'Lectronic Index

Previous 'Lectronic Edition

Orange Sets New 24-Hour Record, Ahead of PlayStation's Pace

August 23 - Atlantic Ocean

Say this for Frenchman Bruno Peyron and his maxi cat Orange: when he decided to go after a sailing record, he took aim at perhaps the hardest to beat - Steve Fossett's 4 day, 17-hour transatlantic record with the Morrelli & Melvin-designed PlayStation. So far Orange is doing spectacularly, having sailed halfway across the Atlantic Ocean in just over 53 hours! In addition, yesterday she set a new 24-hour sailing record of 703 miles! That's an average speed of 29.29 knots. An average speed! With her speedo rarely falling below 30 knots, she could extend that record today.

Orange

Breaking the 24-hour record has to be particularly sweet for Peyron, as it was previously held by the maxi cat Maiden 2, owned by his bitter Brit rival, the financially embattled Tracy Edwards. (Brian Thompson, who used to kick around Sausalito while crew aboard Fossett's trimaran Lakota, skippered Maiden 2; Edwards wasn't aboard).

Is it possible Fossett's spectacular record could be broken so quickly?

The above graphic shows that Orange is slightly larger than the first generation of maxi cats.

"I Like the Way the Breeze Feels Between My Legs"

August 20 - Newport Beach

"It's my understanding that a couple of people complained about 'Ms. C's outfit as seen in a recent 'Lectronic. The outfit where she's wearing a Coast Guard floatcoat on top and a 'transparent Panamanian thong', i.e. nothing, on the bottom," writes Brady Mullin of Newport Beach. "Well, I just want to express my solidarity with her sense of style. I just love the look of a bulky top and sheer bottom. Plus, it feels so good when the breeze blows between my legs."

Little Brady

IKC Championships

August 23 - San Francisco Bay

Chris Perkins, who has been on fire all year, just added another big win to his already impressive 2004 resume, winning the St. Francis YC-hosted 36th International Knarr Championship by six points over his little brother Jon. Twenty-five boats (12 American, 7 Danish, 6 Norwegian) competed in the 10-race, 2-throwout series, which is as much a social event as a regatta. Not that the racing isn't intense - the fleet is getting younger and more amped up, and people who sail in all three fleets claim that the level of Knarr racing is "better than J/105s, though not quite as good as Farr 40s."

Jon Perkins - sailing once again with his 2002 winning IKC team of Melissa and Tom Purdy and Jeff Mosely - came out of the blocks with a 1,2,2,1 in the first two days and looked like the man to beat. But Chris - with brother Phil, boat partner Hans Baldauf, and Cam Gear - got better as the series went on, putting the IKCs away with a 3,2,3 record in the last three races. It was Chris' second IKC win (he previously won in '92 with John Kostecki helping on tactics).

(l-r) Chris and Phil Perkins, Cam Gear, Hans Baldauf

The traditional dunking of the winners
Photos Latitude/Rob

Rounding out the top ten were Soren Pehrsson (DEN), six-time IKC winner Fran Berg (DEN), Chip Nilsen, Sean Svendsen, Terry Anderlini, John Jenkins, Kim Bruhn-Peterson (DEN), and Larry Drew. See www.stfyc.org for full results.

Olympic Sailing Update

August 23 - Athens, Greece

The 470 men's team of Paul Foerster (Rockwall, TX) and Kevin Burnham (Miami, FL) won a gold medal Saturday, adding to the USA's current harvest of medals at the Games of the XXVIII Olympiad. It came down to one race, one chance for Foerster and Burnham to secure their fleet lead from Friday, and only one other country - Great Britain - that could mathematically push them back to a silver-medal position. That last fact became fiction, however, more than two minutes before the start, when the British team's positioning went horribly wrong and the Americans trapped them.

Star sailors Paul Cayard of Kentfield and Phil Trinter (Lorain, OH/Port Washington, NY) climbed back to fourth overall today, after having fallen to seventh yesterday. It took one race and a third-place finish to do it. (Due to a dying breeze, a second race was postponed until tomorrow.)

In the Tornado class, John Lovell (New Orleans, LA) and Charlie Ogletree (Houston, TX/Columbia, NC) held on to their top spot on the scoreboard after turning in two ninth-place finishes, one of which they count as a throwout.

For full results, see www.sailing.org/olympics2004.