April 28, 2004

Photo of the Day

April 28 – San Francisco Bay

When most one designs fade from prominence,
they eventually end up racing in HDA classes, or not at all.
The Islander 36, once the ‘big boat’ ODCA class on the Bay, not
only never lost its one design status, they may actually put
more boats on the starting line this summer than they ever did
in their heyday! Read the secrets to the class revival in the
new issue of Latitude
38 coming out Friday.

The Islander 36 fleet has a full plate of racing and cruising.
These 31 folks posing on Ophira took part in the Benicia
Cruise 2002.
Photo Courtesy Barb Henderson

Profligate’s Regress

April 27 – Antigua

Our winter season is over in the Caribbean.
It’s time to dash to Panama in order to make it up the Pacific
Coast to California before the start of hurricane season on June
1. We have a crew of 11 aboard the 63-ft cat, and hope to make
the San Blas Islands, about 1,200 miles, in just under six days.
It all, however, depends on the winds. This late in the year,
they generally aren’t as strong, but we’ll almost certainly have
the swells and current with us on what almost always is a downwind
sail.

Thanks to a new Skymate system, we hope
to sail in touch by email, and thanks to a Nobeltec navigation
system, we hope to be able to tell you where we are.

Morning Glory chases Pyewacket in the first race
of Antigua Sailing Week. You have to see these boats outperform
‘normal’ yachts to believe it. This is what they ought to be
racing in the America’s Cup, as they offer spectacular performance
and are extremely nimble.

For the last two days, we’ve been watching
the action at Antigua Sailing Week, which is featuring three
of the hottest boats in sailing. Two of them are the new MaxZ86s,
Roy Disney’s Pyewacket and Hasso Plattner’s Morning
Glory. What a spectacular sight to see these canting keel,
canard rudder boats go at it. They point so high and run so fast,
it’s just dazzling! For full-on racers, it seems you’d have to
have the canting keel, canard rudder technology to keep the pace.

To date, Morning Glory has been showing her stern to Pyewacket
more than vice versa, but it’s always been close.

Making things very interesting, however,
on a boat-for-boat basis is Mari-Cha IV, Robert Miller’s
Briand 144 modern schooner, which smashed the transatlantic record
the right out of the box. She was able to get the better of the
86s in the first race, which was a destination course with lots
of off-the-wind stuff. She’s a bit of an odd looking boat, but
the monster can move. She wasn’t made to point, however, so in
the last two Olympic style courses, she was beaten boat for boat
by the two 86s.

The middle part of the 140-ft schooner Mari-Cha IV.

The business end of Mari-Cha, flying to weather. We’ll
have more photos of her on Friday.

Morning Glory and
Pyewacket, which are nearly identical, have been having
great boat for boat races, with Morning Glory having a
slight edge. Also showing well again here in the Caribbean has
been Roger Sturgeon’s Santa Cruz-based TransPac 52 Rosebud.

A still photo of the MaxZ 86s makes them look just like two other
giant yachts, but they’re not.

We did the first race aboard Mike Slade’s
R/P Leopard of London, which despite a full-on interior,
was, up until a short time ago, one of the fastest boats in the
world. She’s still darn fast, but can’t compete with the stripped
out boats with the canting keel, canard rudder technology. She’s
the largest boat we’ve ever raced on, and boy does it take muscle
to make her go. Think of four sails laid out inside the boat
from the companionway hatch to the bow. Each one takes about
10 guys to move. They need the bottom one on deck ready to set,
then five minutes later they need it stowed down below. And what
a sweet-sailing yacht, particularly to weather. We were tacking
in just over 80 degrees, something we cat sailors can only dream
about. Owner Mike Slade is as personal and relaxed an owner as
you’re going to find, and Chris the captain’s responsibilities
are incredible. It was a great day of sailing.

Mike Slade, at the wheel of Leopard of London. Chris the
captain is just to the left of him.

Leopard of London charging alone on the second day in
about 18 knots of wind. She looks lovely.

We’re off to the San Blas Islands to see
those little Kuna Indian rascals again, and do the canal. We’ll
try to let you know our transit time so you can watch over the
Internet.

More Antigua Sailing Week photos:

You’d hardly think that an Olson 30 would be a good boat for
all the upwind stuff in the Caribbean, but Jamie Dobbs has made
his a consistent winner for years.

We were most impressed by the consistent spacing of the rail
meat on Paradis, one of the many yachts that is as lovely
as she is big.

Smaller boats race at Antigua, too, and the action is just as
tight and exciting.

Tom Hill’s Titan, a R/P 75 – like Disney’s old Pyewacket
– has been sailed extremely hard and well.

