GMC Yukon Yachting Key West
Race Week 2000
January 17 - 21, 2000
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GMC Yukon Yachting Key West Race Week 2000
January 17 - 21, 2000 |
Strong
Winds Bring Key West Race Week to Dramatic Conclusion
--Class
wins decided in final race for 13 out of 16 winners
--1D35
Heartbreaker from Michigan is Yachting Magazine Trophy winner
January 26, 2000
— Class leaders at the 13th annual GMC Yukon Yachting Key
West Race Week, sailed January 17-21 in Key West (Fla.), were dealt a few wild
cards as they entered the last race: North-northeast winds ranging 12 to 25
knots, with shifts as large as 30 degrees, visited the racecourse for the final
day or racing.
Friday’s
big shifts and big swings in velocity may have added unpredictable factors to
tacticians’ gameplans. But in the end, the boats that mastered those
conditions, as well as the wide range of light- to heavy-air sailing that marked
the 13th running of this North American classic, came out on top. And
one boat out of 261 boats from 12 nations proved to have the keenest mastery of
all.
Great
Lakes sailor Robert Hughes and his crew on One Design 35 (1D35)
Heartbreaker (Holland, Mich.) captured boat-of-the-week honors for the
Yachting Magazine Trophy. Hughes and his crew won the hotly contested 21-boat
1D35 class. They also earned overall honors for winning the class deemed to be
most competitive — a determination based on a time-on-distance and
points-differential formula, with a weighting factor for class size.
“Race
Week 2000 has proved to be an all-around test, of light-air wits and of skill in
breeze in excess of 20 knots,” said Event Director Peter Craig. “In recent
years, a wide range of conditions, both wind and sea state, have marked this
event . . . For three years now we’ve hit the weather cycle just right to make
Key West Race Week a true test among some of the best big-boat racers in the
world.”
In the final race, 30 seconds
made the difference for the crew on Heartbreaker. This crew entered the
last race five points ahead of John Wylie's Tabasco (San Diego, Calif.). According
to Heartbreaker tactician Bill Bennett, valuable seconds and a leading
points edge could have easily vanished at Friday's finish line. "Every boat
in this class has their day," said Bennett of the 1D35 class. "These
boats are so even in speed. It's the small things that make the
difference."
With
a 10th and a 7th place on the opening day, the Heartbreaker crew had a
slow start. “We had a very
talented crew, but we had never sailed together as a team,” said Bennett. By
mid-week, this crew was logging top-five finishes. But their move into the lead
did not come until the end of the week.
"Thursday was our
breakthrough day," said an ebullient Hughes at regatta's end. Two
first-place finishes on Thursday and a fourth in Friday's final race earned the Heartbreaker
crew the class win. "Every victory is only as satisfying as the level of the
competition," said Hughes, after collecting the Yachting trophy. "And
the level was very high here in Key West."
Wind
Conditions, Early Victories
Race
Week 2000 drew 16 classes in IMS, PHRF, and one-design fleets. A cold front
passed over Key West the weekend prior to racing, and the regatta opened in
cloudless blue skies and northeasterly winds that ranged 12 to 17 knots.
Light-air skill paid big dividends on Tuesday and Wednesday. Tuesday’s breeze
was from the northern quadrant and ranged 4 to 8 knots; a fickle southerly
ranging 3 to 7 knots blew on Wednesday. On Thursday, the dream conditions that Key West is famous for returned to the
island: 14- to 18-knot westerlies blew, and as Mumm 30 skipper Nelson Stephenson
(Stamford, Conn.) said, “It was the best day the fleet has seen down here in a
few years.” Friday’s stronger breeze rounded out the week.
Three
boats had mathematically clinched their titles before the fleet departed Friday
morning for the final race. Highland Fling, Irvine Laidlaw’s CM 60
sailing from the Isle of Man (U.K.), topped the nine-boat IMS class after seven
races. Highland Fling, helmed by Welshman Eddie Warden Owen, and
sistership Rima traded the majority of bullets in this class that also
included the just-launched Farr 52 One Design Scream, owned by Geoff and
Mary Stagg (Annapolis, Md.). With IMS boats ranging 43 to 60 feet, a separate
trophy for the top boat in the band of smaller IMS contenders was awarded. Sal
Giordano’s Corel 45 Heatwave (Edgartown, Mass.) took this award.
By
Thursday night, Jeff Sampson and his crew on S2 7.9 Rugger (Detroit,
Mich.) had won all seven races in PHRF 8. With the title already in hand, this
Great Lakes crew did not compete in the final race and captured their class win.
