovederci traded first and second places in Mumm 30 with the former ultimately winning by two points. No skipper was happier than Gordon Ettie, a Miami resident who has been trying to win this regatta since it was known as the Southern Ocean Racing Conference. Ettie, an equity investor who authored the book Demystifying Business with Cookies and Elephants, finally broke through with his Swan 40 Sazerac. "We've come in second in this regatta so many times. I went all out to win it this year," said Ettie, who topped PHRF 4 by two points.
One of the more impressive victories came in J/105 as skipper Worth Harris steered Rum at Six to first or second in nine of 10 starts. "It was all in the crew work. We go around the corners fast," said Harris, a beer distributor from Beaufort, N.C. However, it was another J/105, Philip Lotz's Indefatigable, that picked up the Acura Boat of the Day award after posting a pair of bullets on Sunday. There was terrific action on the Biscayne Bay course, which featured the regatta's two largest classes. Italian skipper Riccardo Simoneschi gave a command performance in the 25-boat Melges 24 class while Massachusetts sailmaker Jud Smith was equally dominant in the 28-entry Etchells class. Smith, who was sailing with his 17- and 16-year-old daughters, finished first or second in five of the initial seven starts and was able to sit out the final race and still win by 11 points. "Racing was a lot closer than the results would indicate. This was a strong fleet and the competition was very good," said Smith, a legendary figure in the venerable class.
Simoneschi was simply on fire after finishing third in Race 1. He reeled off a string of seven straight bullets, much to the amazement of top-notch competitors such as John Pollard and Argyle Campbell. Simoneschi was one of six winners of the Acura Grand Prix Trophy, awarded for combined excellence at the two winters regattas organized by Premiere Racing. Other boats that posted the top combined scores at Acura Key West 2006 and Acura Miami Race Week were Groovederci, the TP52 Stay Calm (Stuart Robinson, Royal Thames, UK), Farr 40 Mascalzone Latino (Vincenzo Onorato, Napoli, Italy), J/105 Gumption 3 (Kevin Grainger, Rye, NY), Swan 45 Goombay Smash (William Douglass, Newport, RI).
As if to prove that the TP52 class is now one of the most competitive and hardest fought games in sailing, the two leaders Ò Philippe Kahn's Pegasus 52 and Irishman Eamon Conneely's Patches Ò entered the final day and two windward-leeward races of the Rolex TP52 Global Championship, sailed in conjunction with Acura Miami Race Week, with Kahn's boat ahead by just 0.75 points. At the end of the first race today Patches had regained first place, though leading Pegasus 52 by just 0.25 points. The outcome would come down to the final race.
Despite finishing second, Ken Read was pleased with how their all-star team on Philippe Kahn's Pegasus 52 had performed. "We don't feel bad at all about how we did," he said. "We got beat by a boat that had a little more time under their belt and were more prepared. We didn't even make Key West and we've worked really hard to get to here. Quite frankly Philippe and whole team were all pretty proud to come second. And it was fun. Hats off to Patches - quite frankly the best boat won."
While all eyes were on today's Patches and Pegasus showdown, there were two other noteworthy performances. The first race, ultimately won by Patches, saw the oldest boat racing lead for the first four legs. John Buchan's (Seattle, Wash.) Glory (originally named Yassou) was one of the first TP52s ever built. "We caught the shift and started on port tack. Then, we led for four legs, so that was great for us - a bunch of amateurs from Seattle," commented navigator Andrew Koch, who runs the boat, praising designer Bruce Nelson, who has been sailing on board as tactician this week. This is the team's first regatta in the boat which just three weeks ago was upside down in a boatyard having major surgery performed to convert it from being a 2001 generation TP52 into a 2006 one. "It is snowing in Seattle right now - 85F and wind, Miami's a pretty good place to be," concluded Koch.
The final race today was won by Bambakou. "We always peak on the last day, by that time we are warmed up we know what we are doing and it is time to come home," joked owner John Coumantaros, who attributed the success in this last race to his team picking the shifts well. Bambakou also earned the Offshore Trophy for best performance in the two offshore races this week, ThursdayÌs 200-mile overnight race and SaturdayÌs 35-mile coastal race.
"What can you say? With 15-20 knots all week, it couldn't have been better conditions. Two days of windward-leeward races, a distance, a coastal race and back to the windward leewards - it is a fantastic mix of racing," concluded Coumantaros, summing up the feelings of all those have enjoyed this week of superb weather and top level yacht racing at the inaugural Rolex TP52 Global Championship, taking place at the Acura Miami Race Week.
DIVISION 1 Rolex TP52 Global Championship: 1. Patches, Eamon Conneely, Galway, IRL, 1-6-3-1-1-1-15-(DNF)-1.25-1-2, 32.25 pts 2. Pegasus 52, Philippe Kahn, Honolulu, HI, USA, 6-1-1-5-4-3-6-2.5-2-3, 33.5 3. Beau Geste, Kark Kwok, Hong Kong, CHN, 4-3-6-4-2-5-3-7.5-6-4, 44.5 4. Bambakou, John Coumantaros, Newport, RI, USA, 5-8-4-6-7-4-1.5-6.25-4-1, 46.75 5. Rush, Thomas Stark, Newport, RI, USA, 2-4-2-10-(DNF)-5-2-9-8.75-3-6, 51.75 6. Stay Calm, Stuart Robinson. RoyalThames, UK, 3-7-5-2-3-6-10.5-3.75-7-8, 55.25 7. Sjambok, Michael Brennan, Annapolis, MD, USA, 7-2-8-3-8-8-4.5-5-8-7, 60.5 8. Glory, John Buchan, Hunts Point, WA, USA, 9-5-7-8-6-7-7.5-10-5-5, 69.0 9. Braveheart, Charles Burnett, Seattle, WA, USA, 8-9-9-7-10-(DNF)-9-12-11.25-9-10 94.25 Note: Finish places for race 7 counts for 1.5 times the points and race 8 counts for 1.25 times. DIVISION 2 IRC 1 1, Moneypenny, Jim Swartz, Newport, RI, 1-2-2-1-1-2-1-2-(3)-1 13 pts 2, Aera, Nick Lykiardopulo, Cowes, UK, (2)-1-1-2-2-1-2-1-1-(3) 13 3, Goombay Smash, William Douglass, Newport, RI, 3-3-3-4-5-(9)-3-3-2-4 30 Farr 40 1, Heartbreaker, Robert Hughes, Holland, MI, 10-10-1-1-1-12-1-4-6-2 48 2, Norwegian Steam, Eivind Astrup, Oslo, Norway, 8-1-2-5-6-4-6-3-5-9 52 3, Mascalzoni Latino, Vincenzo Onorato, Napoli, Italy, 9-6-4-3-3-1-4-7-4-11 59 Melges 32 1, Full Throttle, Brian & John Porter, Lake Geneva, WI, 3-1-1-1-1-3-5-1-3-(dnc) 11 2, Grins, Rick Orchard, Flowery Branch, GA, 2-3-2-3-3-2-1-3-(4)-1 16 3, New Wave, Michael Carroll, Tampa, FL, 1-2-3-(4)-2-4-4-2-1-3 22 Mumm 30 1, Mean Machine, Peter de Ridder, Monaco, 1-1-2-1-1-2-2 10 2, Groovederci, Deneen Demourkas, Santa Barbara, CA, 2-3-1-2-2-1-1 12 3, Terra Firma, Dan Cheresh/Eric Wynsma, Michigan, MI, 3-2-3-3-3-4-3 21 Swan 45 (sub-class) 1, Goombay Smash, William Douglass, Newport, RI, 1-1-1-1-2-3-1-1 11 2, Better Than, Marcin Rojek, Newport, RI, 4-2-3-2-1-1-2-2 17 3, Fever, G. Gordon/K. Diederichs, Southampton, UK, 2-3-2-4-3-4-4-4- 26 PHRF 1 (IRC 1 Ò dual scoring) 1, Moneypenny, Jim Swartz, Newport, RI, 1-1-1-1-1-1-1-(2) 7 2, Aera, Nick Lykiardopulo, Cowes, UK,(2)-2-2,2-2-2-2-1 13 3, Goombay Smash, William Douglass, Newport, RI, 3-3-3-3-5-(8)-3-3 23 DIVISION 3 PHRF 2 1, El Ocaso, Rick Wesslund, Tiburon, CA, 1-2-1-1-1-1-(4)-3-4-4 18 2, Peregrine, Hunt Lawrence, Oyster Bay, NY, 2-1-2-2-(dnc)-3-2-1-3-3 19 3, Emocean, Bill Hanckel, Charleston, SC, (5)-3-5-4-2-2-1-2-1-1 21 PHRF 3 1, Defiance, Scott Taylor, Long Beach, CA, (4)-1-1-1-4-2-3-1-2-4 19 2, Triptease, Jeff Rubin, Fischer Island, FL, 1-(7dsq)-4-2-3-1-1-3-1-3 19 3, Temptress, Robert Hibdon, Charleston, SC, 3-2-2-(5)-2-3-2-2-3-2 21 J/105 1, Rum At Six, Worth Harris, Beaufort, NC, 2-1-1-1-2-2-2-3-2-2 18 2, Gumption 3, Kevin Grainger, Rye, NY, 1-2-2-2-3-4-5-2-4-5 30 3, Eagles Wings, John Gottwald, Chicago, IL, 3-3-4-4-5-1-1-5-6-3 35 PHRF 4 1, Sazerac, Gordon Ettie, Miami, FL, (3)-1-3-1-2-3-1-2-2-2 17 2, Kalevala II, Tapio Saavalainen, Annapolis, MD, 4-2-1-5-(dnc)-2-2-1-1 19 3, Primal Scream, Steven Stollman, Key Biscayne, FL, 1-3-2-3-3-4-(5)-3-4-4 27 DIVISION 4 Melges 24 1, Giacomel Audi Racing, R Simoneschi, Genova, Italy, (3)-1-1-1-1-1-1-1 7 2, Excellent, John Pollard, Torquay, UK, (7)-5-2-2-2-2-3-2 18 3, Rock N Roll, Argyle Campbell, Newport Beach, CA, 1-3-3-3-4-(9)-2-5 21 J/24 1, La Calaca, Iker Belausteguigoitia, Miami, FL, 3-2-1-1-1-(4)-2-3 13 2, Blind Squirrel, John Brennan, Davis Island, FL, 6-1-4-2-5-(8)-1-1 20 3, Pick Up Styx, Jonathan Luscomb, Palm Beach, FL, (4)-3-2-3-3-2-3-4 20 Etchells 1, Oriental Express, Jud Smith, Marblehead, MA, NC, 2-4-1-2-1-6-1-(dnc) 17 2, Victory, Buddy Cribb, Miami, FL, 4-3-7-(22)-3-4-3-4 28 3, Pipe Dream XII, Scott Piper, Miami, FL, 1-(13)-4-9-2-9-4-2 31[For all results click here]
March 12, moviestar - Volvo Leg 4, Day 22 A shocking last 24 hours for moviestar limping to the finish with damaged keel housing, nice weather, good food, but hardly any wind. The path of a high pressure system went right over the top of us. Not much we could do as this system was travelling from west to east. As Capey (Andrew Cape - navigator) said: we might as well take the sails down for 10 hours and go to sleep. But instead kept battling on, changing sails all the time as the little breeze there was all over the show. The biggest problem was the big swells that were still running from the stormy days before, as movistar could not accelerate in these.
