SAN FRANCISCO---The 18' Skiff International Regatta wasn't quite a changing of the guard---Howard Hamlin, 53, was the winning skipper for the third time in five years---but if runner-up Samuel (Shark) Kahn, 17, is the wave if the future, that's fine with Howie.
"It's great to see Shark doing so well," Hamlin said after wrapping up the title with first and second places Saturday. "Maybe it will draw other young kids into the class."
Kahn passed former winner John Winning, 54, for second place on the last day, and the Australian indicated that he, too, would welcome an influx of youth, although he will continue to campaign around the world "if the body's up to it."
Saturday saw the lightest winds of the five-day regatta---15 knots over the middle of the course and 19 at the leeward mark---but it was still a test of skills and equipment.
At the start of the day Winning's Yandoo was the only boat that hadn't flipped all week, but that distinction vanished midway of the second three-lap race around the 1 ½-mile windward leeward course. While attempting a jibe one of his crew accidentally knocked the tiller out of his hand and over Yandoo went. Winning read that incident as a signal to call it a regatta and head for the beach.
That left the race to Kahn, with Hamlin finding himself second in a race he didn't even have to sail.
"We were just trying to stay out of everybody's way [in fourth place]," Hamlin said, "and then we got a puff downwind and there we were."
Kahn fell back to third after finishing fourth in Saturday's first race, but recovered with a purpose to improve on his third place of last year.
"Second place is awesome," Kahn said. "The first race we were a little nervous and stressed. The second race we realized we had to sail really hard to put a boat between us [and Yandoo]. We were just kind of lucky. I didn't know what happened to John."
Hamlin ended the week winning five of the last seven races, and the victory sustained his spectacular roll sailing a variety of skiffs this summer. He already had won the European 18 Skiff title on Italy's Lake Garda, finished a close second in the 505 worlds in Great Britain and won the International 14 Nationals at Long Beach---all with different but exceptionally strong crews. This week it was Mike Martin of Newport Beach, Calif. and Trent Barnabas of Australia.
Next month Hamlin will compete in the I-14 Worlds in his hometown of Long Beach, Calif.
"This was a great series against Yandoo and Shark," he said. "It was really tight all the time and it was windy all week, which is what we live for."
The class leaves town for another year with its legend of camaraderie intact. As usual, there were no protests---is there ever?---and during the week even teams that had dropped out of races with broken boats were back down on the beach at Crissy Field helping more fortunate opponents carry their craft up through the sand onto the grass staging area.
Saturday morning Great Britain's Peter Barton and crew Martin Borrett returned the bowsprit and dagger board they had borrowed from rival Pegasus Racing's arsenal of equipment, not to mention the boat Hamlin loaned them but by week's end was too damaged to continue.
Hamlin won his two JJ Giltinan world championships in that boat but figures it's still repairable as a loaner, if it means putting another competitor on the water.
Barton plans to return.
"Sailing a skiff on San Francisco Bay is like hiking on the slopes of Mount Everest," he said. "Sailing upwind and downwind is achievable, but across the wind is the death zone. You can survive there momentarily but you can't live there."
Winning had a warning for potential new campaigners: "In many classes you can read a book and go out and do it. They've made sailing too easy. The difference makes this class special."
This is one of the class's three major events each year, along with the JJ Giltinan World Trophy Championship in Sydney and the European champion held last June on Lake Garda in Italy.
FINAL STANDINGS (10 races; two discards):
1. Pegasus White, Howard Hamlin/Mike Martin/Trent Barnabas, Long Beach, Calif., Newport Harbor YC, (2)-(3)-2-1-1-2-1-1-1-2, 11 points.
2. Pegasus Black, Samuel (Shark) Kahn/Cameron MacDonald/Paul Allen, Honolulu, Waikiki YC, 1-2-3-(5)-3-1-2-2-(4)-1, 15.
3. Yandoo, John Winning/Andrew Hay/'Geoff Bauchop, Sydney, Aust., Australian 18 Footers League, (3)-1-1-2-2-3-3-3-2-(DNF/8), 17.
4. DeLonghi, Grant Rollerson/Simon Nearn/Dan Wilsdon, Sydney, Australian 18 Footers League, (DNF/8)-(DNS/8)-4-3-4-DNF/8-5-6-3-3, 36.
5. Vodka Cruiser, Patrick Whitmarsh/Mark Breen/Ben Glass, Alameda, Calif., Monterey Peninsula YC, (DNF/8)-(DNS/8)-7-DNF/8-5-4-7-4-5-4, 44.
6. West Marine, Peter Barton/Martin Borrett/Ian Turnbull, United Kingdom, Royal Lymington YC, (DNF/8)-(DNS/8)-5-4-6-DNF/8-4-DNF/8-DNS/8-DNS/8, 51.
7. Skiff Sailing Foundation White, Chad Freitas/Dan Malpas/Matt Noble, San Francisco, St. Francis YC, (DNF/8)-4-6-(DNF/8)-7-DNF/8-6-5-DNF/8-DNF/8, 52.
Newport, R.I., USA (August 24, 2006) - In less than two weeks, Newport will become the stage for a battle that has been brewing around the world for the past nine years. Never before, have 40 Farr 40s assembled to contest the class's world title. That may all change September 6-9 when the 2006 Rolex Farr 40 World Championship takes place. Currently, Stagg Yachts, the class's management arm, is anticipating that 40 teams will take to the starting line - already the entry list stands at 37 with a handful of programs not yet committed.
One team that has been focused on Newport ever since their victory at the 2005 Worlds in Sydney, Australia is current world champion Richard Perini's Evolution, from Sydney. To win a second World Cup among what many call the toughest one-design fleet racing in the world, his Evolution team will need to focus on flawless boat handling and a little luck as Newport's fall weather conditions can be tricky to analyze.
"One of the things we've improved on our team is eliminating our condition-specific weakness," said Perini. "We used to do poorly in light air, but we're pretty comfortable now. We don't have a favorite condition, but given the choice we like more wind than less..we're quite comfortable in all conditions."
The fleet in Sydney was 28 boats strong and included many of the 2006 entries. The fleet in Newport may be tougher to compete in, not only because of its size, but for the fact that every boat has been training for this moment, selecting the very best amateur and professional crew members. Four teams that will be hard to beat include four World Champion teams: 2004/1998 world champion and Newport summer resident Jim Richardson on Barking Mad with tactician Terry Hutchinson of Emirates Team New Zealand and Morgan Trubovich of BMW Oracle Racing; 2003 world champion Massimo Mezzaroma and Antonio Sodo Migliori, (Rome, Italy) on Nerone with tactician Hamish Pepper, an Olympian and America's Cup tactician; 2002 world champion Steve Phillips (Arnold, Md.) on Le Renard with tactician Mark Reynolds, the two-time Olympic Gold Medalist; and 1999 world champion Ernesto Bertarelli (Switzerland) on Alinghi with tactician Brad Butterworth, three-time America's Cup winner and skipper of Team Alinghi, current holder of the America's Cup.
The team on Perini's Evolution also will be up against their countrymen aboard Matt Allen's Ichi Ban and Lang Walker's Kokomo, 7th and 14th, respectively, in 2005. "Matt has had some good results since he's been racing in Newport," said Perini of Ichi Ban's recent triumph in the 16-boat Farr 40 class at the New York Yacht Club Annual Regatta presented by Rolex. "He is the only thing we have as a bench mark for our team."
Another team Perini looks at as serious competition is Mascalzone Latino, the eponymous entry of Vincenzo Onorato. With tactician Russell Coutts, the three-time America's Cup champion and two-time ISAF Rolex World Sailor of the Year on the team, Onorato has a good chance of winning the Worlds, something he has attempted since joining the class in 2000. This year alone, Onorato has won the Rolex Farr 40 European Championship, the Sardinia Rolex Cup, Rolex Capri Sailing Week and Acura Key West Race Week. "Vincenzo has been doing really well, he beat us in the Rolex Trophy Series One Design in our other boat," said Perini of the Australian event lead up to the Rolex Sydney Hobart held over the Southern Hemisphere summer.