J/29 Hustler (City Island, N.Y.) also had a string of first-place
finishes in PHRF 6 for an early victory.
Big
one-design fleets were a feature of Race Week 2000. A 27-boat Farr 40 class, the
largest seen to date, traveled from seven nations and included world champions
from 1998 (Jim Richardson’s Barking Mad) and 1999 (John Kilroy’s Samba
Pa Ti). Many eyed these champions as favorites, but George Andreadis
(Athens, Greece) and his crew on Atalanti XI quickly emerged as a force
in this class. Absent from Race Week 1999, Andreadis came to Key West this year
with Olympic medallist Robbie Haines as his tactician. The Atalanti crew
won the Farr 40 class by 19 points.
Brian
Porter and his crew on Melges 24 Full Throttle (Lake Geneva, Wisc.)
defended their win at Race Week 1999 to capture this class title for the second
year in a row; 46 Melges 24s competed. Finishes of 1-2 on Thursday gave Porter a
little breathing room and put him six
points ahead of second-place Harry Melges (Zenda, Wisc.) entering the final
race. But with two eighth-place finishes in his score, Porter was well aware
that it is not hard to lose six points in this large, competitive fleet. A
second in the final race to Melges’ third gave the Full Throttle crew
the class win.
The
crew on Mumm 30 Ville de Saint Raphael (Nice, France), skippered by Jean
Pierre Dick, had to battle reigning North American champion Phil Garland
(Bristol, R.I.) and the crew on Trouble to capture the 26-boat Mumm 30
class. Trouble had the edge at the second weather mark of the final race, but
this French crew needed only to preserve the five-point lead they held entering the last race. A sixth in
the finale earned Ville de Saint Raphael the class win.
This
French crew was also Boat of the Day on Tuesday, an award given to the winner of
that day’s most competitive class and based on a time-on-distance and
points-differential formula.
Three
one-design J-Boat classes competed, including J/105s, J/80s, and J/29s. J/105
sailor Andy Skibo (Ocean City, N.J.) and his Plum Crazy crew won a
closely contested final race to take the J/105 class win;
Skibo also won Boat of the Day honors on Friday. Houston (Tx.) sailor Jay
Lutz and his crew on Syzygy topped the J/80 class.
For
the J/29s (who raced with a six-second-a-mile spread for inboard/outboard and
masthead/fractional configurations), two sailors had first and second places
locked up as the fleet entered the final race. For J/29 racers Bruce Lockwood on Tomahawk (Ludlow,
Vt.) and Paul Andersen on Titillation (Deltaville, Va.), the final race
was described as a “nail-biter,” when only 30 seconds stood between these
two boats at the final mark rounding. Tomahawk won the final race,
overlapped with Andersen’s crew on Titillation. Tomahawk was
also the Boat of the Day on Wednesday.
All sixteen classes completed
the eight scheduled races.
The
Key West Trophy, which goes to the boat that wins the most competitive PHRF
class, utilizes the same type of calculation used for the Yachting trophy. The
Annapolis (Md.) crew on Beneteau First 10M L'Outrage captured overall
PHRF honors.
Owned
by Chesapeake Bay sailor Bruce Gardner, L'Outrage and its crew are known
at home for their skill in heavy air. Before he came to Key West, Gardner
educated himself on the local weather patterns and prepped his boat for lighter
breeze. Their light-air performance peaked on Wednesday, with a win in Race 4,
and they never dropped below a fourth-place finish to win the 13-boat PHRF 7
class and this overall trophy.
Seven
other PHRF classes competed, and again this year, the ranks of PHRF sailors
brought a wide diversity to the fleet. PHRF 1 was won by Santa Cruz 70 Chessie
Racing (ex-Pyewacket). George Collins’ (Gibson Island, Md.)
70-footer is turbo-charged for offshore racing, but the Chessie Racing
crew also proved strong around the buoys with Whitbread veterans on deck and an
afterguard of Chris Larson and Jim Allsopp.
A
class of large sportboats was topped by Scott, Steve and Chris Liebel’s
Henderson 30 Speed Racer (Sarasota, Fla.). This class included a new
Melges 32, Ceres Group, helmed by Buddy Melges. Melges lead the class
into the early part of the week, but an 11th during a mid-week,
light-air race opened the door for a new leader.
Annapolis
sailor Tom Ballard and his crew on SR 33 Snake Eyes sailed true to their
name to win PHRF 4. This crew, a class winner at Race Week ’99, put together
pairs of first-place finishes punctuated by second- and third-place finishes for
an eight-point edge at series end.
