A CLASS ACTThe J/24 Silver Anniversary Regatta was billed as celebration of a one-design class, a class that breeds camaraderie and many of the world’s best racing sailors. The tradition continued last week with nearly 500 sailors on 84 boats enjoying four days of excellent racing on Rhode Island Sound and Narragansett Bay.After seven races, including an 18-mile distance race around Conanicut Island, regatta organizer Brad Read won by 36 points. In doing so, Read, who was skippering US Watercraft, furthered his reputation of hosting and winning J/24 regattas on his home waters. During the event’s opening ceremony, Read’s elder brother Ken, himself a six-time J/24 world champion, welcomed competitors to the “Brad Read Kicks-Your-Ass-Regatta.” This, of course, was after Read lost to his younger brother in that day’s Legends Regatta, which featured intense short-course racing between two decades worth of notable J/24 class champions.His winning margin may indicate otherwise, but Read’s victory wasn’t exactly a stroll on the Sound. The 52-boat Silver Fleet ran deep with North American and international talent and with the exception of the first day (a windy one-race affair) winds averaged 10 knots. This, coupled with relatively short courses, kept the fleet compressed, and as one would expect, a clean start allowed a quick exit to either side of the racecourse. Thomas Barbeau, a 26-year-old Shark Catamaran sailor from Quebec, won the opening race by playing the left side, but Read was close on his heels. On the second day, Read sauntered into the lead with a 13-1-1. A fifth in the following day’s distance race kept team US Watercraft (Read, Tim Healy, Gordon Borges, Dave Crocker, Nick Judson) on top, but another local, and sentimental favorite, the Milnes family, of Middletown, R.I., led by skipper Scott Milnes, on Sugar Plum were only 2 points out of first.With the pressure squarely on Milnes’ shoulders, the local sail-off commenced on Saturday morning with a light southerly, sunny skies, and two races on tap, but it was over before it even started. Sugar Plum found itself in the middle of a committee-boat pile up and shortly thereafter was spinning penalty turns. A tack to the “wrong” side of the course put them 40th, back with the trailing Anniversary fleet, while Read went on to finish second and lock his win. Saving a bit of face, however, Sugar Plum won the regatta’s final race.Chris and Vicki Field, of Noank, Conn., sailing Maybe, won the 19-boat Regatta Fleet, consisting of teams opting not to weigh in (and sail with as many friends as they wanted), winning a close series over Bob Kraemer’s crew on Xingu, from Athol, Mass. Two boats contended the Anniversary Fleet (non-spinnaker), and Robert Iriye’s Tenacious, from Middletown, R.I., won the tiebreaker.For complete results and photos: http://www.j24silver.orgYOUTH WORLDSPaige Railey, of Clearwater, Fla. is poised to improve on the bronze medal she earned last year at the ISAF Youth World Championships. Railey is currently sixth in the Girls Laser Fleet, but that is mainly because of an untimely OCS in Race 3. Assuming one throwout, Railey is in a tie for second, though the top of the fleet is very tightly bunched. This year’s worlds are being sailed out of Madeira, Portugal, an island off the coast of Morocco. The U.S. Boys 420 team of Zach Brown and Graham Biehl have also struggled with OCS, as they have two in five races to go along with a second, a 14th, and two fifths. They currently sit 16th.In the Laser fleet, the top American is Chris Branning, of Sarasota, Fla. who’s in a three-way tie for 14th. Alex Steele of Canada is leading the fleet with three fifths and a 16th. Consistency has been tough for every competitor in this 33-boat class.Caroline Young and Shannon Heauster are eighth in the Girls 420s fleet while Philip Muller is 16th in the Boys Mistral and Nancy Ross is 11th in the Girls Mistral.For complete results, reports, and photos, http://www.worldyouthsailingmadeira.comOLYMPIC UPDATEThe ending was a bit anticlimactic-the last day of racing cancelled because of no wind-but the result no less impressive. Last week, Paul Foerster and Kevin Burnham won the 2003 470 European Championships in Brest, France. With the exception of the first Gold Fleet race, where the veteran duo rounded the first mark nearly in last place and had to scratch and claw their way to a 16th, Foerster and Burnham finished in the top five in all of their races. Their consistency was unmatched in the fleet and earned them the championship by 13 points over Philippe Gildas and Nicolas le Berre of France. While they have had some impressive results in big regattas before-like a sixth in the 470 Worlds last summer-this was a major step for Forester and Burnham.”Feels good to have finally won a regatta,” they wrote in an email. “It has been a while. Our tactics here were very good, and we had some good starts, which helped a lot. We still need a lot of work, but know we have the potential to win the Olympic Trials in November.”Steven Hunt and Eben Russell, who replaced Michael Miller as Hunt’s crew, finished 18th in the regatta, recording a pair of thirds.There were two U.S. women’s teams racing in the championships as well. Of late the two have been very close in every regatta, but in this one Erin Maxwell and Jen Morgan struggled early on and didn’t make the Gold Fleet cut. They finished 8th in the Silver Fleet, while Katherine McDowell and Isabelle Kinsolving had a couple of top five races and finished 14th in the Gold Fleet. Though disappointed with their finish, Maxwell and Morgan took comfort that there were a few other top teams who struggled early in the light conditions and didn’t make the Gold Fleet. Their spirits were also buoyed by their taking possession of a new boat.For the results of the European Championships, www.europe470.comIn other Olympic-class news, Kevin Hall was the top American