Key West 2005 - Race Week News

cover photo: Sue Bodycomb / Yachtshots.com

Thursday - Issue 4 - January 20, 2005

Friday - Issue 5 - January 21, 2005

Saturday - Issue 6 - January 22, 2005

It was moving day in Key West, and we’re not talking about Mayflower vans in front of the pastel-colored houses on Petrona Street.

Rather we are referring to the movement that took place on the water and in the standings of Key West 2005.

Three races were held Wednesday, equal the amount contested on Monday and Tuesday combined. That provided an opportunity for teams to either move up or down the standings, and there were changes aplenty in many of the 21 classes.

A long, hard day of racing off the Conch Republic produced new leaders in six classes and tightened things up in several others.

“This is definitely the key day of the entire regatta,” said Stig Osterberg, owner of the 1D35 Midsummer. “Whenever three races are held in one day it’s important to do well. We wanted to make a move today because time is running out.”

Midsummer did just that, posting a pair of bullets and a second to jump from third to first in the overall standings. Wild Thing (Chris and Kara Busch) remained in second while previous leader Extreme (Mike Goldfarb) dropped to second.

There was also a shakeup among the Mumm 30s as Deneen Demourkas and Groovederci had a huge day, taking two guns to go with a second. That vaulted the California entry ahead of defending champion Turbo Duck, sailed by the father-son team of Bodo and Nick von der Wense.

“I don’t think any one day is any more important than another, but certainly this was a very nice day for us,” Demourkas said.

Another significant change came at the top of the Melges 24 standings as Maspero Giovanni’s Joe Fly grabbed the lead away from Bill Hardesty’s Pegasus.

No boat made a stronger move than Titan, which notched three bullets yesterday to go from fourth to second in the PHRF 1 standings. Tom Hill’s Reichel-Pugh 75 still trails class leader Esmeralda by seven points, but the overall mood aboard the boat was much more upbeat.

“We had a really good day and that was important. If you didn’t do it today, you weren’t going to do it,” said Hill, a Newport, R.I. Resident. “We had good starts, good roundings and good tactics _ we hit a lot of shifts.”

Even those boats that held onto leads were wary of the amount of points traded in yesterday’s 12-17 knot northeasterly winds. Tom Caruthers (Invisible) maintained a one-point advantage in J/105 class, and felt fortunate to do so after taking an 11^th in Race 5.

“I knew this was a day I could have given it all away, and I almost did with that one ugly result,” said Carruthers, a San Diego native. “We’ll have to sail better tomorrow if we want to stay in first.”

Othmar van Blumencron, owner of the Beneteau 40.7 Dame Blanche, knew yesterday was his chance to cut into the lead built by brothers Bobby and Kurt Muller aboard the Andrews 38 Pamlico. Both Annapolis (Md.) skippers had agreed the Beneteau would go better than the Andrews in lighter winds, and that premise seemed to hold true when Dame Blanche took first in yesterday’s initial start.

However, Pamlico reasserted her dominance by grabbing bullets in Race 5 and 6 to increase its lead from three to five points. Von Blumencron knows he’s got three races at most to make up the deficit.

“Today went well at first then kind of fell apart. We were hoping to beat (Pamlico) in three races and instead only beat them in one,” von Blumencron. “It’s going to be difficult to beat them now, but we are not hanging it up. We need to put some boats between us and them in the last three races.”

There were a lot of tired sailors shuffling into the Big Top for last night’s party after more than five hours of hard racing.

“We had 17 legs of racing today. I think Duval Street is going to be suspiciously quiet tonight,” said Andrzej Rojek, owner of the Swan 45 Better Than.

It’s unlikely any skipper United States skipper traveled farther to reach Key West than Osterberg, a resident of Port Townsend, Washington. It took a week to trailer Midsummer from one tip of the U.S. to the other.

“You cannot be in the U.S. and be further away from Key West than we are. You‘re talking about going from the top of the West Coast to the bottom of the East Coast,” said Osterberg, a first-time participant in Key West.

It was well worth the effort as yesterday’s 1-1-2 result sent Midsummer to the top of the 10-boat 1D35 fleet. Wild Thing also has 14 total points, but loses the tiebreaker to Midsummer by virtue of fewer firsts.