In addition to the World Cup, the winning skipper will be presented with a commemorative Rolex timepiece. The recently created Corinthian Trophy will be presented to the best performing team that declares itself in the Corinthian category. Basically, those teams have a maximum of two professional sailors on board and a reduced number of new sails in the calendar year. Corinthian Trophy competitors race with the rest of the fleet, and owners who register for the Corinthian trophy are also eligible for winning overall event prizes. Already, 10 teams - roughly one-third of the fleet - have registered their intention to compete for this trophy. The Service Academy Trophy will be awarded to the top military academy crew. Currently, there are two such teams entered from the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, Kings Point, N.Y.
Taking place on Rhode Island Sound, daily races will use the same course configuration - short windward-leeward courses lasting a little over one hour each - under the guidance of Principal Race Officer Peter "Luigi" Reggio with assistance from the New York Yacht Club's Race Committee. On Sept. 1-2, the Worlds fleet will participate in a tune-up regatta, the Belle Mer Farr 40 Pre-Worlds.
>From August 30 - September 9, all of the teams will be based at the Goat Island Marina, with Belle Mer serving as the event's Race Village and host of the Media Center. Social activities will take place at New York Yacht Club's Newport clubhouse Harbour Court, Belle Mer, and culminate at the Rolex Awards Party, held at the historic Gilded Age mansion Marble House on Bellevue Avenue.
The Rolex Farr 40 World Championship is in its ninth year and will celebrate its 10th anniversary in Copenhagen, Denmark in 2007. The World Championship has been sailed in North America, Europe or Australia every year since the class was established in 1997. The Rolex Farr 40 World Championship joins other prestigious Rolex-sponsored 2006 events including the Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup, Rolex Swan Cup, Rolex Big Boat Series and the Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race.
SAN FRANCISCO---Last year's top three finishers have returned to San Francisco Bay for the fifth windy, wet and wild 18' Skiff International Regatta Tuesday through Saturday.
Skippers of those three-man crews range in age from 2005 winner Howard Hamlin, 53, of Long Beach, Calif. and runner-up John Winning, 54, of Australia to Samuel (Shark) Kahn, 17, the latter a clear exception in the tightly knit class dominated by veterans.
This is one of the class's three major events each year, along with the JJ Giltinan World Trophy Championship in Sydney and the European champion held last June on Lake Garda in Italy. Hamlin, with crew Mike Martin and Trent Barnabas, dominated the latter event with first place in 8 of 11 races and didn't need to sail the next two. They were fifth in the Giltinan in February.
They'll be challenged by Winning, Kahn and four other entries, including a team from the United Kingdom's Royal Lymington Yacht Club led by Peter Burton, with Martin Borrett and Ian Turnbull as crew. Only Borrett has sailed here before, in International 14 regattas in 1989 and 1997.
"It's spectacular," he said. "We had a little taste of it [in practice] yesterday but it was only 15 knots."
Twenty-plus is likely and the reason why the 18s---in any breeze the fastest monohulls on the planet---have given up using their taller masts here.
"We don't need the big rig here," said Hamlin. "Everyone's used it once---and got smashed."
Martin said, "At Garda we used only the big rigs. At Sydney we use the big rigs about 5 out of 7 days."
Borrett said, "When we talked yesterday at breakfast I told Pete that we're tying the big rig to the trailer and it's not moving this week."
Nevertheless, they're here sailing 18s because, Borrett said, "we're addicted to speed."
The schedule calls for 10 races over five days starting at 1 p.m., twice around a 1 ½-mile windward-leeward course set for ideal spectator viewing from just inside the Golden Gate Bridge past the Crissy Field staging area and the host St. Francis Yacht Club. The exception will be a later start Friday followed by the annual Bridge to Bridge race when the 18s will mix it up with kite boards and windsurfers.
The British trio has borrowed Hamlin's extra boat but has been sailing 18s for three years. Barton, 38, won the European Grand Prix series in 2005 and finished fifth in the European Championships won by Hamlin's team this summer.
Hamlin and Martin also are on individual rolls. Sailing with other crew, Hamlin was second in the 505 Worlds last month and won the International 14 U.S. Nationals at Long Beach a week ago.
Martin won the 505 North Americans in 20-25 knots here last week with seven wins in 11 races.
ENTRIES (10 races, 2 discards):
DeLonghi, Grant Rollerson/Simon Nearn/Dan Wilsdon, Sydney, Australian 18 Footers League.
Pegasus Black, Samuel (Shark) Kahn/Cameron MacDonald/Paul Allen, Honolulu, Waikiki YC.
Pegasus White, Howard Hamlin/Mike Martin/Trent Barnabas, Long Beach, Calif., Newport Harbor YC.
Skiff Sailing Foundation Blue, Patrick Whitmarsh/Kevin Richards/Ben Glass, Alameda, Calif., Monterey Peninsula YC.
Skiff Sailing Foundation White, Chad Freitas/Dan Malpas/Matt Noble, San Francisco, St. Francis YC.
West Marine, Peter Barton/Martin Barrett/Ian Turnbull, United Kingdom, Royal Lymington YC.
Yandoo, John Winning/Andrew Hay/'Geoff Bauchop, Sydney, Aust., Australian 18 Footers League.
Milwaukee, Wis. (August 21, 2006) - It all came down to the final day of racing on Sunday at the U.S. Singlehanded Championship to determine this year's national champion at Milwaukee Yacht Club. At the start of Sunday's racing, Mitch Hall (Seminole, Fla.), the Interscholastic representative, and Michael Karas (Kirkland, Wash.) were locked in a battle for first place, with Karas in the lead by just two points. Nipping at their heels were Benjamin Richardson (Gloucester, Mass.) and Chris Branning (Sarasota, Fla.), the Intercollegiate representative. In the final race, the lead changed several times, but in the end, Mitch Hall's second place finish in that race earned him the National Championship title and US SAILING's George O'Day Trophy.
Hall, who will be starting his freshman year at the University of South Florida this fall, has been practicing with his new sailing team for the last month and credited that training to his victory.
Chris Branning gave Hall a run for his money, especially after Branning got two second place finishes in the first two races on the final day. In the final race, it looked like Branning was on his way to win the event, until he lost his lead on the final beat of the race and finally crossed the finish line in sixth place.
"I stuck my head in the compass but not out of the boat," said Branning after that final race. "Mitch is just so fast, you can't get near him." Branning finished the regatta in second place overall, three points behind Hall.
The event was once again sponsored by Vanguard Sailboats, which provided the Lasers, and Rolex Watch U.S.A., which has consistently recognized excellence in every important arena of competitive sailing dating to the 1958 America's Cup. Over the years, Vanguard's wide range of support has helped enhance the sport on many levels, from guiding a new sailor into their first Opti, to taking experienced sailors to world championships and beyond.
Top three (16 boats, 9 races):
1. Mitch Hall (Seminole, Fla.): 3, 6, 1, 7, 1, 4, 3, 1, 2: 28 points
2. Chris Branning (Sarasota, Fla.): 4, 4, 5, 1, 5, 6, 2, 2, 6: 31 points
3. Michael Karas (Kirkland, Wash.): 1, 5, 4, 2, 6, 2, 4, 5, 7: 36 points
The Hawaii State Representative for the 23rd District that includes the Ala Wai harbor in Waikiki has offered the first ray of hope that Transpac Row may be restored for the 44th race in 2007.
Anne Stevens told Latitude 38 Magazine that she expects F Dock where all finishers traditionally lined up side by side to be restored from its current condemned condition in time for the race.
"I can't guarantee it," Stevens was quoted, "but there shouldn't be any reason why the Transpac Row docks won't be in place for the end of next year's race."
