Charleston, SC (13 April, 2007) - Friday’s dawn brought an unexpected gift for the eight offshore classes that sailed on two courses outside of Charleston Harbor today. Despite dire predictions of calms, a ten-knot Northeasterly provided plenty of breeze for all offshore classes to start on time, with close tactical racing in most of the fleets. The breeze didn’t make it into the harbor, leaving the Melges 24, J/80, J/24 and PHRF G class with some time to kill. Most of them didn’t mind too much, since there were bottlenose dolphins to entertain the inshore fleet.

Meanwhile, the scratch boat in the A fleet showed what a truly modern race boat is capable of. The TP52 Decision beat the fleet by over 15 minutes, getting her only bullet of the day, while two Melges 32’s match-raced their way around the course, finishing within seconds of one another. According to Dan Dickison, crewing on Melges 32 Vamoose, the racing between the two boats was more than just close. “I think the total elapsed time difference for all three races between us and roXanne was probably 70 seconds.” That was enough for the North Carolina-based roXanne to take the lead of this tough class, despite her and Vamoose being the shortest boat in the class.

It’s no secret that super light sport boats are fast in these kind of light conditions, so it was a bit of a surprise to see the not-quite-sport boat Beneteau 10R NKE prevail over some of the more powered-up boats in the class, like the SR33 As If, which sits in second. It shouldn’t be such a surprise given NKE helmsman Don Finkle has had so much success in Beneteau classes, and Don won at least one race by only one second on corrected time. When the breeze gets up, these speedsters should be a lot of fun to watch.

The U.S. representative team for the Pan-Am games aboard J/24 Jesus Lizard rafted up with some of their hometown friends while the fleet milled around in light, extremely shifty conditions. The expected southerly didn’t show up until after 1 p.m., and the Race Committee made the most of it, banging off three races in quick succession. The course location stretches over shoals and channels, and local knowledge proved the key, with Josh Putnam picking the right current lines and eddies to power Jesus Lizard to a strong lead in the J/24 class, despite an I-flag OCS that made the third race a tough one.

The locals did their thing in the Melges class as well, despite some serious out-of-town talent competing. Ned Goss, tactician aboard Reggie Fairchild’s Wireless, pointed their boat to a 4,2,1 scoreline, “We just played the current as much as we possibly could, and it worked for us.” Three out of the top four Melges 24’s are from Charleston, and their advantage is obvious, at least in the light winds that dominated today. Olympic medalist and former Soling World Champion Jeff Madrigali, crewing with Team Gill, said, “We’re happy with our improvement today [10,6,3] as we’re learning to sail with each other for the first time as we build up to the Santa Cruz Melges Worlds next month. The current in the harbor is tough, but we’re having a great time and we’re looking forward to more breeze tomorrow.”

Share or bookmark this story: