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The Scratch Boat

All 100 feet of the carbon fiber, Nomex and tungsten that make up Neville Crichton’s Alfa Romeo came out of their cradle at Knight & Carver last week to meet up with their new rig.

latitude/Richard
©2009 Latitude 38 Media, LLC

With a little over 20 days to go until the start of the 2009 Transpac, boats all over the West Coast are in the midst of their final preparations for the 45th running of this offshore classic. For some, those will include the Encinal YC’s Coastal Cup which starts on June 17 and 18. For others — like Neville Crichton’s R/P 100 Alfa Romeo — they include substantial modifications, like a new rig. The Wanderer was down in San Diego last week and caught a glimpse of the elapsed-time favorite taking delivery of her brand-new Southern Spars-built rig. At 145-ft tall, the new stick will super-charge the already speedy boat, and features the builders’ EC6+ continuous carbon fiber standing rigging.

Alfa’s new Southern Spars rig is glossy for about the first 20 of its 145 feet. Beyond that, it’s flat black.

latitude/Richard
©2009 Latitude 38 Media, LLC

The rigging starts at the deck as one bundle of fibers that includes all of the fibers for both the cap shroud and diagonals, with the latter splitting off as needed. Interestingly, the majority of the tube and spreaders of the New Zealand-built rig — above about the first 20 or so feet — are a matte-black finish, while it’s glossy below. We called Southern Spars to find out why, thinking there may be some speed advantage, that maybe the matte finish was lighter than clear coat.

"It’s basically the owner’s preference," said Southern’s Tony Reaper. "Most of the racing rigs that come out of New Zealand tend to come out that way. There’s no speed or weight advantage."

While the boat was shipped to Knight & Carver’s facility in South San Diego Bay, the rig arrived in San Francisco, and had to be trucked down to meet the boat. Good thing I-5 is pretty darn straight. As promised in this month’s Latitude 38, we’ll go a-hunting with the Latitude ‘Jinx’ — making predictions on who will take their divisions — when the division assignments are released later this week, as we’ve been advised. On Wednesday, we’ll wrap-up the weekend’s racing action with what sounded like a great Ditch Run, a trip to Drake’s Bay and some awesome match racing on the Cityfront.

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The Coast Guard is asking for the public’s help in the search for two Northern California sailors who set off from Catalina Island on Friday bound for Santa Cruz.
Another way to celebrate World Oceans Day today is to go sailing! latitude/LaDonna
©2009 Latitude 38 Media, LLC No, this is not just another lame Hallmark Holiday.