For decades an aloha community atmosphere abounded when race boats occupied slips in order of their finishes, from the inner end of the channel to the outer end near the Hawaii Yacht Club.
When those deteriorating dock spaces were condemned by the state of Hawaii before the 2005 race, boats were scattered around the basin to tie up at the Hawaii and Waikiki Yacht Clubs and on a narrow temporary dock arranged by the latter.
LOS ANGELES—Roy E. Disney announced his retirement from sailboat racing at the awards dinner for the 2005 Transpacific Yacht Race a year ago, and now he has another bit of news: his comeback starts with the next Transpac in 2007.
With selection of the crew for his Morning Light documentary film project complete, Disney has confirmed rumors by declaring himself as the first unofficial entry for what will be his 16th Transpac. Now the youngest crew ever to sail the race will have as a counterpoint a 77-year-old skipper.
Disney will charter Pyewacket back from the Orange Coast College of Sailing & Seamanship. He donated the three-year-old maxZ86 to OCC after last year's race when Pyewacket finished 2 1/2 hours behind Hasso Plattner's maxZ86, Morning Glory, whose elapsed time of 6 days 16 hours 4 minutes 11 seconds broke Disney's record of 7:11:41:27 set in 1999 on an earlier Pyewacket.
"The biggest thing is that I really got deeply involved in Transpac again because of the Morning Light project," Disney said, "and the more I was around it the more nostalgic I got about me in the race, and all of sudden I found myself saying, 'We could probably rent that big boat back and do it again.' "
And maybe reclaim the record?"
"If the wind blows this time there's a really good chance we'll break that record," Disney said.
He will have the same basic crew, including Robbie Haines and navigator Stan Honey, both key figures in the Morning Light project. The only significant modification will be to refit the 18-foot-deep canting keel that was replaced by one only 12-feet deep so the boat could sail into Newport Bay, home of the OCC sailing school. Disney also has planned a thorough checkout with possible upgrades of electronic and mechanical systems, some new rigging and new sails.
Brad Avery, director of the OCC school, said, "It's good for us. There aren't too many people out there to whom we'd want to charter a boat like that. It requires an enormous effort. We couldn't afford to do that."
Last year in their Transpac debut the maxZ86s finished about two days ahead of the Transpac 52s. Morning Light is a Transpac 52.
"The good thing is that we'll be far enough ahead of the kids on Morning Light that we can be there at the dock to see the end of the movie," Disney said.
Pyewacket, whether it sailed or not, had already been declared the scratch boat for 2007 with a rating limit conforming to its configuration when it finished first in the 2004 Newport to Bermuda Race.
NEWPORT, RI, August 17, 2006 -- The home team from the New York Yacht Club defended the Morgan Trophy Keelboat Team Racing Championship against what participants described as the most talented keelboat team racing fleet ever assembled. This year's event, held on August 12-13 in Newport, RI using the NYYC's brand new fleet of Sonars, included almost all of the prior winners of the Morgan Trophy, nine former dinghy team racing world champions (including 5 of the members of the reigning world champions, team WHishbone) and too many former intercollegiate champions, college sailors of the year, all-Americans and Olympic aspirants to count.
Participating teams included Southern Yacht Club (coming off their victory at this spring's Jackson Cup), Yale Corinthian Yacht Club (led by America's Cup coach and sailing author Dave Perry and Yale University sailing coach Zach Leonard), perennial contender Larchmont Yacht Club, team WHIshbone (including current team racing world champion Ery Wadlow and her husband, Olympian Tim Wadlow) and last year's runners-up Seawanhaka Corinthian Yacht Club.
This year's event, raced three-on-three in Sonars with four people in each boat (most of the boats included co-ed teams) and using spinnakers, consisted of three complete round-robins of racing in very shifty and challenging 5-10 knot winds, but despite the challenging conditions the Race Committee (run by Bill Wagoner and his team from the NYYC) did a fantastic job keeping fair races running throughout the weekend.
The NYYC was able to jump out to an early lead with a 4-1 record in each of the first two round robins, and despite losing their last three races of the event, they emerged victorious (with a 10-5 record) over 2nd place Seawanhaka (9-6) and 3rd place WHishbone (8-7). In fact, just one win separated each place from the next at this event, which demonstrated the high level of parity existing at the top levels of keelboat team racing in the US today.
NYYC helmsman Rob Richards attributed their win to strong starts, lots of luck and masterful joke-telling by (some) members of the NYYC team (the Morgan Trophy features a tradition of joke-telling at the regatta dinner on Saturday night) resulting in the other teams laughing too hard to concentrate on Sunday morning.
The members of the NYYC Team included:
Joe Aleardi
Joe Bardenhier - Captain
Clay Bischoff
Senet Bischoff
Peter Flemming
Heather Gregg
Katie Lyndon
Ben Kinney
Rob Richards
Whit Rugg
Stu Saffer
Stan Schreyer
IMS World Champions from Europe / US boys became Star European Champions
The Bay of Lübeck in northern Germany provided mixed and challenging conditions for competitors in the IMS Offshore World Championship and the Star Class European Championship at Rolex Baltic Week held from the 6th to 13th August out of the Ancora Marina, Neustadt. Despite the wind all but disappearing towards the end of the week clear winners emerged in both championships to claim these prestigious titles.
In the 80 boat Star European fleet it was former Laser Olympic sailor Mark Mendelblatt and veteran crewman Mark Strube who dominated. The newly formed American duo scored an unprecedented three wins in the first three races. This was a consistent performance in the winds that were anything but out on the race course. Due to the light conditions on the final three days of the regatta only five races were sailed in total and Mendelblatt and Strube were able to discard a 17th place in race four to finish the regatta on 10 points, with a clear margin over Brazilian triple Laser Olympic medallist Robert Scheidt and Bruno Prada on 25 and Americans Andrew Horton and Brad Nichol on 27.
"It feels great, excellent," said Mendelblatt. "We haven't done anything abnormal. I was just tacking when the jib caves in... The boat felt good - we seemed to go well." Mendelblatt and Strube are now lining up for the Star World Championship to be held in San Francisco at the end of September.
Top European performers at the regatta were Italians Diego Negri and crew Luigi Viale, who finished fifth overall ahead of Austrians Hans Spitzauer/Christian Nehammer and the top German team of Matthias Miller/Manuel Voigt. "We had the opportunity to set up the boat for this weather - between 10 and 15 knots and we have been lucky to get it," said Negri, who like Mendelblatt is another Laser Olympic sailor who has turned to the two man keel boat only this year to campaign it for the Beijing Olympic Games in 2008. "Our new boat is very fast and the feeling is very good. The conditions were a bit tricky with the shifts, but experience of sailing the Laser helped me a lot to get ahead of the fleet in the first part of the beat and be able to sail on the shifts and being always ahead at the top mark and to keep the results until the end."
In the IMS Offshore World Championships it was Russian Sergey Shevtsov's team from Taganrog, on the Sea of Azov, who posted an equally formidable score line to the Star class winners. Their two year old Grand Soleil 42R Yugtranzit scored three wins out of seven races with their worst result being an eighth place in the 26 strong Division 1. With a score line adding up to just 19.13 Yugtranzit was clearly ahead of Swede Ralf Aspholm's second placed Sinergia 40 Data Communication on 54.50 with the German IMX-40 Moonshine of Matthias Müller von Blumencron third on 65.50.
"It is a very important win for us - it is the World Championship," commented Shevtsov, who now hopes to mount his own Star campaign for the Beijing Olympiad. "We have been preparing for this for a long period. This is the most important result we've had in this boat."
Al Girard, the American tactician on board Swede Carl Edward Jansen's 2 obnoxious praised the Russian team: "It is a good boat, but they also sailed smart. I was very impressed with how well they did in the inshore racing because they were generally in the right position tactically. So not only did they have a good boat, but they sailed smart, they are good sailors, they deserved the victory and they were sportsmen out there."
