Lisa Pline was the winner of the Womens Snipe regatta, held at San Diego YC on February 23 & 24. Pline ended up with 15 points after the seven race series, beating Stacy Szabo by four points. http://www.sdyc.org/raceinfo/Womens%20Snipe%20Results.htm
Bruce Schwab’s open 60, Ocean Planet, was fourth in elapsed time but corrected out to third in class and sixteenth in fleet in this year’s edition of the Puerto Vallarta race. “The race was a minefield of light air and dead spots that were difficult to negotiate without tactical boo-boos,” said Schwab. “Also, our sails are somewhat specialized by Doyle for super durability and for singlehanded racing.” Translation: The race was light, the sails weren’t.
Schwab won’t be heading home to San Francisco anytime soon; While on the way to the start of the Around Alone in Newport, R.I., Ocean Planet will race in Antigua Race Week. http://www.oceanplanet.org/
Two J/160s, Stark Raving Mad and Innocent Merriment were 1, 2 on corrected, followed by the Santa Cruz 50, Lina. For complete results: http://www.sdyc.org/raceinfo/PV02Results2_29.htm
The 110-foot catamaran Orange sailed 500 miles in the first 24 hours on its quest to break the Jules Verne record. Skipper Bruno Peyron admits that theyre not really sailing flat-out yet. “What were doing is feeling whether the boat is suffering or not and keeping an eye on everything. So we mustnt push too hard, not go over a certain level thats somewhere around 97 to 98 percent. For the time being, were more around 85 to 90 percent.”
This is Peyrons second attempt this season. On the first, Orange was forced to turn around half an hour after starting because the top three feet of the carbon fiber rig sheared off. To follow Oranges attempt, see: http://www.orange.fr/0/visiteur/PV
Following days of rumors Team Stars and Stripes finally admitted on march 1st that they had, indeed, dropped a rig on one of their boats. Speculation had been that USA-54, the old Abracadabra, had suffered the damage but it was actually USA-66, the recently delivered R/P boat.
“Last Saturday, while our team was practicing on USA-66 and USA-54 about 5 miles off of Long Beach, we broke one of our carbon fiber masts on USA-66 in moderate breeze and normal sea state. Fortunately, no one was hurt and there was no damage to the boat,” said Conner in a press release. “We brought the mast back to our sailing compound and it is currently being fixed. Our technical team has learned a great deal from this incident and the information they have gathered will be very valuable to us going forward. Our newest mast, which was already under construction at Southern Spars, will be delivered shortly and USA-66 will be sailing again soon. Meanwhile, we are continuing with our aggressive six-day-a-week training schedule including sail development on USA-54, match race training on Congressional Cup one-design boats, and a strict physical training regimen.”
For more, see: http://www.stars-stripes.com/
Down in New Zealand, perspective race committee members for the Louis Vuitton Cup, the Challenger Selection Series for the Americas Cup, are being trained on the Hauraki Gulf in the CORM race committee trials. This “unofficial” series has several AC teams entered, including: two Prada boats and one boat each from OneWorld, Alinghi, GBR Challenge and Oracle. A notable feature of this series is that photographers are allowed on the racecourse, a practice you wont see during the real deal. Look for some awesome images of yesterdays racing in magazines everywhere soon; it was blowing 20 to 25 knots. http://www.lvcup.com/lvcup/lv/default.asp
After suffering horrendous damage during Key West Race Week, Tom Hills Titan XI was back in action this weekend at the 3-day St. Maarten Heineken regatta, placing second behind Roy Disneys Pyewacket. The Frers-designed 80-footer Volador won the cruising division. For full results, see: http://www.heinekenregatta.com/hr.php
The 2002 Acura SORC begins this week off Miami Beach. The IMS 50 class, while still small in numbers continues its 2002 schedule with Canvasback, Uarshek II, Javelin, and Idler all entered. The Farr 40 class shows big-number participation with 21 boats entered, including Key West 2002 winner Atalanti XII. Other healthy classes include the Mumm 30 and J/105 class. The PHRF fleet has everything from a One Design 48 to a J/27. Racing starts Thursday for everyone except the Mumm 30s, J/105s, and Melges 24s, which start Friday. Look for daily updates on http://https://www.sailingworld.com/ and http://www.acurasorc.com/
