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“We thought we were going to sink,”
Hill said. “The regatta’s over for us.” Well, not exactly.
In what Titan XI helmsman Mark Ploch called “a very
gracious offer,” Murray put his boat, which suffered what
was described as “superficial damage,” at the disposal
of Hill and his crew for the last two days of the regatta. Madden
Randle, Decision’s navigator and boat captain, said, “We
owed them the gesture. We probably made a mistake – well, we
most certainly made a mistake in trying to duck them. We probably
waited too long and were going too fast – 10-plus knots by the
time we collided.”
It wasn’t immediately clear how Decision
would be scored with the Titan XI crew now in charge,
but nobody seemed concerned, and hard feelings were minimal.
Hill, the owner of Titan XI, said, “I’ve run into
boats myself, but it’s really disappointing. It was a scary moment.
The three of us in the back of the boat were ready to bail out.”
Mark Ploch of Titan XI said, “I was at the helm.
At a certain point it was, ‘They’re gonna hit us, and it’s gonna
hurt.’ ” Decision’s bow remained jammed in Titan
XI’s hull for more than a minute. The crippled boat, still
heeling sharply to port, was taking on water at an alarming rate.
“His bow was pushing us sideways,” Hill said. “We
thought we were going to sink.” Randle took action on Decision.
“I felt we were pushing the other boat under,” he said.
“I started the engine, grabbed the helm and backed the boat
away.”
Randle said the crash was the result of
misjudgment by the unidentified helmsman – not Murray – and not
because the crew failed to ease the main sheet, as Titan XI
crew members at first suspected. “The main was flagging
when we hit them,” Randle said.
Wednesday’s breeze was up to 18 knots,
strongest of the week. The F-28R trimarans loved every minute
of it. Although one of the class leaders, Doug Harkrider of Flowery
Beach, GA, had to drop out of the second race when the headboard
on his mainsail broke, he said with delight, “The conditions
were perfect for multihulls. We can even use a little more [wind].
We don’t start reefing until 25 knots.” Randy Smyth, America’s
No. 1 multihull sailor, certainly had no complaints, either.
He won both of Wednesday’s races to stretch his overall lead
to four points with three races remaining.
A greater surprise was Flavio Favini’s
sweep of all three races against the rest of the best Melges
24 sailors in the 2001 World Championships. Favini, the IMS 50
world champion sailing for Switzerland, has won four in a row
reaching back to Tuesday. With throwouts considered, Favini leads
defending Key West champion Harry Melges of Lake Geneva, WI,
15 points to 24, with four races remaining.
In the marquee class featuring celebrity
tacticians, Atalanti XI, the double defending champion
with Robbie Haines brainstorming behind owner/driver George Andreadis
of Greece, slipped quietly into first place – although it still
hasn’t finished better than third (3-7-4-4-3). Wednesday’s winners
were John Thomson’s Solution and Jim Richardson’s Barking
Mad, but consistency is what counts there.
Consistently winning is even better. In
the 1D35s, Chris and Kara Busch’s Wild Thing from San
Diego (1-2-1-1-1) now has an eight-point lead.
After three of five days, the only unbeaten
boat left of the 324 entries from 33 states and 14 countries
is Kerry Klingler’s defending J/80 champion from Larchmont, NY,
known only by its sail number, 395.
In IMS, Isam Kabbani’s C/M 60, Rima,
and George David’s Nelson/Marek 49, Idler, remained tied
for first place after swapping firsts and seconds – ditto Bill
Alcott’s Santa Cruz 70, Equation, and George Collins’
Farr 52, Chessie Racing, in PHRF-1, as Titan XI
and Decision went by the boards.
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