Culminating in five windward-leeward races, the championship started with two offshores the first of 30 miles, the second of 80 miles, however the race committee were protested over the position of the finishing boat at the end of the first of these and the race was annulled. However on the final afternoon of the regatta fresh evidence was presented and the race reinstated, causing pre-race favourite the Norwegian Grand Soleil 42S, Al Cap One skippered by Laser Olympic sailor Peer Moberg to drop down from second to fifth.
While the offshore races on courses zigzagging their way around the Bay of Lübeck were held in brisk winds piping up to 25 knots, the inshores were held in lighter and trickier shifting breeze that ultimately died altogether on the final day.
At a gala prize giving within the race village at Neustadt's Ancora Marina on Saturday night (12 August), the winners, including German Detlef Amlong who's Froschkönig won Division Two at the IMS Offshore World Championship, were awarded Rolex Submariner time pieces by Rolex Germany CEO, Peter Streit.
This year's event was the third ever Rolex Baltic Week. It is the sole Rolex-sponsored sailing regatta in Germany and the Baltic Sea.
Top eight final results - Rolex Baltic Week 2006
IMS Offshore World Championship Division 1
1. "Yugtranzit" (Sergey Shevtsov/Russia) 19.13 points
2. "Data Communication" (Ralf Aspholm/Sweden) 54.50
3. "Moonshine" (Matthias Müller von Blumencron/Germany) 65.50
4. "Imagine" (Peter Rudbäck/Sweden) 66.50
5. "Al Cap One" (Peer Moberg/Norway) 67.50
6. "Ocean Warrior" (Sverre Valeur/Norway) 68.00
7. "Hanseatic Lloyd" (Christian Plump/Germany) 77.75
8. "Transit Express" (Tetje Ancker/Germany) 79.50
Division 2
1. "Froschkönig" (Detlef Amlong/Germany) 33.00 points
2. "No Limits" (Sven and Lars Christensen/Germany) 39.00
3. "Patent3" (Jürgen Klinghardt/Germany) 46.50
4. "Cala Ventinove" (Uwe Wenzel/Germany) 52.25
5. "Chinook" (Johann Friedrichsen/Germany) 55.75
6. "Static Electric" (Heiko Päsler/Germany) 59.00
7. "Chaos Charante" (Thomas Nielsen/Germany) 71.75
8. "Rosetta from Rocks" (Radboud Maarten Crul/Netherlands) 73.75
Star European Championship
1. Mark Mendelblatt/Mark Strube (USA) 10.00
2. Robert Scheidt/Bruno Prada (Brazil) 25.00
3. Andrew Horton, Brad Nichol (USA) 27.00
4. Hamish Pepper/Carl Williams (New Zealand) 27.00
5. Diego Negri/Luigi Viale (Italy) 29.00
6. Xavier Rohart/Pascal Rambeau (France) 31.00
7. Hans Spitzauer/Christian Nehammer (Austria) 33
8. Matthias Miller/Manuel Voigt (Germany) 39
Portsmouth, R.I. (August 9, 2006) — Exactly two years before the 2008
Olympic Games, thirty-four top-ranked members of the US Sailing Team (USST) will get a taste of Olympic competition at The Good Luck Beijing - 2006 Qingdao International Regatta, held from August 18-31. Ranked a Grade 2 event by the International Sailing Federation (ISAF), the 2006 Qingdao International Regatta is expected to draw more than 466 sailors and 302 boats from 41 countries and regions.
The first of two annual Olympic Test Events, the regatta will be held at the Qingdao International Marina in Qingdao, a coastal city located 430 miles east of Beijing.
"This event is a phenomenal opportunity to visit the venue and continue to prepare for the 2008 Games," said US SAILING's Olympic Committee Chairman Dean Brenner, who will accompany the team to Qingdao. "It's also a great opportunity for our best athletes to gauge themselves against the best Olympic competition in the world."
The nine classes selected for the 2008 Olympic Games are: Finn (men); 470 (men and women); Laser (men); Laser Radial (women); Neil Pryde RS:X (men and women); 49er, Star, Tornado (all open); and Yngling (women).
The US Sailing Team members who will compete in the 2006 Qingdao
International Regatta are:
Finn (Heavyweight Dinghy):
• Zach Railey (Clearwater, Fla.)
• Darrell Peck (Gresham, Ore.)
470 Men (Men's Two Person Dinghy):
• Mikee Anderson-Mitterling (Coronado, Calif.) and David Hughes (San Diego,
Calif.)
• Stuart McNay (Boston, Mass.) and Graham Biehl (San Diego, Calif.)
470 Women (Women's Two Person Dinghy):
• Amanda Clark (Shelter Island, N.Y.) and Sarah Mergenthaler (Harvey
Cedars, N.J.)
• Evan Brown and Caroline Young (Tampa, Fla.)
49er (Skiff):
• Dalton Bergan (Seattle, Wash.) and Zachary Maxam (Coronado, Calif.)
Laser (Men's One Person Dinghy):
• Andrew Campbell (San Diego, Calif.)
• Brad Funk (Clearwater, Fla.)
Laser Radial (Women's One Person Dinghy):
• Anna Tunnicliffe (Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.)
• Paige Railey (Clearwater, Fla.)
RS:X Men (Men's Windsurfer):
• Benjamin Barger (St. Petersburg, Fla.)
• Seth Besse (Guilford, Conn.)
RS:X Women (Women's Windsurfer):
• Nancy Rios (Cocoa, Fla.)
• Farrah Hall (Annapolis, Md.)
Tornado (Multihull):
• John Lovell (New Orleans, La.) and Charlie Ogletree (Kemah, Tex.)
• Robert Daniel (Clearwater, Fla.) and Enrique Rodriguez (Key Largo, Fla.)
Star (Men's Keelboat):
• Andy Horton (Newport, R.I.) and Brad Nichol (Lake Sunapee, N.H..)
• George Szabo (San Diego, Calif.) and Eric Monroe (Corona Del Mar, Calif.)
Yngling (Women's Keelboat):
• Sally Barkow (Chenequa, Wis.), Carrie Howe (Grosse Pointe, Mich.) and Deb
Capozzi (Bayview, N.Y.)
• Carol Cronin (Jamestown, R.I.), Kim Couranz (Annapolis, Md.), and
Margaret Podlich (Annapolis, Md.)
Joining the team in China are: Olympic Director and Team Leader Katie Kelly; Olympic Sailing Committee Chairman Dean Brenner; High Performance Director and Head Coach Gary Bodie; Coaches Luther Carpenter, Jay Glaser, Skip Whyte, Mike Wolfs, Kaj Glinkiewicz and James Lyne; Boatwright Donovan Brennan; Medical Staff Shawn Hunt, Mark Kenna and Scott Weiss; Weather Forecaster Jennifer Lilly; and U.S.-China Liaison Dr. David Pan.
"Our athletes continue to work extremely hard toward the 2008 Games and they have the results to prove it," said Brenner. "I am eager to see our athletes add to their long list of strong performances in 2006."
US Sailing Team members are continuing to rise in the world ISAF rankings. Skipper George Szabo and crew Eric Monroe are ranked the number one Star team, while Paige Railey and Anna Tunnicliffe are ranked number one and two in the world, respectively, in the Laser Radial class.
The US Sailing Team has had an unprecedented number of athletes who have produced exceptional results in 2006, including podium finishes at the top three international regattas: US SAILING's Rolex Miami Olympic Classes Regatta (OCR) in Miami, Fla., Kiel Week in Kiel, Germany and the Holland Regatta in Medemblik, The Netherlands.
Just when conditions on the Bay of Lubeck seemed like they could get no more challenging for Rolex Baltic Week, so today large clouds passing overhead were responsible for reaping havoc on the race course.
Race six of the Star European Championship was started and then stopped at the gun as the wind shifted. It was then restarted once the wind appeared to have settled only to be cancelled again at the weather mark. Just before the 'return to port' horns were sounded as the Stars were clawing their way round, Norwegian unknowns Eivind Melleby and Lasse Kjus had been first to reach the top mark but their moment of glory was shortened when they were informed by the race committee that they had been over early at the start.