Finally late in the evening got some wind, but now we had to battle 2.5 knots of current against as well. So slow progress, only 148 miles in 24 hours. For some of the boys a dream has come true and that is that they can drive now during a watch. Pepe (Ribes) for example, once touching the wheel is seems like his stuck to it with superglue, and doesnÌt want to let go. Good on them, the non drivers, they deserve this treat. Now sailing in 15 knots, hard on the wind, and at least the bow of movistar is pointing in the right direction.
Sooner or later we will get there. I have done too may races to get upset about the weather. But one of us is boiling inside. Noel (Drennan) has to get as quick as possible to Valencia to join Oracle for the next month, before joining us again in Baltimore. His departure time has slipped badly - Bouwe Bekking
Position as at 1600 GMT Day 22, Sunday: movistar 758 n.m. to finish[For Volvo web site click here]
Acura Miami Race Week. Winners in nine of 12 classes won't be determined until the final day of the 142-boat regatta, organized by Premiere Racing. Adding to the intrigue is the fact the Acura Grand Prix Trophy is also up for grabs in six classes. One entry in the TP52, Farr 40, J/105, Mumm 30, Melges 24 and Swan 45 will be honored for outstanding combined performance at Acura Key West 2006 and Acura Miami Race Week.
"For years, winning Key West has been one of the greatest achievements in U.S. sailing. Now the competition at Miami Race Week is just as stiff in several one-design classes," event director Peter Craig said. "Winning the Acura Grand Prix Trophy shows a tremendous level of excellence. To put forth a consistent performance at two major regattas is not an easy feat."
Stay Calm II, skippered by Stuart Robinson of Thames, England, holds an eight-point lead in the battle for the Acura Grand Prix Trophy. Adrian Stead is calling tactics aboard the British boat, which won Key West and stands fourth here in Miami.
DIVISION 1 TP52 -- see below DIVISION 2 IRC 1 1, Aera, Nick Lykiardopulo, Cowes, UK, (2)-1-1-2-2-1-2-1 10 Pts 2, Moneypenny, Jim Swartz, Newport, RI, 1-(2)-2-1-1-2-1-2 10 3, Goombay Smash, William Douglass, Newport, RI, 3-3-3-4-5-(9)-3-3 24 Farr 40 1, Norwegian Steam, Eivind Astrup, Oslo, Norway, 8-1-2-5-6-4-6-3 35 2, Mascalzoni Latino, Vincenzo Onorato, Napoli, Italy,9-6-4-3-3-1-4-7 37 3, Heartbreaker, Robert Hughes, Holland, MI, 10-10-1-1-1-12-1-4 40 Melges 32 1, Full Throttle, Brian & John Porter, Lake Geneva, WI, 3-1-1-1-1-3-(5)-1 11 2, Grins, Rick Orchard, Flowery Branch, GA, 2-(3)-2-3-3-2-1-3 16 3, New Wave, Michael Carroll, Tampa, FL, 1-2-3-(4)-2-4-4-2 18 Mumm 30 1, Mean Machine, Peter de Ridder, Monaco, 1-1-2-1-1 6 2, Groovederci, Deneen Demourkas, Santa Barbara, CA, 2-3-1-2-2 10 3, Terra Firma, Dan Cheresh/Eric Wynsma, W. Michigan, MI, 3-2-3-3-3 14 Swan 45 (sub-class) 1, Goombay Smash, William Douglass, Newport, RI, 1-1-1-1-2-3-1-1 11 2, Better Than, Marcin Rojek, Newport, RI, 4-2-3-2-1-1-2-2 17 3, Fever, G. Gordon/K. Diederichs, Southampton, UK, 2-3-2-4-3-4-4-4- 26 PHRF 1 (IRC 1 Ò dual scoring) 1, Moneypenny, Jim Swartz, Newport, RI, 1-1-1-1-1-1-1-(2) 7 2, Aera, Nick Lykiardopulo, Cowes, UK,(2)-2-2,2-2-2-2-1 13 3, Goombay Smash, William Douglass, Newport, RI, 3-3-3-3-5-(8)-3-3 23 DIVISION 3 PHRF 2 1, El Ocaso, Rick Wesslund, Tiburon, CA, 1-2-1-1-1-1-(4)-3 10 2, Peregrine, Hunt Lawrence, Oyster Bay, NY, 2-1-2-2-(dnc)-3-2-1 13 3, Emocean, Bill Hanckel, Charleston, SC, (5)-3-5-4-2-2-1-2 19 PHRF 3 1, Defiance, Scott Taylor, Long Beach, CA, (4)-1-1-1-4-2-3-1 13 2, Triptease, Jeff Rubin, Fischer Island, FL, 1-(7dsq)-4-2-3-1-1-3 15 3, Temptress, Robert Hibdon, Charleston, SC, 3-2-2-(5)-2-3-2-2 16 J/105 1, Rum At Six, Worth Harris, Beaufort, NC, 2-1-1-1-2-2-2-3 14 2, Gumption 3, Kevin Grainger, Rye, NY, 1-2-2-2-3-4-5-2 21 3, Eagles Wings, John Gottwald, Chicago, IL, 3-3-4-4-5-1-1-5 26 PHRF 4 1, Sazerac, Gordon Ettie, Miami, FL, (3)-1-3-1-2-3-1-2 13 2, Kalevala II, Tapio Saavalainen, Annapolis, MD, 4-2-1-5-(dnc10)-2-2-1 17 3, Primal Scream, Steven Stollman, Key Biscayne, FL, 1-3-2-3-3-4-(5)-3 19 DIVISION 4 Melges 24 1, Giacomel Audi Racing, R Simoneschi, Genova, Italy, 3-1-1-1-1-1 8 2, Excellent, John Pollard, Torquay, UK, 7-5-2-2-2-2 20 3, Rock N Roll, Argyle Campbell, Newport Beach, CA, 1-3-3-3-4-9 23 J/24 1, La Calaca, Iker Belausteguigoitia, Miami, FL, 3-2-1-1-1-(4) 8 2, Gottago, Peter Benziger, Miami, FL, 1-(5)-3-4-2-1 11 3, Pick Up Styx, Jonathan Luscomb, Palm Beach, FL, (4)-3-2-3-3-2 13 Etchells 1, Oriental Express, Jud Smith, Marblehead, MA, NC, 2-4-1-2-1-(6) 10 2, Victory, Buddy Cribb, Miami, FL, 4-3-7-(22)-3-4 21 3, Pipe Dream XII, Scott Piper, Miami, FL, 1-(13)-4-9-2-9 25[For all results click here]
Rolex TP52 Global Championship. Eamon Conneely's Patches leapt back with a vengeance today to win the 45-mile coastal race. After winning three races in a row on Wednesday and then having to retire from the distance race on Thursday with damage to its deck, today's win counted for 1.25 times the finish and catapulted the Irish boat back into second place overall, three-quarters of a point behind fleet leader Philippe KahnÌs Pegasus 52.
The Patches team, including experts flown into Miami especially from the West Coast of the USA, worked throughout Friday until 6am Saturday morning to cut out the broken area of deck and rebuild it. They went out to the racecourse today with a large area of black carbon fiber covering the breakage.
Today's exceptionally lumpy wave conditions, with a 15-knot southeasterly wind, in fact proved more of a test to Patches' repair than when it had broken originally, claimed skipper Ian Walker. A tug and barge moving diagonally across the racecourse complicated the opening leg, a beat out into the Gulf Stream. On Patches there was another heart-in-mouth moment when they thought they had hooked a substantial piece of rope hanging off the back of the barge. Losing distance as a result of this, the team found themselves on the left side of the beat astern of the leader, Philippe Kahn's Pegasus 52.
First to the weather mark was Pegasus 52 with Fort Lauderdale 'amateur' sailor Tom Lihan behind the wheel instead of owner Philippe Kahn, who will rejoin the boat tomorrow following his forced absence due to business commitments. "We had a nice start and got the first shift to go ahead, then we could dictate," described Pegasus 52's tactician Ken Read. "We were going good, really happy. We think we have improved upwind with every race." Pegasus 52 was followed around the top mark by Patches and Michael Brennan's Sjambok.
Rounding the weather mark and bearing away onto a run, Patches made a winning move when the crew hoisted a masthead spinnaker as Pegasus 52 put up a fractional. "Our sail was too small and too flat," admitted Read of the sail they hoisted on Pegasus. "We changed to a masthead right away and even with the change we were too small and too flat. So we learned something."
Within 10 minutes of rounding the weather mark Patches had overhauled Pegasus to leeward in 15-18 knots of wind and went on to extend their lead. "It was really good fun - we were flat out," commented PatchesÌ tactician Ian Walker. "We could only just hold that chute the whole way across with everyone hiking as hard as they could." Patches sailed below the layline in the anticipation of getting lifted as the team converged with the Florida coast, extending the lead.
Rounding the mark off Fort Lauderdale, north of Miami, the boats went on to a port tack fetch as they sailed south down the Florida coast. From here there was little opportunity to find passing lanes and Patches fended off Pegasus to take line honors - the fifth in eight races sailed so far this regatta - by 1 minute, 33 seconds.
Two windward-leeward races tomorrow will decide the outcome of the Rolex TP52 Global Championship. "It will be a big day tomorrow," confirmed Patches owner Eamon Conneely. "We pulled it out of the bag today with brilliant crew work downwind and a great call on the kite by Ian. So two races tomorrow, fingers crossed. I'm quite nervous." Stuart RobinsonÌs Stay Calm, from England, finished third overall, passing Sjambok just before the final turn for the finish. "We are just trying to understand the angles we're sailing on the boat and getting to know those angles," commented Robinson.
Sjambok finished fourth close behind the British boat. "We made a bit of a mistake on our spinnaker selection toward the end of the reach, which cost us a little bit," admitted owner-driver Micheal Brennan. "It is getting pretty close with two races still to go. It will be a good battle tomorrow."
Preliminary results: Day 5 (of 6), eight races completed to date, March 11, 2006 1. Pegasus 52, Philippe Kahn, Honolulu, HI, USA, 6-1-1-5-4-3-6-2.5, 28.5 points 2. Patches, Eamon Conneely, Galway, IRL, 1-6-3-1-1-1-15-(DNF)-1.25, 29.25 3. Beau Geste, Kark Kwok, Hong Kong, CHN, 4-3-6-4-2-5-3-7.5, 35.4 4. Stay Calm, Stuart Robinson, Royal Thames YC, UK, 3-7-5-2-3-6-10.5-3.75, 40.25 5. Bambakou, John Coumantaros, Newport, RI, USA, 5-8-4-6-7-4-1.5-6.25, 41.75 6. Rush, Thomas Stark, Newport, RI, USA, 2-4-2-10-(DNF)-5-2-9-8.75, 42.75 7. Sjambok, Michael Brennan, Annapolis, MD, USA, 7-2-8-3-8-8-4.5-5, 45.5 8. Glory, John Buchan, Hunts Point, WA, USA, 9-5-7-8-6-7-7.5-10, 59.5 9. Braveheart, Charles Burnett, Seattle, WA, USA, 8-9-9-7-10-(DNF)-9-12-11.25 75.25 Note: Finish places for the races 7 and 8 count for 1.5 times the points.[ For web click here]
March 11, Volvo leg 4. After 6,700 nautical miles of racing, ABN AMRO ONE, with Mike Sanderson (NZL) in charge drifted across the finish line today in Guanabara Bay, Rio de Janeiro at 00:18:23 local time (03:18:23 GMT) after 20 days, one hour, 48 minutes and 3 seconds at sea to claim first place. The team collected 3.5 points for passing the Cape Horn scoring gate first, and seven points for the leg win, bringing their total now to 49 points and putting them solidly at the top of the overall scoreboard.