In addition to the Boat of the
Day winners mentioned above, the Farr 40 Mascalzone Latino owned by
Vincenzo Onorato (Savoia, Italy) and 1D35 Heartbreaker round out the five
Boat of the Day winners.
George
David (New York, N.Y) and his crew on Nelson/Marek 50 Idler won the
inaugural Lewmar Marine Trophy, which signifies the top Group 1 owner-driven
boat in the IMS class.
The Yukon Cup, the
international team competition that was added to this event four years ago, was
captured by Team Italy. The three-boat team of Italian Farr 40 Mascalzone
Latino owned by Vincenzo
Onorato, Italian Mumm 30 Kismet owned by Stefano and Massimo Leporati,
and U.S. Melges 24 Zenda Express owned by Harry Melges took the title by
21 points. This is the second year Team Italy has captured this trophy, which is
loosely patterned after the format used in the Champagne Mumm Admiral's Cup. In
the Yukon Cup, two of the three boats on the team must be from the home nation.
Event
founder Yachting Magazine and title sponsor GMC Yukon were joined in Key West by
event sponsors and suppliers Boatscape.com, The Florida Keys & Key West,
Mount Gay Rum, Lewmar Marine, Champagne Mumm, Grand Banks Yachts, The Historic
Seaport, Samuel Adams, Fiji Natural Artesian Water, Saucony, Kenwood Cup,
Historic Seaport, and the Ocean Key.
Race
Week is produced by Premiere Racing of Marblehead (Mass.). Top-three standings
in each class follow. Complete fleet results, daily feature reports, and photos
are posted on www.Premiere-Racing.com.
--prepared
with reporting by Dave Gendell, Amy Gross-Kehoe, and Brian Trotta
For
more information:
Peter
Craig
Cynthia Goss
Premiere
Racing, Inc.
Goss Communications
781-639-9545/Tel
203-453-2731/Tel
781-639-9171/Fax
203-453-3026/Fax
PremiereRacing@compuserve.com
CynthiaGoss@compuserve.com
Website: www.Premiere-Racing.com
NOTE: A limited selection of photography is available for editorial usage.
Contact Cynthia Goss for more information.
FINAL
RESULTS (top 3 in each class/8 races, no discards)
CLASS
A – IMS (9 Boats)
1.
Highland Fling/Irvine Laidlaw
(Isle of Man, U.K.) 2-1-1-1-2-2-6-1 -- 16
2.
Rima/Isam
Kabbani (Newport, RI) 1-5-3-7-1-4-4-3 – 28
3.
Virago/Bache
Renshaw (Portsmouth, RI)
8-2-4-5-3-3-1-5 -- 31
CLASS
B – PHRF 1 (10 Boats)
1.
Chessie
Racing/George
Collins (Gibson Island, MD)
4-1-1-1-1-3-3-1 – 15
2.
Fatal
Attraction/F.
Gray Kiger (Norfolk, VA) 1-4-2-2-3-2-2-2 – 18
3.
Uarshek/Ennio
Staffini (Annapolis, MD) 2-2-3-7-5-1-1-3 -- 24
CLASS
C – Farr 40 (27 Boats)
1.
Atalanti XI/George
Andreadis (Athens, Greece) 3-9-1-1-2-5-2-2
-- 25
2.
Mascalzone
Latino/Vincenzo
Onorato (Savoia, Italy) 4-1-8-12-8-3-3-5 – 44
3.
Raging Bull/Richard
Marki (Bristol, RI) 5-5-7-5-1-8-9-4 -- 44
CLASS
D – 1D35 (21 Boats)
1.
Heartbreaker/Robert
Hughes (Holland, MI) 10-7-3-4-5-1-1-4
– 35
2.
Tabasco/John
Wylie (San Diego, CA) 1-5-4-2-11-11-2-2 – 38
3.
Smiling
Bulldog/Garth
Dennis (Ithaca, NY) 4-4-9-8-3-6-4-1
-- 39
CLASS
E – PHRF 2 (14 Boats)
1.
Speed Racer/Scott, Steve, Chris Liebel
(Sarasota, FL) 3-7-1-2-1-2-1-4
-- 21
2.
Ceres
Group/Peter
Nauert (Lake Geneva, WI) 2-2-2-1-11-1-5-1 – 25
3.
New
Wave/Michael
Carroll (Clearwater, FL)
6-1-7-3-5-4-3-3 – 32
CLASS
F – PHRF 3 (11 Boats)
1.