Meanwhile deeper into the bay, boats competing in Rolex Baltic Week's IMS Offshore World Championship had an early start. With four races scheduled they had to contend with the most testing conditions. The race committee just managed to run all four and among the larger boats in division one there were four different winners: Christian Plump's Evento 46 HLL Hanseatic Lloyd beat Sergey Shevtsov's strong Russian team Yugtranszit into second place in the first race but could manage no better than a mid-fleet finish in the second, while the Russian team from the Azov Sea scored their second win of the series. In the third race it was the turn of Carl Edward Jansen's Norwegian team on board 2 obnoxious finishing ahead of fellow countrymen Olympic Laser sailor Peer Moberg's team on board the Grand Soleil 42R Al Cap One, also second in the previous race. Another Norwegian yacht in the form of Jarle Kristiansen's X-Treme claimed line honours ahead of the Russians in the final race.
Volvo Ocean Race veteran Matt Humphreys, racing here on board Frans von der Heijden's Swedish Sinergia 40, earlier this year outright winner of the Gotland Rund and now second overall, described the day's conditions: "It was a hard day, really shifty. The saddest thing was in race three where we were leading on the water and then we got totally becalmed. We sat there for probably 40 minutes and then the fleet turned itself inside out."
In the following race they were becalmed for 10-15 minutes. "We were 4th or 5th at the top mark," said Humphries of that race. "And then we went down the right hand side picked up some breeze and came in under everyone and then 11-12 knots came in and brought the whole fleet down. So it was not a good day." Today their best result was fourth in race two.
Despite consistently mid-fleet results throughout the day the Dutch IMS champions on board Frans von der Heidjen's Sinergia 40 Daikin Airco were happy with their performance since they had nearly not made Rolex Baltic Week at all. "We did very well today considering our boat has only just been relaunched since we broke the rudder on the way over here from Holland," said main sheet trimmer Stjn Becker, who felt the performance of his team from Scheveningen had improved through the day despite the conditions.. "It was very hard sailing, very cloudy, so lots of shifts and big differences in wind strength. We ran out of wind, but everyone ran out of wind."
MIAMI, Fla – Premiere Racing announced a change for their Miami event today – shifting to a ‘Grand Prix’, single venue format for 2007. Professionally-run keelboat racing in the waters off Miami and the South Beach nightlife will continue to be a draw for racing sailors from across the country and around the world.
The grand prix Farr 40’s, a “headliner class” worldwide, has already committed to the 2007 Acura Miami Grand Prix. A second featured class will be the ‘big-boat’ IRC class with numerous programs having already expressed interest in the Miami event. Up to two additional classes will be allowed to compete. The Mumm 30 class, coming off of a November World Championship in Miami Beach, represents a potential third class.
In the two years since taking over SORC, Premiere Racing grew the event from a 58-boat single venue regatta to a 142-boat event featuring racing on both Biscayne Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. Acura Miami Race Week’s popularity and prestige rose quickly, and included the 2006 Rolex TP52 Global Championship last March.
The unusual 2005 hurricane season and the subsequent effects on fuel prices and boating in South Florida, are the driving forces in a business shift by the Miami Beach Marina. The official site can only commit to a limited number of transient slips. There simply will not be enough transient slips available in the area for a multi-division 80-90 boat ocean fleet in 2007. While discontinuing the event was considered, Acura and Premiere Racing both felt it was worth pursuing the Grand Prix approach for 2007 and then revisiting all alternatives for 2008 and beyond. One of the primary goals is to keep the regatta venue, dates, visibility, and potential intact while assessing future options. One significant factor will be the impact, or lack thereof, that the 2006 hurricane season might have on the marina and logistical infrastructure.
The “SORC Renaissance”, which established credibility following the successful 2005 and 2006 events, will continue. “We can appreciate the logistical challenges Premiere Racing is faced with in South Florida and are very excited that Acura and Premiere have decided to continue the SORC tradition next March,” said Farr 40 Class President Jim Richardson. “The Miami Beach venue is superb for our class and a big part of the Winter schedule for visiting overseas owners as well as the many North American owners who travel south and east for the winter season.”
“The legendary SORC played a meaningful role in our sport over the years and we would like nothing better than to continue to grow this event,” said Premiere Racing’s Peter Craig. “Despite the logistical challenges that have been presented, both Acura and Premiere Racing are committed to a top-tier 2007 regatta as we evaluate and pursue solutions going forward.”
“A Premiere Racing event has always meant the very highest quality - both on and off the water", said Farr 60 owner Dan Meyers. “Numbers will be doing both Key West and Miami next year because it represents some of the best IRC racing and race management we’ll see all year long.”
At the same time, recent one design class decisions have ruled out racing on Biscayne Bay for 2007. The Etchells class, representing half of the Biscayne Bay fleet, has changed their winter series dates and moved their Mid-Winter’s to within four days of Acura Miami Race Week, citing the 2007 Super Bowl in Miami as the reason for the schedule change.
The Southern Ocean Racing Conference – a Florida corporation known to racing sailors around the world as “SORC” – announced in April, 2004 that Premiere Racing would step in and produce the Miami event beginning in March 2005. The Marblehead, MA based company built their Key West regatta into the top annual keel boat event in North America and one of the elite race weeks on the international racing calendar.
“Peter has kept us apprised of the developing logistical issues since he took over back in 2004," said SORC spokesman Buck Gillette. "The reality is that there are only two options for 2007– discontinuing the event or changing the format at least for the short term. We’re very pleased that the legacy of SORC will continue as we collectively seek solutions to the issues at hand.”
Once again the weather failed to co-operate allowing no racing to be held on the final day of Rolex Baltic Week. While the two divisions competing in the IMS Offshore World Championship twice ventured out on to the water the wind never sustained and twice the boats were spent back to the marina at Neustadt. Fortunately the new IMS Offshore World Champion for Division 1 was already decided yesterday. Holding a lead of more than 30 points in the 26 strong fleet, even if two races were held today the title would still have gone to Russian Sergey Shevtsov and his team from Taganrog, on the Azov Sea and their Grand Soleil 42R Yugtranzit, who have sailed a superb regatta.
"The IMS Offshore World Championship was is very important for us," said a beaming Shevtsov. "It's a World Championship and we have been preparing this for a long period before. This is the most important result we've had in this boat."
However there was some controversy over the remainder of the results in the IMS Offshore World Championship. The Race Committee received several protests over the positioning of their boat to record the finish times at the end of the first part of the offshore race. While the offshore course was around 100 miles long, it was divided into two races, the first 30 miles long. At a protest it was deemed that the committee boat in situ at the end of the first offshore race had been wrongly positioned. So the first race was annulled, results from this race loped off competitors' scores. After a further hearing Saturday afternoon when it was decided the position of the committee boat was irrelevant, the first offshore race was reinstated.
While this had no effect on Yugtranzit it has caused Peer Moberg's Norwegian Grand Soleil 42R Al Cap One to drop back from second to fifth place and bumped Swede Ralk Aspholm's Data Communications team back up to second overall. Similarly Matthias Müller von Blumencron's IMX 40 Moonshine is now back on the third tier of the podium having previously dropped to a lowly eighth.
"We were very satisfied after the long distance race on the first day, we were in the third place," said Norwegian Sverre Valeur, skipper of the IMX 40 Ocean Warrior. "After the two races we fell down to 6th and we were very lucky on the first day and not so lucky after". Ocean Warrior was one of the few boats in the regatta not to feel the effects of the race reinstatement. "The conditions were frustrating. As long as the wind shifts are 20-40 degrees, it is hard to arrange for the race officers. They did a good job. Sometimes the conditions were a little on the edge. It is good they tried twice today - I am satisfied."