Black Pearl skipper Paul Cayard holds the Waterford Crystal Trophy aloft after coming in 2nd on Leg 4 from Wellington to Rio .
Photo: David Branigan
The battle for the second and third podium positions raged until the very last moment. In the last hours of the leg, Paul Cayard (USA) and Pirates of the Caribbean team regained second position to cross the line at 07:06:50 GMT (04:06:50 local time) followed just 30 minutes later by the young guns on ABN AMRO TWO led by Frenchman Sebastien Josse.
Local heroes, Brasil 1 skippered by multiple Olympic medallist, Torben Grael (BRA), missed a podium position in Rio de Janeiro, their home port, by the slimmest of margins, finishing 25 minutes behind the Dutch boat.
At 2200 GMT last night, the drama was played out as Pirates of the Caribbean stalled in a light patch of wind and Brasil 1 swept pass to take second place with a one mile advantage. ABN AMRO TWO was just nine miles behind. But by 0318 GMT, and the finish of leg winner, ABN AMRO ONE (Mike Sanderson), the Pirates had regained control, pushing the Brazilians back to third place. In the next four hours, the young team of ABN AMRO ONE took it one step further and deposed Brasil 1 of a place on the podium.
As Cayard and his crew crossed the finish line, ABN AMRO TWO was just four miles behind her and Brasil 1, a further two. At 07.36 GMT, the white Dutch yacht claimed third, and Brasil 1 missed out on her place in the sun by three nautical miles, finally finishing in fourth place at 0755 GMT.
Paul Cayard/Pirates of the Caribbean: "Second is a good finish. It was a long six hours and we had everything thrown upon us. It really tested our selves, our boat and our whole campaign. I am really pleased with the consistency of results. We always said it would take us to Rio before we were up to pace."
Ericsson Racing Team arrived in Rio de Janeiro today (Saturday) in fifth place at 1912 GMT after 20 days, 17 hours and 42 minutes at sea. The story of their leg is one of immense frustration. On day four, they blew out a spinnaker, which took 36 hours to repair. The lack of this crucial sail prevented the team from sailing where they wanted to and the three boats to the south slipped away into more breeze. On day nine, 27 February, the boat did a spectacular Chinese gybe. Luckily no one was hurt and no gear was damaged. In a situation like this, they were very lucky not to break their mast. The team was back up to speed again in a few hours, but it again cost them precious miles.
Position as at 1000 GMT Day 21, Saturday: movistar 919 to finish[For Volvo web site click here]
Photo: Alex Gort
2006 Bacardi Cup. The father and son-in-law team of John Dane and crew Austin Sperry are the winners of the 2006 BACARDI Cup Star Class Regatta, one of the few Cuban-born sporting events to survive today in the United States.
The duo from Gulfport, Mississippi, finished fourth in the regatta's final race today to assure them the overall victory with six points over Germany's Marc Pickel and crew Ingo Borkowski, who finished second in the regatta's final race and second in the overall standings. It is the first Trofeo Bacardi for both Dane and Sperry.
According to Race Committee Chairman Craig Prandini, Dane, 55, also is the first Master sailor to win the Bacardi Cup in its 79-year history. FranceÌs Xavier Rohart and crew Pascal Rambeau, the 2005 Star Class world champions and number-one-ranked Star tandem in the world, finished first today and fourth in the overall standings, while BermudaÌs Peter Bromby and crew Bill McNiven finished third today and take third overall.
In today's action, Pickel started on the left side, while Bromby and Brazil's Robert Scheidt, sailing with crew Bruno Prada and entering the day in third overall, began towards the middle of the line. Dane also sought to remain with the boats in the middle, but stayed well behind to avoid a black flag and consequently sailed to a slow start.
Pickel rounded the windward mark eight boats ahead of Dane and in the lead, but fell behind Rohart at the leeward mark. Dane, meanwhile, manufactured consistent gains on winds that were 10-15 miles per hour out of the southeast throughout the first two beats to round the leeward mark in fifth. Once behind Rohart, Pickel began protecting against Bromby and allowed Dane to gain several boat lengths on both boats.
"That was a bit of a break for us," said Dane, who considers himself an amateur sailor despite an aggressive sailing schedule and training program in preparation for the 2008 Olympic trials. "Our strategy was to never lose sight of [Pickel and Bromby], but we couldn't keep up with Pickel early on the left side. Once [Pickel] started covering Bromby, we had them both in our sights and knew we could win the regatta if we hung with them."
Scheidt fell outside the top 20 at the leeward mark and was never in contention to win today's race. Dane and Sperry finish the regatta with two victories, a third, a fourth and a sixth place finish for a total of 15 points; they drop their 17th place finish on Wednesday. Sailors throw out their worst finish of the regatta, such that the teams best five races are used to determine the overall winner.
More than 90 teams representing 19 countries competed in the 2006 BACARDI Cup Star Class Regatta, one of the most competitive and highly anticipated Star Class events in the world. All participants compete aboard 22-foot Olympic-class Star sloops, and race teams comprise two members: a skipper and crew.
Overall Final Standings (top ten) after one discard: 1. John Dane/Austin Sperry Gulf Port, MS USA 3 1 (17) 1 6 4 15.00 pts 2. Marc Pickel/Ingo Borkowski GER 8 2 (BFD) 7 2 2 21.00 3. Peter Bromby/Bill McNiven BER 4 7 (BFD) 12 1 3 27.00 4. Xavier Rohart/Pascal Rambeau FRA 17 3 2 (60) 5 1 28.00 5. Mateusz Kusznierewicz/Dominick Zycki POL 6 (25) 6 4 14 11 41.00 6. Afonso Domingos/Bernardo Santos POR 10 9 10 9 (12) 5 43.00 7. Iain Murray/Andrew Palfrey AUS 5 (28) 9 8 7 16 45.00 8. Joseph Londrigan/David Giles IL USA (48) 13 3 22 3 6 47.00 9. Robert Scheidt/Bruno Prada BRA (34) 4 4 3 13 27 50.00 10. Andy Beadsworth/David Carr GBR (43) 19 1 16 10 7 53.00[For full Results click here]
Photo: Tim Wilkes/www.timwilkes.com
Acura Miami Race Week "That sure doesn't happen very often. It's remarkable how evenly matched these two boats are," Rudiger said. Moneypenny and Aera are continuing a tremendous battle that began at Acura Key West 2006. Aera edged Moneypenny by two points in that nine-race series, but the bigger boat came away with the inaugural U.S. IRC Championship that was scored by a complex formula. "I am very surprised because they are different types of boats with different characteristics," Rudiger said. "We tend to do better on the beats while they are catching us on the runs. We are working very hard on our downwind speed because we know that every second counts."
Competition is just as close in Farr 40 class, which features 19 fully-professional teams. Robert Hughes and his Heartbreaker team posted a pair of bullets on Friday to vault from seventh to second in the overall standings - one point behind Eivind Astrup and Norwegian Steam. "It was one of those days when everything went right. We got good starts, the crew hiked real hard and we hit the shifts just right," said Hughes, who owns an employee benefits company in Grand Rapids, Mich.
Hughes credited bowman Mike Hill and tactician Bill Hardesty with helping Heartbreaker nail a perfect pin-end start in Race 5. Heartbreaker led around every mark and won going away, a rarity in the talent-laden fleet. "In this class, you live for days like this. When we crossed the finish line, I looked back and saw more Olympic medals and America's Cups and Volvos than I could shake a stick at," said Hughes, who kindly carried a cameraman from the Outdoor Life Network aboard his boat on Friday.
Norwegian Steam held the overall lead for a second straight day after fifth and sixth. Astrup and crew sailed both races without instruments after banging masts with another boat. "We are only halfway through the regatta. This is a lot more racing to go. We cannot get too happy just yet," Astrup said. Mascalzone Latino made a move on Friday, finishing third in both races to take over third in the regatta. The Italian entry, led by owner Vincenzo Onorato and tactician Russell Coutts, got better every day en route to winning at Key West and hopes to do the same here. "I got bad starts, but we made up ground because Russell is a genius and the crew is fantastic," Onorato said.
Photo: Regatta Photo.com
Rolex TP52 Global Championship. The distance race sprang several boats into the limelight, turning the leader board on its head when John Coumantaros's Bambakou crossed the finish line in first early this morning. With a fourth-place added to his scoreline, Philippe Kahn and his Pegasus 52 moved into first place overall of the nine-boat fleet racing in the 10-race series, sailed in conjunction with Acura Miami Race Week.
Leaving Miami yesterday afternoon, the 200+ mile distance race saw the boats taking an effective anti-clockwise course around a square. The fleet first raced across the Gulf Stream out to a turning mark off the Bahamas, then north past Bimini around a turning mark at Great Isaac Light. From there, they sailed west, back across to the Gulf Stream to the Florida coast before heading back south to the finish just north of Miami.
The biggest shake-up took place at around 8.30pm last night. Sailing upwind in a relatively large sea, but moderate wind, Eamon Conneely's Reichel-Pugh designed Patches, broke its deck at the forward end of the cockpit on the port side. "The core fully split - you could put your hand in there when you were sailing along," described Ian Walker. Midway between Miami and the Bahamas at the time, the crew had no choice but to head back to port. "We had done half the upwind and we were looking forward to coming downwind with the chute. We had Rush and Pegasus tucked away, covering them for the overall positions," continued Walker.
Cruelly, at the time Patches was clear leader of the Rolex TP52 Global Championship after a hat trick of wins on Wednesday. The crew and a team of boat builders are now attempting to fix the break so that Patches can race tomorrow. "It might not be pretty, but we'll fix it," advised Walker. "Obviously they are high performance, grand-prix boats, designed as close to the limit as you can. We have had a few issues, but it is still a relatively new boat and once we shake out those issues we are really pleased with how she is going."
On the run back across the Straits of Florida, Bambakou hit 24.5 knots, just more than the wind speed --the wind had piped up to more than 20 after midnight--and once again took the lead. From here the team hung on to first place until the finish, winning by six minutes 35 seconds ahead of Beau Geste.
On his arrival an exhausted, but jubilant, Bambakou owner, John Coumantaros, attributed the boat's success to his team and to sticking to their game plan. He believed that Bambakou was better suited to offshore races with a wider transom making for better reaching in moderate to strong conditions. Coumantaros added that they had benefited from using a fractional reaching chute, an A5, whereas Beau Geste was sailing under reefed main and masthead genoa.