Approaching the weather mark.
Photos Latitude/Richard

April 28 – Caribbean Sea

Update dispatched from Profligate at
12:30 pm PDT: First 24 hours out of Antigua for crew of 11: hot
and breezy with what the French call ‘agitated seas’. First 24
hours run was 240 miles under reefed main and tiny jib. Today
hit 21.9 with reefed main and tiny jib during squall. It was
a little much, so we’ve backed off. Did we mention it was steamy
hot?

This message sent courtesy of Skymate, which provides no waiting offshore email, weather, as well as fax/voice, without the need for an SSB radio.

Chaos Reigns at Star Worlds on Day 3

April 28 – Gaeta, Italy

So report Magnus Wheatley and Sacha Oswald
for Yachts and Yachting:

The problems all started Monday morning
at the weigh-in of American crew George Szabo (of San Diego) and Christian Finnsgard who were
informed that they were a full one pound over the permitted limit.
Cue a frantic cycle around town to shed the excess weight, after
which the boys jumped back on the scales only to find that they
were still over the limit. The Italian crew of class chairman
Riccardo Simoneschi and Marco Marenco were also found to be over
the limit alongside two other competitors.

The event staff informed Szabo and the
others verbally that they were not allowed to race and that they
should stay on shore. Szabo checked the sailing instructions
and found that there was no provision for re-weighing during
the event despite the notice of race stating in article 8.2 that
there was (the two documents governing the event were at odds
with each other).

Szabo and Simoneschi protested, claiming
redress for the situation on the grounds that they were told
that they were not allowed to race despite no official protest
by the race committee. The jury upheld the protest and then made
the astounding decision that race two was to be re-sailed on
Tuesday with a premise that “no boat will be scored worse
for race two than the score they achieved from the race sailed
on Monday.”

These championships are, for some, the
final qualifying event for the Olympic Games, and a series of
counter protest threats emerged, forcing the committee into a
lengthy jury session to decide how to dig themselves out of the
situation fairly. As the day rolled into afternoon the postponement
flag still flew from the Base Nautico until a decision was made at 2:30pm to can the day
as the crews scattered around the town, confused, ill-informed and frustrated.

The committee reopened the redress hearing,
the result of which was that race two would not be re-sailed. The overweight crews would receive
average points over the series for that race. The committee admitted
their anomaly between the SI’s and the notice of race, also admitting
that they were wrong to verbally tell the crews to stay shoreside
without formally protesting. The class agreed to a procedure
with the race committee for weighing during the remainder of
the event. Wednesday’s planned lay day was scrapped in favor
of running race three, however the wind had other ideas and today’s
sailing was canceled due to lack of breeze.

For the complete report and photos, see
www.yachtsandyachting.com/default2.asp?section=11&article=12740.

Other Americans in the event are not faring
well either. With a DNF due to massive rig failure and an OCS,
U.S. champions Paul Cayard (of Kentfield) and Phil Trinter are
in 52nd place after two races. Mark Reynolds (of San Diego) and
Steve Erickson, also suffering an OCS, are in 64th in the 102-boat
regatta. See www.starclass.org
for complete results.

Royal Match

April 26 – Copenhagen, Denmark

Rob Kothe reports:

On May 9 an international match race in Copenhagen Harbour between
Denmark and Australia will feature HRH Crown Prince Frederik
and the Crown Princess-to-be, Australia’s Miss Mary Donaldson,
battling each other with the assistance of two sailing icons
from their respective countries.

Australian John Bertrand will champion
the cause for the Tasmanian-born bride-to-be. Famous for his
come-from-behind victory with Australia II in 1983 when
he beat Dennis Connor to take the America’s Cup from the New
York Yacht Club, Bertrand is currently in quest of another World
Championship in the hotly contested Etchells class to be held
in Mooloolaba this July. [For an exciting description of Bertrand’s
closely sailed battle for New Zealand’s Etchells title, see Kothe’s
complete article on www.sail-world.com.]

Crown Prince Frederik is a top world ranked
Dragon sailor, but has called in a top gun in his match race
against his bride-to-be. The Danish boat will be skippered by
Jesper Bank, 47, Denmark’s triple Olympic medallist, who won
a Soling Class fleet and match racing Olympic bronze medal in
1988, a gold in Barcelona in 1992 and another gold at Sydney
in 2000. Bank was also helmsman aboard the Swedish Victory Challenge
in the last Louis Vuitton Cup.

Asked what position non-sailor Mary Donaldson
would take on the Australian boat, Bertrand replied, “Most
of our crew will be Danish. I’m hoping the famous Danish sailor,
Paul Elvstrom, a 76-year-old quadruple gold medallist, will honor
us with his presence. Mary will be our interpreter, from Australian
into Danish, and vice versa.”

Perhaps Bertrand, the patron of Skandia
Geelong Week, the largest keelboat regatta in Australia, would
like to see an Australia-Denmark return match in Geelong in January
2005. Maybe we are going to see the birth of a new world sailing
series?

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April 28 – Newport Beach

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