The day before the Rolex Swan American Regatta in Newport, Rhode Island, and former champion Frank Savage (Stamford, Conn.) is sounding confident of success again aboard his immaculately prepared Swan 56 Lolita.

“I expect to win the overall trophy and my chances are very good as Lolita will be in excellent shape and I have an excellent crew,” said Savage, who has raced this biennial regatta five times and won the overall trophy in 2001. “I always keep Lolita in top form. In preparation for this regatta, she has been in the boat yard for almost three weeks for a bottom job and checking all of the rigging and winches.”

Lolita will be racing in Racing Class A, home of the big boats, with Clay Deutsch’s (Newport, R.I.) Swan 68 Chippewa being the largest in the regatta. Like Savage, Deutsch is a ‘work hard, play hard’ kind of owner, and he acknowledged Lolita’s status as the pre-event favorite. “Lolita’s crew is always competitive,” said Deutsch. “We see a lot of them on the race course, and we know that whenever we manage to beat them we’ve done something pretty special. Frank has a good team around him, and most of the crew has sailed with him for many years. Crew stability is a vital factor for performing well.”

The unknown quantity in the big boat division is Jim Swartz’s (Edgartown, Mass.) brand new Swan 601 Moneypenny, launched two weeks ago. Following on from the success of four Swan 601s racing around the Solent, in England, a month ago in the Rolex Swan European Regatta, Moneypenny’s participation in this regatta is being followed with eager anticipation on the North American racing scene. Volvo Ocean Race veteran Dee Smith will be calling tactics and the crew includes many America’s Cup veterans such as Kimo Worthington, Mike Toppa and Mark Strube. This gleaming new 60-footer could be the one to watch - certainly for line honors, but perhaps also for the ClubSwan award for the bets performance overall.

The Swan 44 Mk II class is well represented across two divisions, with some opting to compete in the spinnaker division of Racing Class B and others stowing the spinnaker to compete in Cruising Class D, numerically the biggest fleet in Newport this week. Perhaps the closest fought class will be Racing Class C, where nine Swan 45s will battle it out in the one-design competition. As usual, the Swan fleet is peppered with world-class talent, notably 2004 Olympic Gold Medallist Kevin Burnham, who is calling tactics for the Japanese Swan 45 Yasha, owned by Yukihiro Ishida.

Craig Speck’s (Boston, Mass.) Vim is arguably the favorite, as this well-prepared team returns to the regatta as defending champion from 2003. Speck is focused on doing the double, aiming to win the Swan 45 fleet as well as the overall trophy, although he acknowledges the difficulty of the task. “We are going to come back and try to win it again,” said Speck. “It will be tougher this time because we will have our own class, which means we won’t have other boats to work as blockers and the fleet is much closer during racing. Everyone has gotten a lot better and it is a stronger fleet.”

In total, a fleet of 39 Swan yachts have come from America, Asia and Europe to compete in the regatta, with a maximum of nine races scheduled to take place from July 25-29. Hosted by the New York Yacht Club (NYYC) and sponsored by Rolex, this is the 12th time that Swans will join together for a hotly contested series of racing on Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island Sound and the Atlantic Ocean.

Suppliers for the Rolex Swan American Regatta include the Bitter End Yacht Club, Graham Beck Winery, Inamar/ACE, OXYGEN, Peroni and Peters & May. As with every Swan regatta, the social program will be an integral part of the Rolex Swan American Regatta. ClubSwan, together with Rolex and the NYYC, has put together an action-packed program of entertainment throughout the week to include the Rolex Owners Dinner at the New York Yacht Club, Harbour Court and the Regatta Crew Party to be held at the Newport Regatta Club on Goat Island. The Final Prize giving will take place on July 29 at Harbour Court, when the overall winner of each class will be awarded a Rolex timepiece.

On Monday, July 25, the Rolex Swan American Regatta will be featured on ESPN’s “SportsCenter Across America,” a 50-state-in-50-days summer tour of the popular sports news program. SportsCenter Across America begins July 17 and continues for 50 straight days, highlighting a sporting event in a different state each day through September 4. The SportsCenter Across America will originate from a mobile SportsCenter set located within the Rolex Swan American Regatta Village at the Newport Shipyard. The segment will air on the 6pm, 11pm and 1am (EST) editions of SportsCenter.

2005 Rolex Swan American Regatta - Entries sorted by State
Preliminary as of July 24, 2005
Entries
NAME / CITY /YACHTNAME/ MODEL
Fernand Desgagnes/ Quebec City, AL/ Wind Dancer/ Swan 48
Robert Doris/ Belvedere, CA/ Marianna/ Swan 57RS
Peter Noonan/ Saratoga, CA/ Defiance/ Swan 56 C/R
Cliff Crowley/ Fairfield, CT/ Moondance/ Swan 44 MKII
Stephen De Voe/ Stamford, CT/ Devocean/ Swan 45
William Douglass/ Stamford, CT/ Goombay Smash/ Swan 45
Andrew Fisher/ Greenwich, CT/ Bandit/ Swan 45
Martin Jacobson,Leon Christianakis/ Greenwich, CT/ Crescendo/ Swan 44mk11
Thomas Little/ Westport, CT/ Dire Wolf/ Swan 44 MkII
Jeffrey Rabuffo/ Middletown, CT/ Xenophon/ Swan 44MKII
Frank Savage/ Stamford, CT/ Lolita/ Swan56 R/C
Gordon Ettie/ Coconut Grove, FL/ Sazerac/ Swan 40CB
Kay Statz/ Miami Beach, FL/ Port Call/ Swan 46 MK ICB
Roland Bathory/ Weston, MA/ Amanda/ Swan 53
Jon Desmond/ Concord, MA/ Affinity/ Swan 48
Neal Finnegan/ Cohasset, MA/ Clover III/ Swan 56 C/R
William Marsh/ Chatham, MA/ Ruse / Swan 44 Mark II
John Nugent/ Edgartown, MA/ Godspeed/ Swan
Jim Swartz/ Edgartown, MA/ Moneypenny/ Swan 601
Ronald O’Hanley/ Ipswich, MA/ Privateer/ Swan 48/2
Craig Speck/ Boston, MA/ VIM / Swan 45
Russell B. Hagen/ Minneapolis, MN/ Alerre/ Sloop CC
Mark Minkus/ Upper Saddle River, NJ/ Falcon/ Swan Cstm. 56
Massimo Ferragamo/ New York, NY/ Bellicosa/ Swan 45
Eugene Gold/ Kings Point, NY/ Grace/ Swan 53CB
James Reiher/ Quogue, NY/ Sky / Swan 53/28
Alexander Roepers/ NYC, NY/ Plenty/ Swan 45
Andrzej Rojek/ Brooklyn, NY/ Better Than…/ Swan 45
Henry Schmitt/ Huntington, NY/ Avocation/ Swan 48
William Kalis/ New York, NY/ Njord/ Swan 371
Joseph Huber/ Wynnewood, PA/ Reef Points/ Swan 44 mkII
Yukihiro Ishida/ Newport, RI/ Yasha/ Swan 45
Raymond Peterson/ Warren, RI/ Cygne/ Swan 46
John Wayt/ Jamestown, RI/ Vixen/ S&S Swan 44
Dick Weismann/ Newport, RI/ Vixen/ Swan
Clayton Deutsch/ Newport, RI/ Chippewa/ SWAN 68
Richard Evans/ San Antonio, TX/ Edelweiss/ Swan 38
Carel Paauwe/ Lunteren, NED/ Marie Blue/ Sawn 60
James Connelly/ Isle of Wight, UK/ Aqua Equinox/ Swan 56

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