Preliminary results: Day 4 [of 6] four races sailed - making seven completed as of March 10: 1. Pegasus 52, Philippe Kahn, Honolulu, HI, USA, 6-1-1-5-4-3-6 26 points 2. Beau Geste, Kark Kwok, Hong Kong, CHN, 4-3-6-4-2-5-3 27 3. Patches, Eamon Conneely, Galway, IRL, 1-6-3-1-1-1-15-(DNF) 28 4. Rush, Thomas Stark, Newport, RI, USA, 2-4-2-10-(DNF)-5-2-9 34 5. Bambakou, John Coumantaros, Newport, RI, USA, 5-8-4-6-7-4-1.5 35.5 6. Stay Calm, Stuart Robinson, Royal Thames YC, UK, 3-7-5-2-3-6-10.5 36.5 7. Sjambok, Michael Brennan, Annapolis, MD, USA, 7-2-8-3-8-8-4.5 40.5 8. Glory, John Buchan, Hunts Point, WA, USA, 9-5-7-8-6-7-5 49.5 9. Braveheart, Charles Burnett, Seattle, WA, USA, 8-9-9-7-10-(DNF)-9-8 64 Note: Finish places for the seventh race counted for 1.5 times the points.[ For web click here]
March 10, Volvo Leg 4, Day 20. The yachts have been tacking with vigour throughout the past days trying to get every last ounce of speed out of their high performance yachts which are not best suited for light upwind conditions. Throwing all their kit from one side to the other and even letting sails sleep in their bunks instead of their tired bodies on ABN AMRO TWO (Sebastien Josse).
Simon Fisher had this to say in the anxious hours ahead, "It is all go here on ABN AMRO TWO. With Brasil 1 (Torben Grael) just next to us the race is on for the finish. It has been tough for us today as they have been a tiny bit faster and it is hard to imagine anyone more driven towards a podium finish in his home town than Torben Grael. However we are putting up a fight, anything we can do to squeeze and extra fraction of a knot out the boat has been done. People have given up their bunks for sails in an effort to increase righting moment, extra halyards have gone up the mast to reduce windage and weight aloft. Small things yes, but if it makes a difference then we have done it. No matter where we finish, I want to be able to say we did everything we could."
Despite all the young guys' hard work, the Brazilian passion surpassed them yesterday just before 2200 GMT when Brasil 1 over took them moving into third place, but the battle is far from over with currently 12 nautical miles separating them. Knut Frostad one of the token Brazilians onboard expressed the nature of racing that still lies ahead.
"It's a very intense atmosphere onboard Brasil 1 right now. Lot's of times I have been asked; "what is the worst about this race?" They expect to hear about the cold storms in the south. But no, the worst is simply no wind. Less wind gives you less options, and higher probability that the competitors have more of it. We have about 250 nm to go now. In our world that's normally achievable in less than a day, but as the wind is slowly dropping and right now on the nose, Rio seems close but still so far away.
"Last night we entered into a tight battle with ABN AMRO TWO, slowly catching them up from behind and in the end positioning ourselves to weather in a controlling position. This was the first time we have seen any boat with our own eyes since the day after the start in Wellington. We might look close on Virtual Spectator at times, but really it's impossible to se a VO70 from any further distance than nine nautical miles. For sure, being close to someone sparks some extra energy onboard. Tacks and re-stacking goes faster than normal. All kinds of devices, such as night vision binoculars, radar and hand bearing compasses, are up and running to make sure we know their moves at any time.
ABN AMRO ONE still leads with a confident 113 nautical miles separation from second place Pirates of the Caribbean (Paul Cayard) but the nail-biting will continue through till the end, even for Ericsson Racing Team (Neal McDonald) bringing up the rear of the finishing pack only 39 nautical miles behind fourth place. The fleet will have to sail into Guanabara Bay to finally reach the finish line of leg four just outside Marina da Gloria. The Guanabara Bay is known for it's zephyrs and wind holes which has stopped more than a few yachts in their tracks to victory and this finish will certainly not be any different. As the hours count down we can only wait with baited breathe to see what the final outcome will be.
Position as at 1600 GMT Day 20, Friday: ABN AMRO ONE 89 n.m distance to finish Pirates of the Caribbean +113 Brasil 1 +129 ABN AMRO TWO +141 Ericsson Racing Team +180 movistar +1100[For Volvo web site click here]
Volvo 'keels'. The fairing system developed by Farr Yacht Design for the Volvo Open 70 keels has been the source of considerable interest for those following the Volvo Ocean Race. The VO70 Rule allows the designer to place the hinge axis for the canting keel up to a maximum of 150mm above the hull surface. The higher position for the axis is attractive to the designer because this provides a longer lever arm for the keel and moves the bulb further to windward. The downside is that at the surface of the hull a large opening is required to accommodate the keel fin swinging through an arc. The challenge is to fair this opening while respecting the ¦no hollows² requirements of the VO70 Rule, and in particular Rule 2.2.1 which requires that no point in any transverse section be lower than anypoint nearer the centerline. The team at Farr Yacht Design developed a system to fair over the required opening in the hull with a sliding plate. The plate moves with the keel by way of a barrel that slides vertically on the fin as it cants. The plate, which extends fore and aft of the fin, is retained with two ¦wedges² that fit full length of the sliding plate into a recess in the hull. This system offered a fair geometry for the water flow around the keel fin in the search of the least drag at all angles of cant. [For more click here]
Peter Bromley and crew David McNiven.
Photo: Alex Gort
2006 Bacardi Cup, Biscayne Bay. Two-time Bacardi Cup Champion Peter Bromby, sailing this week with crew Bill McNiven, of Bermuda won Thursday's fifth race at the 2006 BACARDI Cup Star Class Regatta. Sailors dropped their worst finish in the official standings today, so the victory moves Bromby, who was black-flagged and disqualified for an early start on day three, to fourth overall following the drop.
The Gulfport, Mississippi in-law tandem of John Dane and Austin Sperry were the recipients of good fortune today, when a first start was scratched after the pin boat failed to hoist the flag marking the start of the race, and both race committee boats then raised conflicting individual and general recall flags. The duo from Gulfport, Mississippi, was over the starting line and would have been disqualified for an early start had it not been for the confusion that forced a restart.
Instead, the sixth place finish positions them solidly in first place overall entering the sixth and final race of the regatta, eight points ahead of their nearest threats, Marc Pickel and crew Ingo Borkowski of Germany. A black flag on day three also was the German duo's only blemish, as they jumped the starting line along with 13 other teams.
Followed closely by Pickel and Borkowski, Bromby and McNiven got off to a strong start on today's triangle course in wind gusts that topped 20 miles per hour out of the south. The two boats were first and second at every mark, with Bromby extending his lead on the reach beats. Pickel came to within a boat length of Bromby on the final beat, but Bromby held off the charge to win by three boat lengths in winds that had slowed to 10 to 15 miles per hour. Pickel's second place finish today moves him to second overall.
Overall Standings of top ten after Five of Six Races after one discard - the teams' best five races will be used to determine the overall winner. 1. John Dane/Austin Sperry Gulf Port, MS USA 3 1 (17) 1 6 11.00 pts 2. Marc Pickel/Ingo Borkowski GER 8 2 (BFD) 7 2 19.00 3. Robert Scheidt/Bruno Prada BRA (34) 4 4 3 13 23.00 4. Peter Bromby/Bill McNiven BER 4 7 (BFD) 12 1 24.00 5. Xavier Rohart/Pascal Rambeau FRA 17 3 2 (60) 5 27.00 6. Iain Murray/Andrew Palfrey AUS 5 (28) 9 8 7 29.00 7. Mateusz Kusznierewicz/Dominick Zycki POL 6 (25) 6 4 14 30.00 8. Karl Anderson/Magnus Liljedahl FL USA 9 16 (BFD) 5 8 38.00 9. Afonso Domingos/Bernardo Santos POR 10 9 10 9 (12) 38.00 10. Mark Reynolds/Christian Finnsgard CA USA 1 5 12 (27) 23 41.00[For full Results click here]
Acura Miami Race Week 2006. Miami Beach was at its best on Thursday. Sunny skies, warm weather and big breeze - Chamber of Commerce conditions - greeted the 142 boats competing in Acura Miami Race Week.
"It was absolutely awesome out there today. We had a lot of fun," Shellow said. "Getting to sail in 20 knot winds, 80 degrees and big waves... what more can you ask for?" All the professional sailors in the Farr 40 class certainly enjoyed the opening act of the four-day regatta, organized by Premiere Racing. Division 2 principal race officer John Craig set long courses which made for a full and satisfying day of racing.
Skipper Eivind Astrup and his crew aboard Norwegian Steam were exhausted but in good spirits after taking the early lead. Norwegian Steam stormed into the lead on the initial downwind leg en route to winning Race 2 then followed with a second in Race 3. "We are very pleased with how we sailed today, especially downwind. That is where we made huge gains," said Astrup, an Oslo resident.
Norwegian Steam holds a three-point lead over Opus One (Wolfgang Stolz, Koenigstein, Germany) and Nerone (Massimo Mezzaroma, Punta Ala, Italy), which are tied with 14 points. "It is never good to lead the regatta on the first day. There is only one way to go after that," said Astrup, who nonetheless was thrilled to pick up the Industry Partner Boat of the Day honor.
Twins, the Paris, France entry led by skipper Erik Maris and tactician Phillipe Mourniac, is three points behind in fourth. "Our speed is good, we were able to gain some boats in a couple races. We are in a good mood today. It's always nice to be (in contention), but there is a long way to go," Mourniac said. "The level of competition is so strong. You can be the top boat one race, the bottom boat the next."
In IRC 1, Aera (Ker 55) and Moneypenny (Swan 601) continued their remarkably close duel that began in Key West. So close were the boats that Aera won the class while Moneypenny captured the inaugural U.S. IRC Championship, which was scored by a complex formula. It was more of the same Thursday as skipper Nick Lykiardopulo led Aera to victory in two races and second in the other. Moneypenny put up a 1-2-2 line and trails by a mere point in the overall standings. "Both boats are well prepared and well sailed. They are faster in certain conditions and we are faster in others," said Jez Fanstone, helmsman aboard Aera.
There was considerable excitement on the Transpac 52 dock as the fully-professional teams prepared for a 178-nautical mile distance race that began Thursday afternoon and figures to finish between 6-9 a.m. Friday.
Organizers sent the eight-boat fleet east across the Gulf Stream to the Ocean Cay Buoy off Bimini, north to a turning mark at Great Isaacs, west to the Hillsboro Inlet Sea Buoy then back to Miami. Patches, owned by Eamon Connelly of Galway, Ireland, led the regatta going into the distance race, which was weighted more than the six buoy races held Tuesday and Wednesday.
Racing on Biscayne Bay begins Friday and features the two largest classes at Acura Miami Race Week 2006. Local skippers Scott Piper and Buddy Cribb are among the favorites in the 29-boat Etchells fleet after placing second and third at this regatta last year. Riccardo Simoneschi and his Nautica team will be a key player in the 26-entry Melges 24 class after finishing fourth in a loaded field at Acura Key West 2006.
Scott Taylor's B-32 Defiance leads PHRF 3 by one point over while Robert Hibdon's SR 33 Temptress. "It's a competitive class, but I think Defiance is starting to show it's the boat to beat," Shellow said.
March 9, Volvo Leg 4, Day 19. Sights are firmly focused on the last 500 nautical miles of leg four as the yachts keep battling through the light sticky stuff on their way to Rio de Janeiro. The only thing for certain is that the next two days will be interesting as yachts stop and start in the fickle breezes surrounding the finish as there is no clear path through.