With no races sailed for yet another day, the Florida-based duo of Mark Mendelblatt and Mark Strube have won the Star European Championship with a score of just 10 points to the 25 of Brazilian three time Laser Olympic medallist Robert Scheidt and crewman Bruno Prada. Of the European entries it was Italian former Laser Olympic sailor Diego Negro and his crew Luigi Viale who came out on top and are the 2006 European Champions in this prestigious Olympic two man keel boat class.
"It feels great, excellent," said a jubilant Mendelblatt. "It has been a good European tour for us." "It was a long three days of waiting for the next race," added his towering crew, Strube. Thanks to the light and shifting or non-existent wind conditions on the Bay of Lübeck this week there has been no Star racing at Rolex Baltic Week for the last three days. With five races sailed there was some debate over whether this officially constituted an adequate number of races to be considered officially a European championship, however delving into the Star Class rule book, under rule 27.2 it states a championship of this calibre is considered invalid "if it not possible to complete four races". "We'll take it any way we can get it," summed up Mendelblatt.
The new Italian Star European Champion was elated by his win, having only moved into the class this year after a long tenure including two Olympic Games in the Laser. "It is my first time so high in the European results," he said. "Last year I was fourth at the Laser Europeans and many times I have been in the top five - but never on the podium. This time to not only get on the podium but to be in the highest place is very good." Negri and Viale are now off to Qingdao, China for the Olympic test event.
This year's event is the third ever Rolex Baltic Week. It is the only Rolex-sponsored sailing regatta in Germany and the Baltic Sea.
MARINA DEL REY, Calif.—Kyle Rogachenko, cool under pressure, became the first American to win the Laser Radial Youth Worlds Championships Saturday, while 15-year-old Claire Dennis in girls competition and Bill Petersen in the boys' Silver fleet completed an American sweep of the event.
Rogachenko, 18, of Collegeville, Pa. and Dennis of San Francisco led their classes entering the sixth and last day. Rogachenko paced the 70-boat boys' Gold fleet by 10 points and Dennis was the leader among 39 girls by eight points.
But with the second throwouts still to kick in, they had to hold off strong bids from their nearest contenders---Brazil's Guilherme Barbosa Lima in the boys and Spain's Susan Romero in the girls.
With 63 boats in the boy's Silver fleet, there were 172 competitors from 22 countries, all ages 15 to 18. About half were Americans who flocked to the first Youth Radial Worlds run in their country, in this case hosted by the California Yacht Club.
Winds were lighter than Rogachenko preferred at 8 to 9 knots through the afternoon, and he stumbled into trouble with 29th place in the first of Saturday's two races. Barbosa Lima finished 11th to seize the lead by eight points, with the second throwouts coming after the last race.
"I still had a drop left so I wasn't too worried," Rogachenko said. "It same down to whoever finished ahead of the other one in the last race."
Way ahead. It was the Brazilian's regatta to lose.
Barbosa Lima missed his starting slot at the pin end while Rogachenko won clear air in the middle of the long line, and that essentially settled it---the American eighth and the Brazilian 24th, now forced to count a 22nd place from the previous day that he had hoped to discard. Rogachenko won, 62-75.
Barbosa Lima returned to port, hauled his boat up the ramp, pulled off his plastic visor and slammed it on the foredeck.
"I screwed it up," he said. "I had a bad start when another sailor hit my boat, then the wind was better to the right but I had to go left with so many boats on top of me. I should have stayed closer to [Rogachenko]. Small mistakes made a big difference. He deserved it. I'm mad not because I lost but because I didn't sail as well as I can."
Rogachenko said, "I made sure I kept him covered until it didn't matter anymore."
Rogachenko was part of a five-person team of East Coast sailors coached by Brett Davis of Naples, Fla., who had expected "at least one top 10 finish," maybe better in brisk breeze, which was inconsistent.
The U.S. got three in the top 11---Rogachenko, plus Randy Hartranft, Bayville, N.J.; West Coast interloper Chris Barnard, Newport Beach, Calif. and Tedd Himler, Manhasset, N.Y., who were ninth through 11th.
Rogachenko, who finished eighth at last year’s Laser Radial Youth Worlds in Fortaleza, Brazil, said his plan was to "look for [wind] pressure because the shifts will come with the breeze."
Dennis didn't have to sail the last race, in which she cruised to 11th place, her only double-digit finish in 10 races. Even as Romero went 1-2, Dennis made it easy on herself by following Romero and Allie Blecher, 18, of Fullerton to a comfortable third place that clinched the title.
"I knew I just needed a fourth," she said. "I just wanted to get it over with. I wasn't too worried."
Dennis, who turned 15 only 33 days earlier, was the minimum age for the event. Also remarkable was that the previous week she competed in the women's championship and qualified for the upper Gold fleet, among the grown-ups.
"Last week I learned how to sail here," she said---which was: "I used a lot of vang" with the idea to keep the sail, as well as the boat, flat.
The Radial will be the women's new single-handed dinghy for the Olympics in China in 2008, but Dennis isn't really interested.
"I'm going to be a sophomore in high school," she said. "Maybe in 2012."
Romero, who will turn 16 next month, never quite got Dennis in her sights, even with 1-1-1 finishes in the last three races.
"She was too far ahead. I was thinking only about me. I like this place because it's a lot like my club at Cariana . . . the waves, the wind."
The Laser Radial Worlds were supported by sponsors Nestlé, producer of Arrowhead Water and PowerBar©; Vanguard Boats, Sailing World Magazine, Body Glove and the John B. and Nelly Llanos Kilroy Foundation. Their Web sites may be accessed through the logos in this release.
The 2006 edition of the Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup (3-9 September), organized since 1980 by the Yacht Club Costa Smeralda, will see 49 of the world's largest and fastest racing yachts competing in the waters off the Costa Smeralda. The event represents potentially the largest ever gathering of Maxi yachts and a fleet that if lined up end-to-end would total 1300 metres of pure sailing excellence.
This year's line-up smashes the 2005 record of 37 yachts and will once again bring the cream of the international sailing and business worlds to Porto Cervo. The competing yachts represent 15 nations and will range from 18 metres and upwards in length. The fleet will be divided into five divisions catering to the various design features and capabilities of the boats: Racing, Cruising, Mini-Maxi, W and Spirit of Tradition.
The Racing Division will host the most technologically advanced yachts and with sporting rivals such as Australian Bob Oatley's Wild Oats XI and New Zealander Neville Crichton's Alfa Romeo signed up, the competition is sure to be fierce.
Maxis that are more geared towards comfortable cruising than grand-prix racing will be grouped in the Cruising Division. Veteran competitors will include New York property developer Harry Macklowe's 34 metre Unfurled, Vittorio Moretti's 36 metre Viriella and the UK's J Class Velsheda. Hollywood producer Arne Glimcher's 37 metre Ghost will also be returning after taking second place in the Cruising A division last year.
The Mini Maxi division, a new class which has recently been introduced by the International Maxi Association to accommodate yachts from 18 to 23.9 metres racing under IMS/ORC rules, will be one of the larger divisions with 14 competitors expected to take part. IRC rated boats will also race in this division, but with separate scoring and prizes. This new division will include a taste of the Volvo Ocean Race, with this year's winner ABN AMRO ONE enrolled alongside fifth-placed Ericsson Racing Team.
The Spirit of Tradition division is often considered one of the most beautiful with veteran and reproduction yachts such as Holland's Annagine and US entrepreneur George Lindemann's majestic 55 metre-long Adela providing photographers and spectators with stunning images.
The W division will be competing under its own handicap system and will include Magic Carpet Squared, owned by L'Oreal Chairman Sir Lindsay Owen-Jones and Italian Telecom President Marco Tronchetti Provera's Kauris III.
"We are delighted to welcome such a spectacular fleet to the Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup 2006," commented YCCS Commodore Gianfranco Alberini, "The event embodies yacht racing at its very best and with an entry list of this standard and the world-class regatta course here, we are sure to see a week of intense competition."
Racing will be composed of a mixture of windward-leeward and coastal courses over five days, with a lay day scheduled for Thursday 7th September. Competition aside, organizers the Yacht Club Costa Smeralda along with title sponsor Rolex will provide the now customary array of top class social events ranging from exclusive gala dinners to lively crew parties on the Piazza Azzurra.
MARINA DEL REY, Calif.—Lijia Xu said, modestly, that her victory in the women's Laser Radial Worlds is not the first world sailing championship for a citizen of the Peoples Republic of China.
A girl much younger than her 19 years won back-to-back Optimist class titles at Qingdao, China in 2001 and Houston, Tex. in 2002. A girl named Lijia Xu.
But, she added, "Maybe it's the first in an Olympic class," which the Radial will be when Xu's career comes full circle to her native country for the 2008 Olympics.
This may not make her another Yao Ming back home---"Oh, he's the most famous athlete in China," she said of the NBA Houston Rockets' center---but her English is much better than his.
"I just learned it myself," she said, "watching American movies [and TV] like Prison Break and Desperate Housewives. It's a good way to learn English."
Xu was hardly desperate as she sailed into the last 2 of 12 races with a 12-point lead over Germany's Petra Niemann and 25 on Belgium's Evi Van Acker, this year's European champion. Mexico's Tania Elias Calles Wolf won the first race in 9 knots of fairly steady wind to score second overall. Xu finished fourth for a mathematical wrap-up and called it a regatta.
Niemann won the second race to finish second overall. It was her third victory of the week to match the performance by sixth-place Sarah Steyaert of France.
No. 2-ranked Anna Tunnicliffe, 23, of Florida, led the event at mid-week until she nosedived to sixth Thursday. She said before Friday's racing, "There are still two races to go and I'm already concentrating on turning on a better performance."
Sure enough, she bounced back with two third places to finish in fourth place as the top American.
Meanwhile, Xu sailed back to the host California Yacht Club, and Paige Railey didn't last that long.
The struggling 19-year-old star of the class from Florida---defending champion and No. 1 rank in the world---drew her third yellow flag of the week from on-water judges for violating Rule 42, which concerns three basic types of kinetics to propel the boat: pumping the sail, sculling the rudder and---appropriately, the way her week had gone---rocking the boat.
When she was yellow-flagged for the latter on the first upwind leg of the first race, giving her a sweep of Rule 42 for the week, she was compelled to drop out, a stunning end to what may have been the toughest week of her young career.
Technically, with the Big DSQ, she wound up last among 45 Gold class finalists with all of her results purged from the scoring. Altogether, including the Silver fleet won by Hanne Hansch of Germany, there were 89 women from 31 countries.
Xu felt for Railey. "She didn't have much luck this year," she said. "I have regarded her as my idol since I began to sail Radials. She is still the best, and there are still some good things I need to learn from here. I'm just a beginner."
Xu, a former Europe dinghy sailor, has been sailing Radials only eight months. At 75 centimeters (5-foot-9) and 68 kilos (150 pounds) she doesn't measure up to Yao but is about optimum size for a Radial in a range of conditions.
"But for the Olympics I may want to be lighter," she said, because she expects light wind at Qingdao.
Her plan for the week was not primarily to win but to improve her ability. "I was just trying to tell myself to have more stability to the boat, and trying to tell myself the only opponent is just myself," she said.
Railey never really got going. A second in the week's first race was her best finish, although she was in contention until the next-to-last day. The final blow was her third yellow flag, which she did not dispute.
"Moving her body," her mother, Ann Railey, said. "That's the way the judges saw it, [so] that's how it is."
There were only two third yellows waved in the regatta, the other directed at another American sailor, Brian Cottrel in the men's class. In all, there were 62 yellow flags, including 14 seconds.
Jury chairman Paul Withers of Great Britain was one of two judges on the boat that made Friday's call. He dismissed any notions that Railey was targeted because of her prominence---and, in fact, said he didn't know it was Railey until later.
"I know the name," Withers said. "I know she's a brilliant sailor, and I didn't know her sail number. My partner said, 'Oh, look at this one.' There was a boat to leeward of the others and the sailor was doing this [Withers leans back and forward repeatedly]. You could see the mast moving to windward in time with the body."
93 Star boats at the Europeans / 50 yachts at IMS Worlds
The world's sailing elite are gathering off Neustadt on the Baltic coast for the Monday, 7th August start of the IMS Worlds and the European Championships of the Olympic Star boat class. With an entry list featuring 93 Star boats and 50 IMS yachts, the third Rolex Baltic Week is lining up to be a highly competitive regatta week.
Thumbing through the three page long entry list for the open Star boat European Championship puts a satisfied smile on the face of Michael Ilgenstein of the organizing club, Norddeutscher Regatta Verein in Hamburg: "93 boats from 26 nations - that's quite a number, higher than at previous championships," he states. With 34 boats entered German boats comprise the biggest proportion of the Star fleet. "That's not much of a surprise, as alongside the Americans, we are the number one fleet worldwide," continues Ilgenstein, who also runs the Hamburg Star boat fleet, and will himself be racing with his crew Lutz Boguhn.
The Star class return for top level competition and the warm atmosphere of Rolex Baltic Week in this a special year. As Ilgenstein explains: "We are celebrating our fleet's 75th anniversary this year, and so we are very proud to hold the 2006 National Championships in Hamburg and the International Championships in Neustadt." This is the second time the Europeans have taken place on the Bay of Luebeck, since the championship was held here in 1989.
The Star boat Europeans, forming part of the Rolex Baltic Week, is studded with first class sailors. Apart from five time Olympic medallist Brazilian Torben Grael and British title holders Iain Percy and Steve Mitchell, none of the names in this elite and longest-standing of all Olympic classes is missing. Ilgenstein reckons ten teams capable of winning this year.
Among the favourites are three time Olympic Laser medallist, Robert Scheidt (Brazil), who switched over to the keelboat after winning Gold in Athens and the French World Champions Xavier Rohart/Pascal Rambeau. Then there are the America's Cup sailors - Italian Franceso Bruni, part of the afterguard of Luna Rossa Challenge, the New Zealand tactician Hamish Pepper, who has just won at Travemuende Week.
Polish two time Finn Olympic medallist, Mateusz Kusnierewicz, who has also made the transition in the Star, was second to Pepper at Travemuende this year with Dominik Zycki as crew. Then there is the ever strong American entries, Kiel Week winners Mark Mendelblatt/Mark Strube (USA) and George Szabo, who with Eric Monroe, is currently ranked no.1 in the world by the International Sailing Federation. Swede Freddie Loof winner of the class' World and European championship in 2004 also has podium potential having recently won the class' national championship in Sweden.
So what about the Germans? "Marc Pickel and Ingo Borkowski will certainly have a say in the fight for the title," Ilgenstein is sure. The boat builder from Kiel and the lawyer from Babelsberg returned to the Star for the Bacardi Cup off Florida earlier this year, only their second joint regatta since May 2004, and have since finished fourth at Kiel Week. Robert Stanjek and Frithjof Kleen from Rostock have meanwhile secured their qualification for the 2007 Worlds in Cascais, Portugal by coming fifth in Travemuende.
The first of the scheduled eight races for the Star Europeans will start on Monday.
The entry lists for the first IMS World Championships on the Bay of Luebeck are also impressive. 26 yachts from eight nations will be racing for the title in Division 1 for the bigger yachts, while 24 boats from six countries will compete in Division 2. A hot candidate for winning in Division 1 is the Norwegian Al Cap One of Einar Sissener (Oslo), who lost her IMS 600 World Championship title at last year's Rolex Baltic Week after a breach of the rules. Christian Plump from Bremen stands a good chance with his new Evento 46 Hanseatic Lloyd, while another favourite is the Grand Soleil 42 R Yugtranzit, of experienced Russian Olympic skipper Sergej Schevtsov, winner of this year's Kiel Week.