at the Finn North Americas in Kingston, Ontario. Hall, who competed in the Finn Trials in 1992 before sailing a Laser in the 1996 Trials and a 49er in the 2000 Trials, won two of seven races. The other five victories went to Canada’s Chris Cook, who won the regatta. Geoff Ewenson was third. www.cork.orgIn the 49er European Championships, Andy Mack and Adam Lowry just edged US SAILING teammates Tim Wadlow and Peter Spaulding. Neither team had, by their standards, a stellar regatta. Mack and Lowry were 22nd, with Wadlow and Spaulding one place behind. Dalton Bergan and Zack Maxam were the third-placed American team, finished 41st.The Yngling Worlds start today in Warnemünde, Germany. Five American woman’s teams are racing in the regatta. www.yngling-worlds.deBAYVIEW-MACThe Alan Andrews-designed Alchemy, a 77-foot turbo sled owned by Mary and Richard Compton of Santa Barbara, Calif., grabbed monohull first-to-finish honors in the 259-mile Bayview Mac Race this past weekend and set a new monohull record for the race. Ray Howe’s 60-foot multihull Earth Voyager, which was first-to-finish overall and broke the multihull record that it had set two years ago, despite being heavily damaged in a train accident last winter. According to a report in the Detroit Free Press by Peggy Walsh-Sarnecki (http://www.freep.com/sports/othersports/sail21_20030721.htm), Alchemy and Earth Voyager were at each other’s throats for at least 120 miles of the race until they separated in an early-morning thunderstorm. But the win in the PHRF Turbo class went to local favorite Equation, another Andrews design owned by Bill Alcott of St. Clair Shores, Mi. The 68-foot Equation finished 3h:7m behind Alchemy and won by a mere 2m:53s on corrected time. The top-correcting boat in the multihull class was High Priority 2, a Corsair F-31R owned by David Shneider, of East Lansing, Mich. For complete results, see http://www.byc.com/mack03ADMIRAL’S CUPFor the first time since 1979, when Impetuous and Police Car survived a killer storm during the Fastnet race to win the Admiral’s Cup, Australia has won the team competition and top honors in the once prestigious series. Going into the final race, the 400-mile Wolf Rock Race, the Australians, representing the Royal Prince Alfred Yacht Club -consisting of the Reichel/Pugh swing-keel, 60-foot Wild Oats, and the Rodman 42 Aftershock-was one point behind a strong Spanish team-the Ker 56 Bribon Telefonica Movistar and Telefonica Movistar, another Rodman 42-when the race began Saturday. As the small boats, which sailed a shorter course, finished Sunday evening and Telefonica Movistar corrected out in first with Aftershock in third, it looked as though the Spanish might be taking home the Cup for the first time. In order for the Aussies to win, Wild Oats had to win the big boat class and Bribon Telefonica Movistar had to place fourth or below, which is exactly what happened. For complete results, see http://www.rorc.org/admiralscuVOR TO AUSTRALIAAt a press conference last week, Volvo Ocean Race organizers announced that Melbourne, Australia, will host the VOR in January-February 2006. The stopover will be housed at Melbourne Docklands, a massive waterfront development and revitalization project started in 2000.”There will be several significant changes to the 2005-2006 Volvo Ocean Race, highlighting a new age in performance sailing,” said Volvo Ocean Race CEO, Glenn Bourke, at the announcement. “One of the new features of the race, which will greatly benefit host cities like Melbourne, will be in-port racing. The new race rules outline that these in-port races will now count towards the overall race result. This will ensure that whilst the yachts are in port, spectators and media will be able to see these grand-prix yachts and elite crews in full action. The ability to see these yachts first hand and close up will provide an even more exciting and engaging atmosphere for the public.”The Volvo Ocean Race will start from the Mediterranean in November 2005.http://www.volvooceanrace.orgCALAIS ROUND BRITAIN RACEThe nine-boat Open 60 fleet is off Edinburgh, Scotland, there’s 24 hours or less left to go for the leaders in the 1,850 mile race, and there’s still no runaway leader. As of 3 p.m. UTC Monday, Vincent Riou and the crew of PRB are in first, with Roland Jourdain’s Sill in second, only 3.5 miles back, and Mike Golding’s Ecover in third, 11.8 miles from Sill.”It’s great to be in third,” said Golding this morning. “I think we’re in good shape and have been sailing well all race, especially under these circumstances. We’ve not been out of the picture at all. Just got to see if we can’t get ahead of the 2 boats in front of us! We’ve been having computer problems since Saint Kilda. It’s only a handicap because the other boats do have access. We’re now using more traditional methods, but don’t even have access to those always. We’re using the good old shipping forecast on BBC radio 4! There are potentially tactical opportunities coming up as we near the Thames estuary with the water being more shallow and further influenced by the tides. That’s where we could make gains or even losses. That’s the case for any 1 of the top 4 really. I’m very impressed with Bobst, they’ve had a corking race and PRB are back on the pace with a vengeance! No boats have specifically been designed for this race but I would say that the Lombard design is the best all round boat as it is particularly suited to this strategically restricted course along the coast.” To follow the race, see http://www.calaisroundbritainrace.com Grand Prix Sailor is compiled by the editors of Sailing World magazine. If you’d like to subscribe, see http://https://www.sailingworld.com/ Contributing Editors: Tony Bessinger (tony.bessinger@sailingworld.com), Dave Reed (dave.reed@sailingworld.com), Stuart Streuli (stuart.streuli@sailingworld.com), John Burnham (john.burnham@sailingworld.com)