ABN AMRO ONE (Mike Sanderson) still leads as the chasing pack gaining and losing on them hourly. The Dutch team tacked at 1355 GMT today giving them a more pleasurable northerly course with 15 knots from the north east and only 308 nautical miles until a possible victory. Mike Sanderson is not counting his blessings just yet.
And it certainly seems prudent that Sanderson is still wary as Pirates of the Caribbean (Paul Cayard) is only 65 nautical miles behind them to the south west, in the same breeze and have gained another nine miles in the last six hours. ABN AMRO TWO (Sebastien Josse) is hanging in there but still has only four nautical miles separating them from Brasil 1 (Torben Grael) to the south east of them.
Back in fifth Ericsson Racing Team (Neal McDonald) seemed to have taken a flyer to the west tacking at 1225 GMT today, possibly in search of different winds nearer the coast but just before the 1600 GMT position report they have tacked back. One of the only plus points of being in fifth position coming into a light wind finish is that they can afford to take more unusual tactics as they don't have to cover their position and may as well risk it all just in case. Only time will tell.
Position as at 1600 GMT Day 19, Thursday: ABN AMRO ONE 308 n.m distance to finish Pirates of the Caribbean +65 ABN AMRO TWO +97 Brasil 1 +99 Ericsson Racing Team +155 movistar +1204[For Volvo web site click here]
John Dane and crew Austin Sperry of Gulfport, Mississippi, head toward the leeward mark with a commanding 10-boat-lenth advantage over the rest of the fleet on day four, with today's victory, they regain the overall lead going into the final two races of the regatta. Photo Alex Gort
Acurra Bacardi Cup. The father and son-in-law tandem of John Dane and crew Austin Sperry, sailing out of Gulfport, Mississippi, won Wednesday's fourth race at the 2006 BACARDI Cup Star Class Regatta on the waters of Biscayne Bay.
With many of the overall leaders faltering on day four, Dane and Sperry regain the overall lead heading into the final two races of the regatta. They had lost the overall lead yesterday with a 17th place finish, and hope to be able to drop that race in their quest for what would be the first Trofeo BACARDI for both sailors.
Overall Standings of top ten after Four of Six Races: Sailors drop their worst finish of the regatta, such that the teams' best five races will be used to determine the overall winner. 1. John Dane/Austin Sperry Gulf Port, MS USA 3 1 17 1 22.00 pts 2. Afonso Domingos/Bernardo Santos POR 10 9 10 9 38.00 3. Mateusz Kusznierewicz/Dominick Zycki POL 6 25 6 4 41.00 4. Robert Scheidt/Bruno Prada BRA 34 4 4 2 44.00 5. Mark Reynolds/Christian Finnsgard CA USA 1 5 12 27 45.00 6. Mark Mendelblatt/Mark Strube FL USA 24 11 8 6 49.00 7. Iain Murray/Andrew Palfrey AUS 5 28 9 8 50.00 8. Rick Merriman/Rick Peters CA USA 7 10 15 31 63.00 9. Peter Vessella/Darrell Hiatt CA USA 26 14 14 10 64.00 10. Andy Beadsworth/David Carr GBR 43 19 1 16 79.00Volvo Leg 4, Day 18. If it wasn't for the fact that the fleet is going nowhere fast, the crews onboard the fleet of Volvo Open 70s would actually be enjoying themselves. Clean clothes are being dragged out of kit bags long forgotten and Southern Ocean gear has been consigned to old food bags to contain the smell. Bodies are clean as showers in the rain squalls have even been possible and having clean hair is something most people have not experienced since this leg began in Wellington nearly three weeks ago.
The water temperature is now up to a balmy 25 degrees centigrade and the air temperature a dazzling 27 degrees C. Captain Paul and the lost souls onboard The Black Pearl say the nights at sea have been spectacular. "Clear skies with stars as bright as you can ever see. I love to just sit on deck in the middle of the night and take it all in. These are special days, very hard to come by," writes Pirate Paul. The only thing that can threaten at least the comfort factor onboard is being completely becalmed in the searing heat and running out of food. The latter is obviously on the mind of Scott Beavis on ABN AMRO TWO (Sebastien Josse).
Onboard movistar, the crew is making job lists and trying to fix as much of the broken gear as possible, in particular a lot of the electronics were damaged when the boat was flooded "It's basically a delivery trip for this boat now, with the rest of the fleet well out of reach," says Bekking. "We have very little breeze right now, just 6 knots, but the weather is going to change within the next 24 hours and we are expecting a nice ride after that with breeze of up to 25 ³ 30 knots from behind, so we will make good progress then." The goal for this team is to be the top scoring boat from Rio onwards and there are still plenty of points up for grabs.
Position as at 1600 GMT Day 18, Wednesday: ABN AMRO ONE 528 n.m distance to finish Pirates of the Caribbean +63 ABN AMRO TWO +93 Brasil 1 +106 Ericsson Racing Team +143 movistar +1193[For Volvo web site click here]
Acura Miami Race Week 2006. Skippers of all 142 boats entered in are anxiously awaiting racing in 75-80 degree temperatures and 12-20 knot winds. California resident Jim Madden is looking forward to the regatta a bit more than most. That's because Madden will debut his innovative Custom 66-footer Stark Raving Mad during the grand prix event that has been dubbed the "SORC Renaissance." Stark Raving Mad features a canting keel to provide stability. That innovative technology has already been used aboard specialty designs such as the Open 60, Volvo 70 and MaxZ86.
Stark Raving Mad, designed by Reichel-Pugh and built by Westerly Marine, was launched a month ago on the West Coast. Madden, a Newport Beach resident, took the innovative racer offshore for some sea trials, but never saw winds above eight knots. "We're going up a very steep learning curve right now," said Madden, who tested the boat in 14-21 knot breezes off Miami on Tuesday. "We're still figuring out the timing of when to swing the keel during a tack or a gybe."
SJAMBOK, Michel Brennan, USA
Photo by: Daniel Forster/ Rolex
Rolex TP52 Global Championship, Miami Beach. In a class as competitive as the TP52, it is typical to have a different winner in every race. However, Philippe Kahn's Pegasus 52 won two of three races Tuesdayday, and Wednesday it was Eamon Conneely's Patches, from Ireland, sweeping all three races to take a commanding lead at the Rolex TP52 Global Championship, sailed as part of Acura Miami Race Week.
Three races were held out in the Gulf Stream, off of Miami's South Beach and with the exception of the last race, the wind was much more stable than yesterday, settling in from the northeast and ranging from 10-20 knots. Straightaway, Patches seemed to have the bit firmly between her teeth going into today's first race. Although mid-pack at the first weather mark rounding, Conneely managed to gain the lead on the second beat and reach the finish line first by 26 seconds ahead of his British rival, Stuart Robinson's Stay Calm, which in turn squeezed in just ahead of early race leader, Michael Brennan's Sjambok.
In the second race Patches was, again, in the middle of the fleet at the top mark and at the end of the first run became involved in a port-starboard incident with Stay Calm. "We ended up going around the right-hand gate and everyone went around the left-hand gate," described Patches' tactician double Olympic silver medallist, Ian Walker. "Fortunately the crew did a great job and although it was a messy drop they managed to get the kite down okay."
In the final race, held in conditions as shifty as they were yesterday, the afterguard on Patches made the correct calls off the start line. "We wanted the right and after the start we tacked immediately right, worked a couple of shifts and then there was a huge right hander at the top so again we were launched," described a jubilant Walker. Patches rounded the top mark with a 1 minute, 25 second lead over the fleet and went on to win.
Elsewhere in the fleet Thomas Stark's Rush (Riverside, Conn.) was forced to pull out of today's first race when a batten end fitting exploded requiring the boat's shore crew to rush a spare mainsail out to the race course. Solid performances in races 2 and 3, enabled Rush to hold onto fourth place overall. In the second race, Charles Burnett's Braveheart (Seattle, Wash.) was also forced to withdraw after becoming entangled with the lines from a lobster pot.
Thursday; the Rolex TP52 Global Championship are sent off on an 18-24 hour long distance race on a course to take the boats across to the Bahamas and back. While the last two days have been windward-leeward courses, this course is likely to see more reaching in a lumpy Gulf Stream. The results for this race, scored 1.5 times the windward-leeward race results, could cause a shake-up to the overall results.
Preliminary results: Day 2 (of 6), six completed to date (no discards): 1. Patches, Eamon Conneely, Galway, IRL, 1-6-3-1-1-1, 13 points 2. Pegasus 52, Philippe Kahn, Honolulu, HI, USA, 6-1-1-5-4-3, 20 3. Beau Geste, Kark Kwok, Hong Kong, CHN, 4-3-6-4-2-5, 24 4. Rush, Thomas Stark, Newport, RI, USA, 2-4-2-10[DNF*]-5-2, 25 5. Stay Calm, Stuart Robinson, Royal Thames YC, UK, 3-7-5-2-3-6, 26 6. Bambakou, John G. Coumantaros Newport, RI, USA, 5-8-4-6-7-4, 34 7. Sjambok, Michael Brennan, Annapolis, MD, USA, 7-2-8-3-8-8, 36 8. Glory, John Buchan, Hunts Point, WA USA, 9-5-7-8-6-7, 42 9. Braveheart, Charles Burnett, Seattle, WA USA, 8-9-9-7[DNF*]-9, 52[ For web click here]
Two-time Olympian Andy Beadsworth and crew David Carr
of Great Britain charge toward the Bacardi finish line
ahead of the fleet on day three. Photo Alex Gort
March 8, Baracrdi Cup. Miami, FL. Two-time Olympic Gold Medalist and Seven-Time Bacardi Cup Champion Mark Reynolds, sailing this week with Swedish crew Christian Finnsgard, took the overall lead at the 2006 Bacardi Cup Star Class Regatta with a 12th-place finish in Tuesday's third race. Sailing out of San Diego, California, Reynolds currently shares his record seven Bacardi Cup titles with legendary Star sailor Ding Schoonmaker of Naples, Florida.
Rohart and Rambeau, the 2005 Star World Champions and number-one ranked Star tandem in the world, with today's performance and a third place finish on day two, move from seventh to third in the overall standings. Andy Beadsworth and crew David Carr of Great Britain won Tuesday's race (well ahead of second place finishers Xavier Rohart and crew Pascal Rambeau of France), puts Andy Beadsworth and crew in 13th.
Reynolds holds a slim three-point lead in the overall standings, moving just ahead of John Dane and crew Austin Sperry, a father and son-in-law tandem that sails out of Gulfport, Mississippi. First overall after two races, Dane and Sperry drop to second overall, just one point ahead of Rohart and Rambeau.
Standings of top five, after three of Six Races: Overall Skipper/Crew Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Total Points 1. Mark Reynolds/Christian Finnsgard CA 1 5 12 18.00 2. John Dane/Austin Sperry MS 3 1 17 21.00 3. Xavier Rohart/Pascal Rambeau FRA 17 3 2 22.00 4. Afonso Domingos/Bernardo Santos POR 10 9 10 29.00 5. Rick Merriman/Rick Peters CA 7 10 15 32.00[ For the other 87 standings click here]
Philippe Kahn's all-star team on Pegasus 52. Photo Daniel Forster/Rolex
Rolex TP52 Global Championship, Miami Beach. At the end of the first day and three opening windward-leeward bouts at the Rolex TP52 Global Championship Miami Beach, Philippe Kahn's all-star team on Pegasus 52 is tied on eight points with Thomas Stark's Rush.
With an offshore westerly breeze, conditions in the otherwise immaculate setting were shifty in the extreme, fluctuating in speed throughout the day between 12 and 20 knots. On board Rush, Alinghi helmsman Ed Baird said the shifts had been in the order of 30-40 degrees. "The key today wasn't to try and win the race, it was to make sure you didn't lose it. The problem when it gets shifty like this is that if you get forced away at the wrong time, you can't come back because you have missed that shift. We just tried to stay in the top group and not get flushed out."
Rush's 2-4-2 scoreline was the most consistent on a day when consistency was hard to achieve. Pegasus 52 scored a disappointing sixth place in the first race, but was able to tie with Rush at the end of the day by posting first places in the final two races.
"We have a great team and we got lucky," was how Kahn assessed their performance today. "It's better being lucky than good. We've done some training. We have got a good team so it helped." While Kahn has raced his TP52 offshore extensively and in this respect has more miles under his keel than his competition, this is the first time he has campaigned the boat in an official TP52 event. "The fleet is so close and the conditions are so challenging that any single boat could win. Basically if you don't look somewhere, you get passed. It is amazing how much you can lose or gain just like that very, very easily."
The resounding win of the day came in the first race when Irishman Eamon Conneely's Patches showed its transom to the rest of the fleet early up the first beat and never looked back. "We were in the trend with the wind," commented helmsman Stuart Childerley. "We were quite confident with sailing on the shifts." They made the right calls and turned a two boat-length lead at the weather mark into a 1 minute and 54 second advantage at the finish. The boat's new keel, fitted last week, has been making a marked improvement said Childerley, who added that they are quietly confident to be "on the button" speed-wise, but it is still early days. "All the time we are learning how to sail the boat and how to tweak it, just trying to understand the boat more and more."
Wednesday's schedule calls for more windward-leeward racing prior to the 18-24 hour long distance race on Thursday-Friday, where it is expected that the boats will be sent across to the Bahamas and back. Racing continues through Sunday.
Preliminary results Day 1, top three after three races, March 7, 2006 1. Pegasus 52, Philippe Kahn, Honolulu, HI, USA, 6-1-1, 8 points 2. Rush, Thomas Stark, Newport, RI, USA, 2-4-2, 8 3. Patches, Eamon Conneely, Galway, IRL, 1-6-3, 10[For full results click here]
March 7, Volvo Leg 4, Day 17. On the race course the yachts have been all but becalmed in the past 24 hours. The sea temperatures have risen from icy Southern Ocean waters to a practically tropical 14 C degrees, with warm rain squalls, which is pleasing the teams and easing the pain of the slow slog north. ABN AMRO ONE (Mike Sanderson) the current race leader slowed dramatically, at 2200 GMT yesterday and lost 28 nautical miles in six hours to The Black Pearl but have managed to pull out again even further and are currently 69 nautical miles in front of the lost souls.
Third placed ABN AMRO TWO (Sebastien Josse), Brasil 1 and Ericsson Racing Team (Neal McDonald) all also concertinaed up but as the leading yacht picks up her skirts again, they are left in a light wind band.
The strategy varies across the fleet. Currently, east-west positioning in the fleet remains the big tactical question. ABN AMRO ONE is the most westerly boat while Brasil 1 holds onto the east with Ericsson Racing Team also in the east but further back. As the low moves east, the boats to the east hope to see their winds build as the leaders sail into light air. The easterly route is more risky, but it has the potential to help the trailing teams jump into the lead.
Position as at 1600 GMT Day 17, Tuesday: ABN AMRO ONE 715 n.m distance to finish Pirates of the Caribbean +69 ABN AMRO TWO +99 Brasil 1 +117 Ericsson Racing Team +115 movistar +1196[For Volvo web site click here]
John Dane and Austin Sperry of Gulfport, MS., now in lead after two races
Photo: Alex Gort
Bacardi Cup, Miami. The father and son-in-law tandem of John Dane and crew Austin Sperry, sailing out of Gulfport, Mississippi, won Monday's second race at the 2006 Bacardi Cup Star Class Regatta on the waters of Biscayne Bay. With a third place finish in Sunday's first race, today's victory assures them the overall lead going into the third of six races in the regatta.
Dane and Sperry trailed Marc Pickel and crew Ingo Borkowski of Germany by about a boat length following the third and final mark of the double windward-leeward course. Both teams were several boat lengths ahead of their nearest competitors heading towards the finish line.
Dane elected to jibe starboard towards the finish in the hope of securing the better angle, while Pickel chose the more consistent, albeit conservative, approach of remaining on course. The move proved decisive for Dane and Sperry as they edged Pickel and Borkowski by less than a foot, according to race committee chairman Craig Prandini.
"We ran a pretty conservative race and listened to our coach, Larry Souter, who gave us a lot of very good weather input. HeÃs the reason we stayed competitive today," said Dane, 54, a 2008 Olympic hopeful in the Star Class with crew Sperry, 27.
"We sailed side by side with Pickel all the way down the final run, then jibed away towards the starboard end of the finish line because we thought that would be the better angle; we figured we didn't have anything to lose since we had some space between us and the other boats. Pickel just didn't jibe and got the slower angle," Dane added
San Diego's Mark Reynolds, the two-time Olympic gold medalist who sails this week with Swedish crew Christian Finnsgard, finished fifth Monday and retains second place overall following his day one victory. Pickel and Borkowski rise to third overall, after finishing ninth on day one, while Bermuda's Peter Bromby and crew Bill McNiven, sailing in their first regatta together in more than 20 years, move to fourth overall with finishes in fourth and seventh place on day one and day two respectively.
2005 Star World Champions Xavier Rohart and crew Pascal Rambeau of France finished third on consistent gains throughout the race and currently rank seventh overall. Defending Bacardi Cup Champions Mark Mendelblatt and crew Mark Strube finished 11th today and currently rest in 15th overall.
Bacardi Cup participants sail one race per day from Sunday through Friday on a 10.5-mile course in Biscayne Bay. The six daily races of the Cup will each proclaim a winner, with the overall top winning team demonstrating the best performance in five of these six races.
Standings of top ten (of 92 boats), after Two of Six Races Overall Skipper/Crew Day 1 Day 2 Total Points 1. John Dane/Austin Sperry MS 3 1 4.00 2. Mark Reynolds/Christian Finnsgard CA 1 5 6.00 3. Marc Pickel/Ingo Borkowski GER 8 2 10.00 4. Peter Bromby/BillMcNiven BER 4 7 11.00 5. Rick Merriman/Rick Peters CA 7 10 17.00 6. Afonso Domingos/Bernardo Santos POR 10 9 19.00 7. Xavier Rohart/Pascal Rambeau FRA 17 3 20.00 8. Karl Anderson/Magnus Liljedahl MA 9 16 25.00 9. Erik Lidecis/Michael Marzahl CA 2 24 26.00 10. Aaron Serinis/Bob Schofield MD 21 6 27.00[ For the other 82 standings click here]
TP52 Pegasus, Philipe Kahn
Photo: Sharon Green/ Rolex
Acura Miami Race Week. The 2006 Rolex TP52 Global Championship kicks off race week today (March 7). This inaugural event brings together high performance thoroughbreds from Europe, Hong Kong and across the US. Monday's practice race took place in ideal conditions. PRO Tom Duggan was all smiles as he came off the water, remarking that the fleet was ready to go on Tuesday with racing that includes a distance and coastal contest. The 'SORC Renaissance' will feature over 140 boats racing on 4 separate courses.
International Farr 40, TP52 and IRC fleets are the big boats on the ocean divisions that begin racing today (Thursday). The Melges 24, Etchells and J/24 classes begin racing on Biscayne Bay on Friday. Key West 2006 champions Mascalzone Latino (Farr 40), Stay Calm (TP52) and Aera (IRC 1) lead the line-up in their respective classes.
Vincenzo Onorato and Russell Coutts proved in Key West that they are a formidable Farr 40 team, but 18 other Farr 40s with the likes of Kostecki, Appleton, Chieffi and Harrap in the afterguard, will certainly challenge a repeat win. The World Champion combination of Terry Hutchinson and Jim Richardson makes Barking Mad one of the pre regatta favorites.
IRC 1 features a Key West rematch with Jim Swartz' Swan 601 Moneypenny against Nick Lykiardopulo's Ker 55 Area, Jim Madden's swing-keel R/P 66 Stark Raving Mad debuts this week with Dave Ullman and Robbie Haines aboard. Jim Bishop's venerable J/44 Gold Digger, Larry Bullman's newly acquired Farr 40, and 4 Swan 45s round out the big boat class.
Melges 32 and Mumm 30s complete Division 2. Mike Carroll's New Wave won the Melges 32 one design class debut in Key West and he'll be defending against a field of proven veterans like Brian and John PorterÃs Full Throttle (Lake Geneva, WI) and Joe Woods' Red (Torquay, UK). Three PHRF classes and a J/105 class comprise the third ocean division. PHRF 2's big boats to watch are Rick Wesslund's J/120 El Ocaso and Greg Manning's Beneteau 40.7 Sarah. They finished 1st and 2nd in class at Key West, with Wesslund also taking home PHRF Boat of the week honors.
The Etchells fleet boasts 28 entries - many of them looking for rematches and second chances following their recently completed Jaguar series. Local favorites Scott Piper and Buddy Cribb will be looking to repeat their Acura Miami Race Week success from 2005. They were 2nd and 3rd at last years inaugural.
March 6, Volvo Leg 4, Day 16. Jules Salter, the Pirate navigator onboard The Black Pearl (Paul Cayard), explained the intricacies of sail related performance in eeking out every last tenth of a knot of boat speed, in this drag race north.
"As these boats are so fast, the difference in being well set up with the right sail can be measured in whole knots, which can translate to miles in a 6 hour period. This is a non stop around the clock activity - as the pirates are working hard on deck trimming and tweaking theses massive sail aerofoils for each gust of wind. Below decks we are also analysing the data we record on board to deduce what set up works and what does not. We compare this with our previous performance data and relative gains and losses on the fleet to make our judgments."
These extra efforts the Pirates have been putting into sail trim and combinations has obviously paid off this afternoon, moving them up into second place passing ABN AMRO TWO (Sebastien Josse). They are currently sailing six nautical miles to the west of the Dutch yacht but have exactly the same number of miles to the leader ABN AMRO ONE (Mike Sanderson) to the north of the boats.
The yachts all tacked in the past day towards the coast but are still around 460 nautical miles offshore. The tactic was to try and dodge the area of no breeze to the east and it seems to have paid off for all involved. ABN AMRO ONE has pulled out on the following pack consisting of ABN AMRO TWO, The Black Pearl and Brasil 1 (Torben Grael) by a massive 18 nautical miles in past 24 hours. But will the complicated weather before the finish slow the leader?
