GMC Yukon Yachting Key West
Race Week 2000
January 17 - 21, 2000
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GMC Yukon Yachting Key West |
Race Week News - scheduled 1/17/00
DATELINE: Key West, Monday, January 17, 2000
"THE SWEET SPOT"
By Dave Gendell and Brian Trotta
Monday at Race Week can be an intense day. It is statement day. It is the tone-setting day. Everyone knows this. A strong start to the week is important to everyone. However, no one wants to flame early and pile up points due to an over-eager approach.
By the time day breaks on both Monday morning and a clean Race Week slate, the light-hearted camaraderie that dominated the dockside scene Saturday and Sunday has been replaced by a seriousness and a palpable sense of purpose. Tension is high as the morning ritual leads to the motor to the racing area — which leads to the last team meeting and then to the first furious starting sequence.
On the other hand, conservatism often carries the day and staying out of trouble in the early races has often led to smiling faces at Friday night’s awards ceremony. Endurance is a virtue shared by past Key West victors.
Either way, Monday sets the tone for individuals, boats, classes, and the overall event. And what a sweet tone it was.
Yesterday was just about as perfect as Key West can be.
"It was a Chamber of Commerce poster day," said an obviously pleased Event Director Peter Craig.
With a cloudless blue sky overhead and a gossamer haze on the horizons, the northeasterly generated by the now-three-day-old passing of a cold front showed that it still had a strong heartbeat. Twelve to 17 knots of relatively steady breeze made for challenging and fulfilling day of sailing.
Eager to get a head start on their goal of a stated eight-race series, all three Race Committees cranked out two races.
As the Farr 40, 1D35, J/29, Melges 24, and Mumm 30 classes have all already made a few laps of the one-design circuit, the wide speed differences that defined past regattas are a thing of the past. With the vast majority of the class is moving at the same speed, the premium put on crew work and tactics is amplified.
John Wylie, the San Diego-based skipper of the 1D 35 Tabasco sums it up nicely, "It was a blast out there today, the conditions were perfect. Getting off the line with speed and then finding a clear lane immediately are so important." Wylie’s tactician, Rick Merriman, did a nice job managing his starts as Tabasco jumped out to a fast 1-6 yesterday, winning the first race by a single second over Virginia-based rival Avalanche, skippered by Sledd Shelhorse. The first six boats finished within a minute of each other in the first race.
After the critical opening few minutes, skippers rely heavily on their mainsail trimmers to help them through the challenging chop and pockets of breeze disturbed by the larger, earlier-starting boats. Wylie’s wife , Stephanie, serves as his main trimmer. He says, "With the breeze up and down so dramatically, the main must be constantly trimmed, it’s so important."
Avalanche and Kip Meadow’s Roxanne have an early lead in the class although neither won a race. Avalanche has a 2-3 and Roxanne has a 3-2. Wylie and the Tabasco team lie in third.
"Some of the classes are going to be a dogfight until the very end," says Craig. It’s obvious that the 1D 35 class is going to be one of them.
The Farr 40 class has picked up right where it left off at August’s World Championship regatta--with John Kilroy’s Samba Pa Ti and Vincenzo Onorato’s Mascalzone Latino battling for the lead. Kilroy’s team has a 2-3 while Onorato’s crew carries a 4-1 into Tuesday. Past class World Champion Barking Mad is just behind in third. Einer Sissener’s Al-Cap-One won the first race. Mascalzone Latino was named Monday’s Boat of the Day.
The 27-boat class saw amazingly close racing and the big pinwheel of 40s at the turning marks were often augmented by large numbers of 1D35s and other members of Division 1. However it was a port-tack Farr 40, Bandit, that began a collision at the first leeward mark of the second race. After realizing they were not crossing a group of starboard tackers, Bandit attempted to tack and were hit by Tony Buckingham’s starboard tack 40, A Bit of a Coup.
Buckingham says, "Bandit thought they could make a hole and clearly they didn’t. I think they realized that too late and tried to bear away and they parked themselves between us and the mark." The collision resulted in a "nasty hole" on Bandit’s stern but minimal damage to Coup’s stem. Builder Barry Carroll checked out Bandit after racing and crewmembers say he pronounced the boat structurally sound. The Bandit team planned to work through Monday night and hope to be on the starting line this morning.
Opening day for the nine boat IMS-1 class was a pitched battle with CM 60 sisterships Highland Fling and Rima extended on the course and in 1-2 in the standings. Geoff and Mary Stagg’s Farr One Design 52 Scream is in third after taking a 3-4 in the opening two races of her career.
Ennio Staffini’s Annapolis-based Farr 40 Uarshek is currently on top of a diverse PHRF-1 class. The team carries a 2-2 and is a scant one point ahead of Gray Kiger’s Fatal Attraction who has a 1-4. Chessie is in the fray also as George Collins' turbo Santa Cruz 70 took a fourth in the first race and won Race 2. Opting to keep the talents of 1997 Rolex Yachtsman of the Year Chris Larson and former Star class world champion Jim Allsopp focused on strategy and tactics, Collins drove his boat for half of the first race and was on the helm on throughout the winning effort in Race 2.
Andrew Skibo’s J/105 Plum Crazy took a 1-2 in opening day sailing in the 18 boat J/105 class and enters today with a one point lead over the Naples, FL-based, Flame who are a mere one point ahead of Geoffrey Pierini’s New Jersey-based Phantom.