White Trash/Greg
Smith (Mobile, AL) 1-3-1-3-2-3-1-5
– 19
2.
Brainstorm/A.
Rojek, P. Gutin, W. Zaleski (Stamford, CT)
2-1-5-2-5-2-2-1 – 20
3.
The Wall/Gordon
Schiff (St. Petersburg, FL)
5-2-2-4-1-4-3-2 – 23
CLASS
A – PHRF 4 (12 Boats)
1.
Snake Eyes/T.L. Ballard (Annapolis, MD) 1-1-3-1-1-2-1-1--11
2.
Frigate/H. Albert/R. Reedy
(Mandeville, LA) 3-2-2-2-3-1-4-2--19
3.
Ragamuffin/Richard Harris
(New Orleans, LA) 2-3-5-3-4-3-2-6--28
CLASS
B – PHRF 5 (10 Boats)
1.
Ultra Violet/Dave & Donna Prucnal (Pasadena, MD)
1-1-2-5-4-1-1-4--19
2.
Nemesis/Geoff Longenecker (San Diego, CA) 2-2-5-6-5-2-2-1--25
3.
Owslarah/Jospeh Melino
(Alameda, CA) 3-4-4-4-8-4-4-2--33
CLASS
C – J/29 (13 Boats)
1.
Tomahawk/Bruce Lockwood (Ludlow,VT)
1-4-4-1-3-2-1-1--17
2.
Titillation/Paul Andersen
(Deltaville, VA) 4-1-3-5-1-1-2-2--19
3.
Fast Lane/Jay McArdle (Milwaukee, WI) 6-3-7-4-6-4-8-3--41
CLASS
D – J/80 (12 Boats)
1.
Syzygy/Jay Lutz (Houston, TX) 1-1-1-7-1-1-1-1--14
2.
Monster Lady/Martin Kald (Pt. Washington, NY) 2-2-3-1-3-2-2-4--19
3. Kicks/David Balfour (Austin, TX) 3-3-2-4-4-4-3-2--25
CLASS E – PHRF 6 (11 Boats)
1. Hustler/John & Anthony Esposito (City Island, NY) 1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1--8
2. Savage/Alan Townsley (Palisades, NY) 2-2-2-3-2-5-2-2--20
3. Scrambled/Geff Fisher (San Diego, CA) 5-4-4-2-4-3-4-6--32
CLASS F – PHRF 7 (13 Boats)
1. L’Outrage/Bruce Gardner (Annapolis, MD) 4-2.9-2-1-3-4-2-4--22.9
2. Liquor Box/Chuck Simon & Bill Buckles (Key West, FL) 3-2-6-6-4-1-1-2--25
3. Think Blue/Gary Disbrow (Sandusky, OH) 1-8-3-3-5-2-4-1--27
CLASS G – PHRF 8 (8 Boats)
1. Rugger/Jeff Sampson (Detroit, MI) 1-1-1-1-1-1-1-DNC--16
2. Challenge/D. Johnson & C. Nielson (Racine, WI) 2-4-3-3-3-2-2-1--20
3.
Fresh Kill/Karl deHam (Seabrook, TX) 3-3-4-4-2-4-4-2--26
CLASS
A - Mumm 30 (26 Boats)
1.
Ville de Saint Raphael/Jean Pierre Dick (Nice, France) 14-1-1-3-6-3-4-6-- 38
2.
Trouble/Phil Garland (Barrington, RI) 3-5-12-9-1-2-5-3 -- 40
3.
Turbo Duck/Bodo von der Wense (Annapolis, MD) 2-8-3-1-3-11-15-12 -- 55
CLASS
B - Melges 24 (46 Boats)
1.Full
Throttle/Brian Porter (Lake Geneva, WI) 8-1-1-2-8-2-1-2 --25
2.
Zenda Express/Harry Melges (Lake Geneva, WI) 4-6-6-3-4-4-2-3 -- 32
3.
RockN’Roll/Argyle Campbell (Newport Beach, CA) 2-7-11-5-2-1-8-8 -- 44
CLASS
C - J/105 (18 Boats)
1.
Plum Crazy/Andrew Skibo (Ocean City, NJ) 1-2-2-3-3-5-2-1 -- 19
2.
Phantom/Geoffrey Pierini (Perth Amboy, NJ) 2-3-3-4-5-4-8-4 -- 33
3.
Wonder Wagon/Rick Wright (Marblehead, MA) 4-6-9-2-1-1-3-9 -- 35
-end-