Ericsson Racing Team (Neal McDonald) have fallen back by another six nautical miles today. Steve Hayles, the navigator whilst pouring over weather files, is at least seeing the funny side to this depressing situation, "Since rounding Cape Horn, the water temperature has risen from 7 C degrees to a balmy 14 and it will keep rising to an uncomfortable 25-26 C near Rio. We get very accurate information about the water temperature derived from satellite data and it's an important piece of information in the routing puzzle, with warm water producing more wind than cold and small circles of different temperature water being a sign of local ocean currents.
moviestar being lifted back into the water
Photo: Oskar Kihlborg
At 1304 GMT today movistar (Bouwe Bekking) resumed racing, after spending just over two days repairing the yacht in Ushuaia. The Volvo Open 70 left the port in much better shape but minus one crewmember. Peter Doriean is missing the end of leg four for personal reasons but will get back on the yacht in Rio for the rest of the race. The team has also lost a second member, Fred Barrett, the technical shore manager who released a statement earlier today announcing his departure from the team.
As the yacht motored out through the Beagle Channel, Bouwe sent a message back to race headquarters informing the race Jury that they wanted to withdraw the two protests they submitted against ABN AMRO TWO and Pirates of the Caribbean. Bouwe explained earlier how their last 12 hours have been pretty frantic for their team.
"movistar is back in the water after a hectic 12 hours. Hectic because the weather was awful, blowing like hell, squalls up to 45 knots, and freezing cold rain (it was snowing just above us in the mountains), so lots of delays before the final laminates could go on to finalise the repairs. We have made a "simple" repair, and this means that the keel will stay in the center for this trip. We lose some time during the trip, but gaining lots of time getting movistar back in the water, which means in the end a longer repair period in Rio. We had Javier Mendez and his team (Spanish America's cup team), plus Britty & Wado from our shore crew non stop in action for the last 55 hours. Thanks is not good enough for these guys!
Position as at 1600 GMT Day 16, Monday: ABN AMRO ONE 984 n.m distance to finish Pirates of the Caribbean +47 ABN AMRO TWO +47 Brasil 1 +66 Ericsson Racing Team +94 movistar +1189[For Volvo web site click here]
John Dane and Austin Sperry of Gulfport, MS., placed third on Sunday
Photo: Alex Gort
79th Bacardi Cup Miami, FL. Two-time Olympic Gold Medalist and seven-time Bacardi Cup Champion Mark Reynolds of San Diego, California, sailing with crew Christian Finnsgard, finished first in day one of sailing Sunday at the 79th Bacardi Cup Star Class Regatta.
More than 90 teams representing 19 countries are competing in the six-day regatta that is widely regarded as one of the best and most competitive Star Class events in the world. The duo of Reynolds and Finnsgard bested a fleet that included Peter Bromby, one of most acclaimed Bermudian sailors of all-time and a two-time Bacardi Cup champion; Erik Lidecis, a 2008 U.S. Olympic hopeful who sails out of Huntington Beach, California, and finished second Sunday with crew Michael Marzahl; and the 2005 Star World Champion and the ISAF's top-ranked Star sailor Xavier Rohart of France.
The Bacardi Cup Star Class Regatta is co-hosted by the Coral Reef Yacht Club and the U.S. Sailing Center, both based in Coconut Grove, and is sponsored by BACARDI U.S.A., Inc. All participants compete aboard 22-foot Olympic-class Star sloops, and race teams comprise two members: a skipper and crew. Bacardi Cup participants sail one race per day from Sunday through Friday on a 10.5-mile course in Biscayne Bay. The six daily races of the Cup will each proclaim a winner, with the overall top winning team demonstrating the best performance in five of these six races.
[ For Bacardi Results click here]
March 5, Volvo Leg 4, Day 15. The fleet is now hard on the wind and converging as they press on towards Rio de Janeiro and the end of leg four of the Volvo Ocean Race. Brasil 1 (Torben Grael) has now moved to the east, gaining two miles on the leader and is following Pirates of the Caribbean (Paul Cayard), which in turn has gained a mile. Ericsson Racing Team (Neal McDonald) is in the tracks of ABN AMRO TWO (Sebastien Josse) and has made the biggest gain in the fleet, decreasing their deficit by 10 miles, but is ABN AMRO ONE (Mike Sanderson) which still leads the hunt. Their speed over the last 24 hours has been a knot faster than her fellow team members on ABN AMRO TWO in second place and over two knots faster than fifth placed Ericsson Racing Team.
The winds ahead are lighter, which will slow the fleet, but once through this, the wind will move to the north east and increase and the remaining miles to Rio will click off quickly. But first the teams have to deal with the high pressure ridge ahead, the low pressure system beyond that, and the frustratingly fluky and unstable winds usually found on the approach to Rio.
The last twenty-four hours has seen stress-free sailing for the first time in many days and the few sail changes that have been made have been tackled with fresh enthusiasm. The crew onboard ABN AMRO TWO is enjoying life. "The last 24 hours have been without stress, hassle or incident, possibly for the first time this leg. Each sched [position report] has been a joy to read. The boat is going fast and the tactics are straight forward ³ quite literally in fact as we have been on the same heading for nearly the last 36 hours."
Ever since moviestar arrived at the capital of Tierra del Fuego, repairs have not stopped, but severe meteorological conditions, with rain and winds of 30 knots have made earlier estimates of finishing over optimistic. "We will return to the water later today (Sunday)." Bouwe Bekking has announced from Ushuaia. "As we suspected, the cover that covers the union with the keel was destroyed and that was the cause of the water entrance on board. When raising the boat we also found slight damage in the area of the rudder and dagger board, without a doubt caused by the loosening of the keel cover. We have made a repair that will allow us to sail to Rio de Janeiro, where will complete the repairs."
While "movistar" will be returning to the race, it will be with limitations on its speed "We will sail with the keel in the fixed position, until we can make a more thorough repair." says Bekking "Under those conditions, our speed will be very much slower." ~ Marian Martin, bym News, http://www.bymnews.com/new/content/view/25705/48/
Quotes from the boats:
"The problem is the boats are so fast they become air born much like an offshore power boat, crashing hard into the next wave. The sound down below is deafening and the motion is just outrageous. Multihulls may go faster but they are more elastic and have a bigger margin to move around. These boats are stiff and they crash into the sea like a giant fly squat, with little give in the structure. I am sure all the numbers stack up, but if the designers and structure guys had been on this boat for that period they would have been horrified." ~ Jason Carrington, Ericsson Racing Team
"Today has just been one of those days that the Volvo 70 was designed for, reaching along in breezes from 15 to 22 knots pretty much always at least matching wind speed. As I am writing this we are doing 21.7 knots at 95 true wind angle in 19.5 knots of wind. Numbers like that a couple of years ago just weren't achievable in anything other then a Multihull or a super Maxi such as Mari-Cha IV. Every now and then the rule makers stumble on a special boat, quite clearly just lots of thing's just must be in the right proportion. I for one am looking forward to many more years of racing Volvo 70's and now that the excitement level is proven and the new class is proven, I think we should be looking forward to getting twice as many boats on the start line for the next edition of the Volvo Ocean Race." ~ Mike Sanderson, ABN Amro One skipper
Position as at 1600 GMT Day 15, Sunday: ABN AMRO ONE 1277 n.m distance to finish ABN AMRO TWO +29 Pirates of the Caribbean +40 Brasil 1 +56 Ericsson Racing Team +78 movistar +1063[For Volvo web site click here]
movistar docked in Ushuaia in the dead of night. Photo: Pepe Ribes
March 4, Volvo Leg 4, Day 14. movistar fights back - this is my future, this is my career," said skipper Bouwe Bekking today as movistar docks in the dead of night. The team on Spanish yacht movistar is fighting back. They will not give up this, the race for which they have been preparing for a long time. Movistar is a highly competitive boat and Bekking says they can still make an overall podium finish. "There is an outside chance of second place and we believe we can definitely make third. This is what we are focussing on," he said.
After being escorted into Ushuaia by both the Chilean and Argentine Navies, from the sea and from the air, the professional attitude of the team shone through, when they stepped ashore and the atmosphere was one of sheer determination. No one on this boat is ready to give up. The interior of the boat was clean and the crew had managed to have some rest.
movistar's shore crew was waiting in Ushuaia and has been beefed up by boat builders from the Spanish America's Cup team. All are anxious to repair movistar as quickly as possible and get her back into the race to Rio. The boat was hauled out of the water two hours after arriving in order for the team to start work immediately.
James Dadd, chief measurer for the Volvo Open 70 class, has made some observations about the design rule of the boat. "Whilst the situation was very serious, the boat was not actually in danger of physically sinking," he explains. "Once the water-tight doors on each water-tight bulkhead inside the boat have been closed, it is actually possible to completely fill the central compartment [living area] and retain a minimum freeboard of half a metre. The minimum panel weight of the bulkheads is also calculated to ensure that the free surface effect of such flooding does not compromise the structural integrity of the yacht."
Meanwhile racing towards Rio de Janeiro, the two Dutch yachts lead the fleet in first and second place. They have more wind than the rest of the fleet and everyone else is losing out. ABN AMRO ONE (Mike Sanderson)is now 168 nm east of The Falkland Islands, 550nm from Argentinean coast and ABN AMRO TWO (Sebastien Josse) is nipping at her heels, 19 nautical miles behind. The team is sailing faster and has cut the lead of their elder brethren by five miles in the last six hours, averaging the highest speed over 24 hours in the fleet.
The focus is now on the last 1600 miles to the finish and, as the teams concentrate on squeezing every ounce of speed out of their boats, the short term memory of their torrid rounding of the infamous Cape Horn is beginning to fade. But long term, this was an experience that all the crews will remember for the rest of their lives.
"As ever, I am relieved that I got through another amazing southern ocean trip in one piece, but I am also somewhat sad. Every time I get to this part of a round the world trip, I look over my shoulder at Cape Horn and just wonder: will I be coming down here again? If not, thank you Southern Ocean, for letting me cross you safely, and thank you for those unforgettable experiences," Neal McDonald - skipper Ericsson Racing Team.
Position as at 1600 GMT Day 14, Saturday: ABN AMRO ONE 1636 n.m distance to finish ABN AMRO TWO +19 Pirates of the Caribbean +41 Brasil 1 +51 Ericsson Racing Team +56 movistar +704[For Volvo web site click here]
Brasil 1 rounds Cape Horn Day 12. Photo: Brazil 1
Volvo Leg 4, Day 13. The drama has carried on through the past 24 hours. Movistar (Bouwe Bekking) has managed to limp through the scoring gate at Cape Horn as the other yachts make their way north again. After the windy rounding, the teams were becalmed in huge seaway as they battled up past Staten Island. They are currently sailing in around 16 knots of wind towards The Falkland Islands, setting up to leave them to their port side on the way to Rio de Janeiro.
After a day none of the movistar crew will forget, life is becoming more stable again. The yacht suspended racing at 1338 GMT today and has begun motoring into the Canal Beagle on the way to Ushuaia to the west. They have 52 nautical miles to go at their current speed of 8 knots making the ETA 2230 GMT tonight but the area has been battered in very windy conditions which may slow their progress.
Bouwe reported earlier on how the clean up operation was going, "It is amazing it was such a big mess and cleaning up still goes on. We winds ranging from 40-50 knots all day, luckily from behind, but some monster waves have built up, and because we are only doing 10 knots, they very often they break over the boat.
"We have got the generator running again, (which was totally submerged) but we are having problems with charging since the alternators were totally submerged as well. Chris (Nicholson) has been trying to inject them with oil to get the water out of them, but he is still not happy with the results he is getting. The first time we fired (connected) them in a couple of seconds the boat was filled with smoke, but this got better and better. We have had some small electrical fires onboard, all little things, mainly motors of small bilge pumps which have given up. But it is, in my opinion, amazing that the electronics have survived so well.