Other one design class standings are equally close. An example of the churn in the 26- boat Mumm 30 class is the fact that the top five boats in the class have no firsts and only one second place between them! A 3-5 puts Phil Garland’s Trouble in the top spot, two points ahead of Bodo von der Wense’s Turbo Duck. Race 1 was captured by Robin Fielder’s Warp Factor VII (who finished fifteenth in Race 2) and the second contest was won by the French team aboard Ville de St-Raphael who had finished thirteenth in the opening race. Clearly the Mumm 30 class will be won by the team able to carry consistently solid performances throughout the regatta.
The PHRF-2 class is a sportboat-flavored group long on downwind boatspeed and action. Out in front early is Ceres Group, a new Melges 32 owned by Peter Nauert and driven by Buddy Melges himself. Ceres Group finished 2-2 yesterday and have a three point lead over Michael Carroll’s Florida-based Henderson 30 New Wave who closed out the first day in second overall with a 6-1. Melges’s son Hans is also part of the crew and he is clearly excited about the promise of the new boat. "I’m giving us a win in both races whether we won or not because everyone had a great time an we were going fast.’’
PHRF-2 Race 1 winner Wairere, a Thompson 30 owned by Chris and Trice Bouzaid of Portsmouth, R.I., was involved in one of yesterday’s most dramatic incidents. The incident occurred in Race 2. Hans Melges explains, "`It was one of the scariest incidents I’ve ever seen." Wairere attempted to duck the N/M 50 Idler and Wairere’s mast hooked Idler’s rigging. Melges says, ``I could see the whole keel out of the water. A couple of people went flying out the back end of the boat and were swimming. Buddy told us not to set the chute in case we had to go back and help them.’’
Amy Gross-Kehoe reporting at Key West for J/Boats, contributes this J/80 report: The 12-boat J/80 class saw the return of Houston sailor Jay Lutz. Lutz is returning to the class after a hiatus spent sailing other boats (including winning the J/24 Midwinters). He scored two first place finishes on Monday. "The wind was steady in direction but variable in velocity on different parts of the course," he explained. Lutz’s Syzegy team was able to stave off the aggressive fleet with some stellar tactical moves. After shaking Martin Kald’s Monster Lady and fellow Texan David Balfour’s Kick at a weather mark rounding, Lutz was able to stay ahead and cover the fleet throughout the race, finishing with an impressive lead.
The second race saw Lutz repeat his horizon job on the fleet, "It was a fun day," Lutz observed. With the best of humor, Martin Kald commented on Lutz’s victory "we’re happy to have him out there." David Balfour added, "he’s only going to push the level."
In Division 2, the left side of the course paid off handsomely for those that were willing to dig into the beach, said Wayne Bretsch, Division 2 PRO reports, ``It was a gorgeous day and the wind was pretty steady most of the day,’’ Bretsch said. ``There were a few short puffs on the left and the boats that caught them made big gains.’’
"If I was a competitor, I would have been happy and tired at the end of the day,’’ he added.
Snake Eyes, Tom Ballard’s Annapolis-based SR 33 found the 12- to 16-knot breezes to her liking and romped in class PHRF 4 to a pair of bullets. Her sistership, Richard Harris’ Ragamuffin, and Frigate, an Evelyn 32 out of Louisiana, traded second and third place finishes to knot up second place for the day.
Meanwhile, the crew on Moon Dawg, Dan Courtney’s Key West-based J/33, grabbed a firm hold on the cellar in the division. But Courtney says the poor showing belies the good time he and his Milwaukee-based crew had out on the course. He says, "The other boats just went faster, but we had a lot of fun. It was good to see how we came together in the second race.’’
David Prucnal and his crew on the Antrim 27 Ultra Violet didn’t let the failure of their main sheet cleat early in the first race interfere with their day in PHRF 5. He said they jammed a marlinspike in the mainsheet block and sailed on to a pair of bullets.
Prucnal said they also tried to catch some shrimp Monday when they dropped their spinnaker in the water while leading at the second weather mark of the second race. The crew managed to get the kite back on board and hold off Geoff Longenecker’s Antrim, Nemesis.
Fleet PRO Bretsch said Prucnal wasn’t alone in his spinnaker technique. ``A lot of boats seem to have learned to shrimp as well as the fishing boats around here,’’ he quipped.
John Esposito’s Hustler, the lone J/29 not racing one-design, dominated PHRF 6. Esposito’s two bullets put him two points ahead of Savage, Alan Townsley’s C&C 34 from New York. Meanwhile in the J/29 fleet Paul Anderson and his all-female crew on Titillation swapped first and fourth place finishes with Tomahawk to sit atop the standings.
Before the racing, the crew on Mir III were happy just to escape the –26 degree temperatures in their native Toronto. But after day one of racing, owner Ivan Slezic is jumping for joy. Slezic’s Beneteau FC 10 followed up a second in the first race with a bullet to give them a two-point lead over Liquor Box in PHRF 7.
Black Seal skipper Kevin Young celebrated his 46th birthday aboard his Viper 830 with a 5-3 line that put him in fourth for the day in his PHRF 5 class. Young had high marks for the Division 2 race committee who kept the delays between races to an absolute minimum and called the wind shift in the second race perfectly.
"This is the best racing ever,’’ he says. Judging by the smiles and tales on the dockside, the bulk of the fleet agreed.
It was a classic Key West day. The regatta kicked off the week in the sweet spot.
For more information Cynthia Goss: (203) 453-2731, Fax (203) 453-3026,
Peter Craig: (781) 639-9545, Fax (781) 639-9171, PremiereRacing@compuserve.com
NOTE: To follow hometown sailors from your area, please contact Cynthia Goss at the numbers above until January 13. As of January 13, contact the Race Week Press Center at 305-295-6373 (telephone) or 305-295-9254 (fax).
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