“We have a team of outstanding sailors who deserve all the credit. I’m just the guy who drives the boat,” said Osterberg, who particularly highlighted tactician Brian Huse and main trimmer Herb Cole.

“Brian has been making great calls and we call Herb the speed machine because he really knows how to use that main to get the boat going.”

This week didn’t start smoothly for Demourkas, who found herself holding onto the tiller and the railing for dear life after Groovederci performed a “death roll” during practice on Sunday. She was not at all unhappy the Mumm 30s didn’t race Monday because her left arm was still sore from being wrapped around the staunchion while the cockpit was literally submerged with water.

Groovederci was winning the second race on Tuesday when it blew out a spinnaker and was passed by main rival Turbo Duck.

“We had a lot of issues yesterday, but there was no panic, no pandemonium among the crew,” Demourkas said. “I knew we had good pace with Turbo Duck. Things went much more smoothly today and that’s reflected in our results.”

Former Team New Zealand member Hamish Pepper is calling tactics for Demourkas, who knows the battle has been joined.

“It’s going to be nip-and-tuck the rest of the way. We just have to keep doing what we’ve been doing _ sailing smart and clean,” she said.

Dutchman Peter de Ridder and Mean Machine maintained the lead in Farr 40 class despite sustaining its worst finish so far _ a sixth in Race 6.

It appears the class has evolved into a four-boat battle with only six points separating defending champion Mean Machine from fourth-place Bambakou, John Coumantaros’ entry that won Wednesday with a 2-4-3 line. Morning Glory (Hasso Plattner) and Barking Mad (Jim Richardson) held their positions in second and third, respectively.

“These boats are so close that even in the race we won Mean Machine caught us on the last leg. We were able to get a starboard tack advantage and win by half a boat length.”

Better Than took over the lead in Swan 45 late Tuesday night when Painkiller 3 had a first-place finish in Race 3 thrown out due to protest. Rojek kept Better Than atop the standings by getting the gun in two races yesterday and taking second in the other.

Ryan Malloy is serving as helmsman while Chris Zaleski is calling tactics for Rojek, who is making his ninth appearance at Key West.

“If not for the experience we’ve had here over the years we wouldn’t be where we are,” Rojek said.

Hill has an all-star crew of professionals aboard Titan _ men such as Mike Toppa (main), Jim Allsopp (pit), Bennie Mitchell (tactician), Scott Bradford (jib) and Ben Beer (bow) to name a few. None of them were satisfied with the team’s performance on Monday and Tuesday.

“I think we would like to have those two heavy air days back because we know we could have done better,” Hill said.

Surprisingly, the wind reduction helped the RP 75 in its battle with the five Transpac 52s that populate PHRF 1.

“We were hoping things would turn around in the lighter air and they did. The Transpacs didn’t go as fast downwind and we were better going upwind,” said Hill, who thought the three- bullet day may have been his best in many years of buoy racing.

Jeff Ecklund sailed the recently-launched Melges 32 Star into the lead in PHRF 3 with a 3-1-2 finish yesterday. Wairere, Peter Hunter’s Thompson 30 that had led after Monday and Tuesday, now stands second _ three points behind Star and just one point ahead of Grins (Rick Orchard).

Boat-builders Harry and Hans Melges are both sailing with Ecklund as the three longtime friends try to figure out the new design, which came off the assembly line at Soca in Trinidad a few weeks ago.

“We had two hours in the boat before the regatta started so we are figuring it out as we go,” Ecklund said. “It’s a real dream to drive and awfully fast. It’s basically an oversized Melges 24.”

Bobby Muller is a wily helmsman who doesn’t always follow convention. His strategy so far has been to take Pamlico away from the other eight boats in PHRF 4 and focus on boat speed.

“They have a different tactic than most of us. They go to the corners, and a couple times that’s paid off when they caught favorable shifts,” von Blumencron said.

Carinthia, owned by Frank Kern of Detroit, Mich., made a big push in J/120 class with a bullet and two seconds yesterday. Carinthia is now tied on points with Avra, which went 3-3-5 yesterday after posting bullets in the initial three races.

Mariah, skippered by Jose Suarez Hoyos of Tampa, Fla., took the lead in J/109 class away from Bill Sweetser and Rush. Those two boats have been racing in close proximity throughout the regatta.

