In this Issue:
FILA-Tragedy
Pied Piper- BVI Winner
Snipe-Winter Regattas
Star Western Hemisphere's-Final
Royal&Sun Alliance- On land at last

FILA-Tragedy
    Early last Thursday morning only 454 miles from the finish of its record setting voyage FILA capsized. Waves of 15 to 20 meters buffeted FILA. The boat went through a complete rollover.  Right before the storm skipper Giovanni Soldini
sent this message: "It is a terrible situation, but everything seems to be under control. The wind is whirling at a speed of 80 knots and the waves are enormous, more than 15/20 meters: the mast went several time under water. The situation might get worse and we don't know what will happen. It is necessary to keep under control the waves."
After this the the roll occurred with two crew on deck.

    When FILA came upright one crew, Andrea Talarini was still on board. Tragically Andrea Romanelli was not. Despite the British Navy's search Andrea was not found.

    FILA was left dismasted. She eventually reached land at Lorient France.

    See http://www.giovanni.soldini.it/eng/s/index.htm for more.

Pied Piper - Class Winner in BVI Spring Regatta
    Pied Piper, a Santa Cruz 70 owned by Dick Jennings from Chicago, added a win to her race record. She competed against 2 other boats in the Maxi Class. Amongst
them was Dolphin, a Whitbread 60.

    Pied Piper posted a one point win sailing to finishes of: 3-1-1-2-1-1 for 9 points. The first several days of racing were in light air conditions. The final day saw the breeze fill in.

Snipe- Southern Regattas Conclude   
    The Bacardi trophy was the 3rd Snipe southern regatta. It was a 1 day affair in Nassau Bahamas. George Szabo dominated with 1sts in all 3 races.

    The final regatta was also sailed in Nassau. The winner received the Dudley Gamblin trophy. 1st place went to Japan's Shinichi Uchida.

    The scores of the four regattas (Midwinters, Don Q, Bacardi Cup and the Gamblin Trophy) are then combined. The winner of this mega series then is given the Zimmerman trophy.

    This year the Zimmerman goes to George Szabo who compiled scores of 2-1-1-16. Second was Birger Jansen of Norway who sailed to 6-7-6-5 regatta placements. 3rd was Federico Romero who had placings of 11-10-2-3.

    For more information visit: http://www.snipe.org

Star- A 'This Close' Finish in the Western Hemisphere’s
    In Nassau John MacCausland sailed a series consisting of 1-(3)-2-1-2-1 for 7 points. Marc Reynolds sailed this series 2-1-1-(3)-1-2 for 7 points. MacCausland
was the tiebreak winner. This due to Star Class rule 34.6.3. This rule states that when the places counted are the same, the winner of the last race takes the regatta.

    For more visit: http://sailing.org/regattas/98starwh/

Royal&Sun Allicance- Landfall in Chile
    Last Thursday saw Royal & Sun Alliance arrive in Chile. The crew stepped onto terra firma for the first time in 58 days. Upon arrival they took some hard earned R&R.

    Today the crew and skipper Tracy Edwards arrived in England. At a press conference Edwards said she hope to keep the crew together for another attempt at the around the world record.

    Visit http://www.rsachallenge.com for details.