"We haven't been able to get the water maker going either, so we are using our emergency water (50 litres) for the time being. When the conditions are more quiet, Chris is going to take it apart, and if we have no luck, then the last option is to install the complete spare unit, which we always bring with us."
As the fleet moved up north, past the Staten Island to the east of Argentina, everyone but Brasil 1 (Torben Grael) left the island to the port of them. Brasil 1, which was in third place at the time, opted to dodge in between Argentina and Staten Island, going through the Le Maire Strait. This plan had paid off by 1000 GMT today, moving them up in to second becoming the most northerly of all the fleet, but unfortunately for them the past six hours have not been so kind and the Pirates (Paul Cayard) passed them again at 1300 GMT. They are currently only 22 nautical miles to the south west of The Black Pearl.
The Brazilians are undoubtedly very happy today as they head home in a good position, but they do have a little problem onboard which Horacio Carabelli explained yesterday, "We have been dealing with a leakage of the starboard ram during the last days; today we decided to get into the emergency oil to fit our hydraulic system. Our plan is to manage until Rio without having to change the ram for the spare one we carry. To do this we need better conditions needing to bring the keel to the centre. The weather indicates that light wind is expected after a few days from rounding Cape Horn and all going well we can do the job at this point. This has not compromised our performance and safety as the leakage is under control and we just need to re-pump our keel every 4 hours to recover a drop of one degree."
Ericsson Racing Team (Neal McDonald) has been hot on the tails of the young guns on ABN AMRO TWO (Sebastien Josse) in fourth and have been catching up fast. They have reduced the boys lead on them by 49 nautical miles in the past 48 hours and both boats have concertinaed up behind the top three teams. Steve Hayles describes the crew's big day at the office, beginning at first light yesterday as they approached Cape Horn and hoisted their big spinnaker.
"We took off down the first wave with such pace that you would swear blind that we were being propelled by something infinitely more powerful than the wind. Tim Powell was driving and in these conditions he is hard to beat; I have sailed around the world with him three times already and shared some very hairy moments. Nothing normally fazes him, but a look at his face made it clear that this was no walk in the park.
"We pushed hard; slowly you get more at ease with the situation as you find the edge of control and you start to enjoy the ride of your life. It's an amazing sight looking upwind at the shear size of the waves behind you and the wake of the boat that seems to go all the way to the horizon. One moment you can see nothing but sky behind the helmsman and the next there is a wave at five times his height building behind you. The boat picks up her heels and takes off like a thing possessed. The dodgy bit is when you get to the bottom of the wave; every tenth wave or so you bury the bow in hard and a huge solid wall of water rips along the boat at 35 knots; it hits you hard enough to take your breath away just whilst you need to be trimming or grinding.
"Finally, about 120 miles short of the Horn itself the sea state was so unfriendly that Neal called it a day; and it turned out to be a very good decision. As we closed on the Horn, the breeze built beyond the forecast and soon we were sailing in monumental waves and with the wind speed climbing towards 50 knots, any fun was over. Down below you get used to being thrown around, but this was bloody ridiculous. You could barely move around without being violently upended and dumped in the leeward bilge!
"Then it went very light for a while nearer the land and our offshore course, although giving us an uncomfortable and stressful few hours, was also going to allow us to stay in the breeze longer. "Just as we started enjoying the flat water, another minor drama reared its head. The motion had been so violent that one side of the battery bank had broken free. The cells are housed in a watertight compartment made of Kevlar but, unknown to us, the terminals on the battery were now shorting on some carbon structure inside the box and were starting a resin fire.
"Jason, Bagi (Magus Woxen) and I set about opening the battery compartment which was so well sealed that it took 20 minutes to prize it apart. We were getting electrical shocks from everything and there were was now acrid smoke being produced. We got inside and found the problem quickly; 140 kilos of batteries had broken free and were now lying with their terminals on the carbon structure. There were more smoke and flames were starting to show. We quickly levered the whole bank away from the carbon and the immediate problem was solved.
"Slowly and surely we stripped down the battery bank and lashed each cell in place before wiring it all back up. It was inconvenient for everyone else and a problem for our performance, as everything had to be shut down including our compasses and instrumentation. Finally we got everything back together and slowly starting getting all the systems running; everything seems fine and we are now back on track.
"Its been an epic 48 hours that will linger long in the memory; for now though it's back to business as normal as we set about getting into the boats ahead. I look forward to some conditions that suit Ericsson a little more and being able to shout from the hatch that 'we're on fire' and not mean it literally!"
Position as at 1600 GMT Day 13, Friday: ABN AMRO ONE 1942 n.m distance to finish Pirates of the Caribbean +17 Brasil 1 +34 ABN AMRO TWO +48 Ericsson Racing Team +67 movistar +284 Cape Horn rounding times and points (Thursday): 1. ABN Amro One (Mike Sanderson) 1238 GMT 3.5 pts 2. Pirates of the Caribbean (Paul Cayard) 1440 GMT 3.0 pts 3. Brasil 1 (Torben Grael) 1810 GMT 2.5 pts 4. ABN Amro Two (Sebastien Josse) 2125 GMT 2.0 pts 5. Ericsson Racing Team (Neal McDonald) 2158 GMT 1.5 pts[For Volvo web site click here]
AMRO ONE Crewman bailing gets knocked over by the waves. Photo: AMBRO ONE
March 2, Volvo Leg 4, Day 12, Movistar takes on water. At 0315 GMT today, Bouwe Bekking reported that movistar was taking on water at a high rate and requested that the boats nearest to movistar, Brasil 1 (Torben Grael) and Ericsson Racing Team (Neal McDonald) should standby to offer immediate assistance. They were sailing in 30 - 35 knots of breeze with a jib top, small staysail and one reef in the mainsail, 242 nautical miles from the scoring gate at Cape Horn.
"We are sinking. Everybody up," commanded Bekking as the water poured into the boat around the keel box. "Slow the boat down, the water is coming in very fast, and close the water tight hatches," was the command.
The water was coming in from around the top of the keel box. Within minutes the sailors were knee deep in water. The water tight hatches were closed immediately and safety gear and grab bags moved onto deck. The sail area was reduced to only the stay sail and the yacht slowed down, as the crew frantically pumped.
Bouwe Bekking's report leaves nothing to the imagination: "A sailor's nightmare is sinking, and this looked like a pretty serious situation. If we had rats onboard they would have jumped off by now. "We mobilised some people on deck to drop all the sails, and when I went downstairs again, I got a real shock. The generator box was already completely underwater, and the water had spread now through the entire mid compartment, and was close to washing over the main engine box as well. And what a mess inside, sails, sleeping bags, food bags, you can't name it, were floating around. In the mean time Spike (Peter Doriean) had collected all the safety gear and put it on deck, just to be sure.
"Capey (Andrew Cape) had already informed race-headquarters. After seeing the amount of water, I decided to ask headquarters if other boats could assist. Water and electricity don't like each other too much, so the circuit breakers were popping off all the time.
"With the personal torches on it looked like a scene that Hitchcock could only dream of. Now Chris (Nicholson) was diving underwater to connect the two emergency high capacity bilge pumps directly to the batteries, as that was the only way of assuring power and running of the pumps. What else do you do? Bail of course, like mad, but I felt it was like watching television where somebody is using one small water hose to protect his house against a raging bushfire. Even though we knew we were on the losing hand, strangely enough you don't give up.
"Then the shout, PUMPS ARE RUNNING. Now we maybe have a chance to beat the incoming flow rate, and get the level down. "To all our big relief, this was the case. Slowly but surely, the levels went down and we got the situation under control. We have made an emergency fix on the leaking box, and the incoming flow is minimal. I'm proud of the boys, they did well, not just in this emergency situation, but also in the way that they have sailed movistar so magnificently up to that moment. We are now heading for Ushuaia (Argentina) to look at damage."
Bekking said in a radio interview this morning that the team is planning to make a stop in Ushuaia where they will have to make a huge reinforcement to the keel box and then carry on from there to Rio de Janeiro. Elsewhere in the fleet, ABN AMRO ONE (Mike Sanderson) leads the chase towards Cape Horn, 62 nautical miles ahead. Pirates of the Caribbean (Paul Cayard) is in second place, 28 miles behind Sanderson, followed by Brasil 1 (Torben Grael), ABN AMRO TWO (Sebastien Josse) and, bringing up the rear, Ericsson Racing Team (Neal McDonald).
Position as at 1600 GMT Day 12, Thursday: ABN AMRO ONE 2330 n.m distance to finish Pirates of the Caribbean +28 Brasil 1 +105 movistar +120 ABN AMRO TWO +178 Ericsson Racing Team +192[For Volvo web site click here]
Waves crash across the decks of movistar Leg 4
Photo: Pepe Ribes
March 1, Volvo Leg 4, Day 11. As the yachts in the Volvo Ocean Race pass below the 500 mile mark to the scoring gate at Cape Horn, the sailors carry on sending in honest accounts of what life really is like at the extreme.
Ericsson Racing Team (Neal McDonald) has had another bad day, falling into last position, as the young guns on ABN AMRO TWO (Sebastien Josse) passed them at 1000 GMT today. In the past six hours the Dutch boat has managed to extend it's lead by three miles undoubtedly forcing the Ericsson Racing Team further into depression. Steve Hayles, the team's navigator, described the mental struggle bad position reports can have on a sailor in his latest log.
"Every six hours, for what seems like forever, I have waited in anticipation for the position results, only to see that we have lost yet more miles. There are lots of columns of information that come in the 'sched', but the gains and losses column is the one you look to first.
"A simple number like -6 can quite literally affect how you feel physically; after a bad sched (something we have had too many of recently). You stare at the screen in disbelief as you feel your shoulders tension up but after a few minutes you realise that there's no asking for a recount or having a second try; that six hours are over and you lost 6 miles; end of story.
Skipper Neal McDonald added this in a radio interview today, "We're hating it. We are not really completely sure why, but we do seem to be losing out on any of the high speed stuff. We don't know whether we have a problem under the boat - we don't think so. But certainly, the last four or five days it has just been a slow, gradual process of being beaten up by everyone around us. We are not very happy with that and ABN AMRO TWO has overtaken us as well and that was the last straw. We're not very happy at the moment."
On the other hand the ABN AMRO TWO crew is very happy, finally making up ground on the fleet and putting their gear failures behind them. Simon Fisher described the environment surrounding them as they make their move slowly to the south of all the other teams. Are the young guns trying something different to get back into front pack again?
The leading pack formation has become very clear in the past few days. Brasil 1 (Torben Grael) is the most northerly of the pack and ABN AMRO ONE (Mike Sanderson) is the most southerly, with Pirates (Paul Cayard) and movistar (Bouwe Bekking) dog fighting in the middle. In the past six hours the two sandwiched yachts have swapped positions back and forth but currently The Black Pearl is only 2.7 nautical miles directly to the north of Bouwe Bekking and his team. The north south divide of the leading pack is only a mere 63 nautical miles.
Position as at 1600 GMT Day 11, Wednesday: ABN AMRO ONE 2720 n.m distance to finish Pirates of the Caribbean +41 movistar +41 Brasil 1 +98 ABN AMRO TWO +166 Ericsson Racing Team +169[For Volvo web site click here]