“We’ve been rounding marks together quite often. Mariah was better than us today so we need to turn it up a notch tomorrow,” said Sweetser, an Annapolis resident. “This has been a fantastic regatta so far because there’s been such a wide range of conditions. It tests your skills in all types of breeze.”

Ken Winters and Charles Nethersole of Miami remained atop the Corsair 28 fleet, thanks in part to the presence of catamaran legend Randy Smythe.

“Randy is awesome, absolutely awesome,” Winters said. “I think his greatest strength is attention to detail. He sets the boat up superbly.”

Winters and Nethersole are outstanding sailors in their own right, having won Corsair 28 nationals in Pensacola this past spring. The duo took third in their Key West debut a year ago.

“Right now, things are going well for us, but we need a couple bullets tomorrow in order to put some distance on Condor and Hot Flash,” Winters said.

Pretty Woman, a Beneteau 47.7 skippered by George Gamble of Pensacola, Fla., finished second in yesterday’s initial race. That spoiled an otherwise perfect line for the PHRF 2 entry, which holds a commanding 14-point lead thanks to five bullets.

Joe Fly, based in Canottieri, Italy, overtook Pegasus on the strength of second-place finishes in Race 5 and 6. Helmsman Gabrio Zandona summed up the day thusly: “Good wind, good sun, good team.

“We had very good starts all three times and always raced in the middle in a conservative way and had enough boat speed to beat the rest of the fleetz,” added Zandona, who steered Joe Fly to sixth in Race 4

Zandona credited tactician Morgan Larson with pointing Joe Fly in the right direction, but the California professional demurred.

Carruthers, who runs a J/World franchise in San Diego, didn’t do much sailboat racing the last four years while focusing on work and family. He previously sailed a Nelson-Marek 30 (Invincible) and a G&S 27 (Insatiable) at Key West.

“I’m far higher than I expected to be,” he said. “I would have been thrilled to be in the Top 10 here and ecstatic to finish Top 5. I’m not sure how I’ll feel if we actually win this thing.”

John Storck’s Rumor had a solid day to shave five points off the lead held by Rick Schaffer’s C’est Nasty in J/80. Storck, from Huntington, N.Y., posted a second and pair of thirds to move one point ahead of Sooner Magic (Mac Kilpatrick) and three points behind C’est Nasty.

Remedy, an Evelyn 32 skippered by John Fries, has been one of the top performers in the entire regatta. She holds a solid lead over Bruce Gardner’s Beneteau 1^st 10M in PHRF 4.

“They sail extremely smart and shift gears well. I have not seen them make a single mistake,” Gardner said of the Remedy team. “Tactics and boat-handling are where they are beating us.”

Gardner felt better to learn that Remedy is crewed by a bunch of professionals with Halsey Lidgard Sailmakers. Fries is a designer with the loft in Mystic, Conn., and has Geoff Bishop (Fremantle, Australia) and Doug Christie (Seattle, Wash.) aboard.

“The crew is making me look good,” Fries said. “It’s been fun because we see one another at meetings but have never sailed together.”

Fries spent four weeks in a shed trying to rebuild the Evelyn 32, which had not aged well. He almost didn’t finish in time to make Key West.

“It’s been rewarding in that sense because I spent a lot of time putting the boat together,” Fries said.

Hustler, the J/29 campaigned by the father-son team of John and Tony Esposito, won all three races yesterday and remains the only entry in the entire regatta with straight bullets.

Liquor Box, the Key West-based Tartan 10 co-owned by Chuck Simon and Bill Buckles, lost that distinction by suffering a seventh in Race 5 yesterday.

Nobody was happier than the Arkansas boys aboard Wined-Up-Toy, an S2 7.9 that picked up its first bullet ever at Key West.

“We’ve been coming here for seven years and never finished in the top three of any race,” said skipper Bob Willett. “We aren’t going to win the regatta, but we would like to at least be in the hunt and feel we belong.”

Willett and tactician Dwight Segraves hail from outside Little Rock and belong to Greers Fery Lake Yacht Club in Heber Springs.

“We tend to struggle with the waves when we come down here because we don’t encounter that much on the lakes,” Segraves said. “We were happy to see the wind die down a little today because that’s more the type of conditions we are used to.”