Gold Race- The Record Falls
    Aquitaine Innovations with skipper Yves Parlier and his three crewmen,Thomas Colville, Hervé Jan, and Lalou Roucayrol are now the holders of the New York to San Francisco record and the winners of the Gold Race.

    The new record is: 57 days, 3 hours, 21 minutes and 45 seconds. This is a 5 days,
2 hours, 10 minutes and 55 second betterment of the old record(63 D 5 H 55 M) held by Isabelle Autissier set in 1994. Put another way, Autissier averaged 9.3 knots while Parlier upped the average speed to 9.6 knots.

    The other two Gold Race boats, PRB and Geodis are still not finished. PRB is 312 miles from the finish, while Geodis is 495 miles away. Further information is at: http://www.aroundalone.com

Whitbread Leg 6
    The fleet has left Brazil and is sailing north to the finish in Ft. Lauderdale FLA.
Chessie Racing watch captain Dave Scott sums up Leg 6 this way: "This leg is the only one in the Whitbread where we start in a hot location, go to a hotter location, and finish in a hot place." An apt summary of a leg from Brazil north through the variables of the Doldrums and then onto Florida.

    The first few days at sea have seen the fleet making steady progress. What dominates the sailing tactically is the black clouds. Some with a good downdraft bring good breeze and perhaps a gain on your competitors. But, not all clouds are created equal. On occasion 3 boats will go into a cloud and come out scrambled in order and
location. These clouds have brought on some shifty winds, with Chessie Racing completing 25 sails changes in 24 hours.

    The cold conditions of the Southern Ocean are just a memory. Paul Cayard on EF Language reports 88 degrees Fahrenheit water temperature. No longer do concerns about heaters dominate. Fans are now the sailors friend.

    The warmth means sailors pack differently. On Chessie Racing the crew is traveling light, a couple extra shirts and a pair of shorts. They think
this is why already they can easily hit their target boatspeeds. Usually a heavily loaded Whitbread boat can't do this early in a leg.

    At this early juncture, positions are not terribly important. With the fleet constantly
undergoing NASCAR like caution flags caused by which side of a cloud you pick, things change with every schedule. From 1st (Silk Cut) to 9th (Swedish Match) is 53 miles. On an east west basis the spread is 30 miles with Swedish Match farthest east and Innovation Kvaerner farthest west.

    It is definitely worth a trip to the official Whitbread site (http://www.whitbread.org) to keep up with the developments

Congressional Cup- Holmberg Wins
Peter Holmberg, nominated skipper of the Team Caribbean America's Cup Challenge, made a statement by winning the Congressional Cup. Sailing talent won’t
be a deficency for Team Caribbean.

    He finished with a 14-4 record, 1 win better than Scott Dickson. Despite 2 head to head victories (by 22 seconds, and 59 seconds)Dickson could not pull off the overall win.

Complete standings are as follows:
    Peter Holmberg 14-4
    Scott Dickson 13-5
    Luc Pillot 11-7
    Markus Wieser 11-7
    Terry Hutchinson 10-8
    Neville Wittey 9-9
    Andy Green 9-9
    Magnus Holmberg 6-12
    Francesco de Angelis 6-12
    Andrei Nicholaev 1-17

To review the Congressional Cup race by race visit: http://www.lbyc.org/cup.html

Royal&Sun Alliance-Going Fast and Gaining
    The big cat is screaming through the Southern Ocean. Day 43 saw them complete a whopping 465 miles in 24 hours. This is fast, but the all time record is 540 miles by Laurent Bourgnon single-handed in a trimaran in 1994.

    The gap between RSA & Sport Elec the current record holder is now around 1 day. RSA's gains have been sponsored by some tremendous Southern Ocean breezes. The last week has seen RSA do at least 400 miles each day, with a top 24 hour period of 500 miles on Sunday. This speed fest has cranked the average speed for the circumnavigation up to 14.8 knots, gain of .7 knots in a week.

    To keep up with RSA's high speed chase visit http://www.rsachallenge.com

Star Bacardi Cup
    The 72nd Bacardi Cup was held March 8th to the 13th in Miami. The Bacardi Cup was formerly held in Cuba before Castro's takeover. A who's who of sailing
has won this regatta- Conner, Cayard, Melges et. al.

    The regatta was a close one with Olympic medalist Mark Reynolds taking the victory with a line of:4-6-1-2-(OCS)-2 for a total of 11 points after discarding the OCS. 2nd place went to Alexander Hagne with a score of 2-7-2-3-2-(26) for a total of 14 points. The final podium position went to Peter Vasella with finishes of: 8-5-4-(37)-4-7 for 28 points.

    Reynolds now has 6 Bacardi Cup victories ('84,'89,'90,'92,'97 &'98) tying him with Vince Brun ('81,'82,'85,'86,'87 & '96). Brun finished 6th this year and was the top Star Master( age 50 and over) sailor.

To see about the Bacardi Cup and the Star class in general visit: http://sailing.org/star/

Lightning Southern Circuit- At the Midpoint
    The annual Lightning southern circuit is underway. It consists of 3 regattas: Savannah Deep South (14&15 March), Miami Midwinter’s (17&18 March), &
St. Petersburg winter championship (20,21&22 March).

    The first regatta in Savannah is in the books. Greg Fischer many time one design champion took 1st place with finishes of: 5-2-4. 2nd was Tito Gonzalez with finishes of: 3-8-2 and 3rd was Thomas Starck finishing 1-6-10.

    The Miami Midwinter regatta has completed 3 of the 5 races. Tito Gonzalez is again doing well this time 1st after 3 races. Greg Fisher is 2nd, with Ched Proctor 3rd. 2 more races are scheduled for today to conclude the regatta.

    To stay current with the Lightning action visit: http://sailing.org/lightning/regattas98.html

Snipe - South Eastern Winter Circuit
    The Snipe, another traditional one design class, will see its winter series of regattas underway this weekend.

    There are 4 regattas to this series. First, is the Snipe Midwinter’s in Clearwater FL, March 22nd to March 24th. Next is the DonQ Rum Keg Regatta March 27th to March 29th in Miami. That is followed by the Bacardi Trophy April 2nd in Nassau, Bahamas. The final regatta is Dudley Gamblin Trophy April 3 and 4th also in Nassau.

    The skipper with the best score in these 4 regattas receives the Zimmerman trophy. It was donated by past Snipe Association commodore Carl Zimmerman.

    Look to GLSOL for results and commentary. For a daily and detailed coverage visit: www.snipe.org

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Great Lakes Sail Online March 18, 1998

Current Issue

Subscribe to Around the World of Sailing

Great Lakes Sail Online
March 18, 1998