"The Neustadt Worlds are definitely the high point of the season for us," explains sailing the Russian team manager Serguei Kotsiouba. "We will do whatever we can to get to the top. A lot will depend on to the long-distance race which has a split scoring at a gate and at the finish," adds tactician Albert Schweizer.
MARINA DEL REY, Calif.—The men's and women's world championships have been determined for 2006, and now comes the next generation in the second phase of the Laser Radial Worlds to thrash out Youth honors.
There are 181 competitors ages 15 to 18. About one in five are girls, and half are Americans. They will sail 12 races from Monday through Saturday on the same tricky ocean waters of Santa Monica Bay that bewildered many of their elders last week.
Last year's winner, Blair McLay of New Zealand, cannot defend because he is now over the age limit, but four other young countrymen are here to carry on a Kiwi tradition that had produced three of the last eight Youth winners.
An American has never won, but the country has never hosted the Laser Radial Youth Worlds, so with 89 of the total entries the sheer weight of numbers could work in their favor.
The U.S. also will be represented by a five-person team backed by US Sailing, the national governing body of the sport, and Vanguard Sailboats, an official sponsor of the US Sailing Team and the regatta.
The five sailors on the US Laser Radial Youth World Team are Randy Hartranft, Bayville, N.J.; Tedd Himler, Manhasset, N.Y.; Kyle Rogachenko, Collegeville, Pa.; Ian Sutherland, Toms River, N.J., and Jerry Tullo, Staten Island, N.Y.
Coach Brett Davis of Naples, Fla., who has accompanied the sailors to California, said he expects at least one top 10 finish. Rogachenko, 18, finished eighth at last year’s Laser Radial Youth Worlds in Fortaleza, Brazil.
"We have a strong team," said Davis, who recently observed the international Laser contenders at the 2006 Volvo Youth Sailing ISAF World Championship in Weymouth, Great Britain. "I expect the competition to be challenging, compared to previous years.
"It will depend partially on the weather. If we have stronger winds, our sailors will be up there in the top five."
For what it's worth, last week's men's and women's competition featured a full range of wind from 5 to 17 knots, though tending toward the lower numbers with bedeviling shifts across the trapezoid course.
Like last week's women's format, the 181 boats will be divided and rotated daily for the first three days of six races to determine the championship Gold and secondary Silver fleets for the last six races, with scores carried over from the qualifying.
Portsmouth, R.I. (August 4, 2006) — A team of top youth sailors representing the United States will arrive in Los Angeles, California Saturday to compete in the 2006 Laser Radial World Championship. Almost 200 sailors will vie for the Youth World Champion title over six days of racing, beginning Monday, August 7. US SAILING, the national governing body of the sport, together with Vanguard Sailboats, an official sponsor of the US Sailing Team, will
send the American team to this event.
The five sailors who make up the US Laser Radial Youth World Team are: Randy Hartranft (Bayville, N.J.), Tedd Himler (Manhasset, N.Y.), Kyle Rogachenko (Collegeville, Pa.), Ian Sutherland (Toms River, N.J.) and Jerry Tullo (Staten Island, N.Y.).
Coach Brett Davis (Naples, Fla.), who will accompany the sailors to
California, said he expects at least one top-ten finish. Rogachenko, 18, finished eighth at last year's Laser Radial Youth World Championship in Fortaleza, Brazil.
"We have a strong team," said Davis, who recently observed the international Laser contenders at the 2006 Volvo Youth Sailing ISAF World Championship in Weymouth, Great Britain. "I expect the competition to be challenging, compared to previous years."
"It will depend partially on the weather," said Davis. "If we have stronger winds, our sailors will be up there in the top five."
Hosted by the California Yacht Club in Marina Del Rey, just outside Los Angeles, the Laser Radial World Championship consists of three world championships: Men, Women and Youth. The Men and Women Championships conclude today, and the Youth Championship begins Saturday, August 5.
As part of a nationwide program to support youth development for sailing, the US Radial Youth World Team was created by Vanguard and US SAILING to encourage young sailors to get more experience on the international race course. The five sailors will receive a grant to help off-set the expenses incurred while attending the World Championship. The sailors, who must be between the ages of 15 and 18, were selected based on their individual rankings on the Laser Radial Grand Prix in 2005.
Portsmouth, R.I. (August 4, 2006) - For many youth sailors from across the country, it all comes down to this: after months of training and competing in qualifying regattas, the best youth sailors in the country are getting a chance to win a National Championship title at US SAILING's Chubb U.S. Junior Championships, made up of the U.S. Junior Single-, Double- and Triplehanded Championships.
This month, the 90 competitors will follow in the footsteps of thousands of other sailors who have competed in any of these three events since the oldest, the U.S. Junior Triplehanded Championship, was first held in 1930. The Chubb U.S. Junior Championships kick off this weekend with the U.S. Junior Triplehanded Championship for the Sears Cup at Bayview Yacht Club in Detroit, Mich., August 5-9. Meanwhile, the U.S. Junior Singlehanded and Doublehanded Championships for the Bemis and Smythe Trophies, will be held together at Texas Corinthian Yacht Club in Kemah, TX, from August 8th through 13th.
Many familiar faces will be competing in the Chubb U.S. Junior Championships. One of them is Cam Cullman (Rye, N.Y.), winner of last year's U.S. Junior Singlehanded Championship. The 17-year-old sailor elected to compete in the event, sailed in the Laser Full Rig, even though he qualified for the US Laser Radial Youth World Team to compete in the Laser Radial Youth World Championship, held simultaneously in California. Cullman is still getting an excellent opportunity to prepare for the Championship: he's currently competing in the Laser Radial World Championship (for all ages).
Past champions are also returning in the triplehanded event: Fred Strammer (Nokomis, Fla.), who led his team to the title in 2004, is returning after not qualifying for the event last year. Evan Aras (Annapolis, Md.), who was on the last year's winning team of the triplehanded event, has made the move to the singlehanded Laser. In the doublehanded event, the title will be up for grabs, as previous winners aren't returning.
CLEVELAND - U.S. Coast Guard men and women, stationed around the world will celebrate the service's 216th Birthday on Friday, August 4, 2006.
"I am incredibly proud of our dedicated Coast Guard men and women," said Adm. Thad Allen, commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard. "As a multi-mission, maritime, military service, we continue to grow and evolve to help guarantee the maritime safety, security and stewardship of our oceans and waterways. Whether it's saving lives, supporting the global war on terrorism, preserving our maritime environment and its resources, or protecting our vital waters for trade and commerce, Coast Guard men and women perform their duties every day with relentless courage, commitment and ingenuity."
The U.S. Coast Guard, one of America's five Armed Services, was created in 1790 when the first U.S. Congress authorized the construction of a fleet of "revenue marine" cutters. It received its present name in 1915 when the revenue Cutter Service merged with the U.S. Life-Saving Service. The service expanded in size and responsibilities as the nation grew and today is responsible for many diverse missions.
The U.S. Coast Guard, one of the oldest organizations in the federal government, continues to protect the nation throughout its long history. Coast Guardsmen have served proudly in every one of the nation's conflicts including providing waterborne security in the ongoing actions in Iraq.
Maritime homeland defense remains one of the Coast Guard's most important functions and has a renewed emphasis since September 11, 2001. The men and women of the Ninth Coast Guard District remain ‘Always Ready' to guard those who work, live and play on the U.S. Great Lakes and protect the waters they enjoy.
The Ninth Coast Guard District employs more than 7,700 active duty, reserve, auxiliary, and civilian members. The Ninth District includes four (4) Sector Offices, four (4) Marine Safety Units, two (2) Air Stations, two (2) Air Facilities, nine (9) cutters, and 46 small boat Stations.
The Ninth Coast Guard District units are responsible for more than 1,500 miles of international border and 6,700 miles of U.S. shoreline, spanning eight states and all five Great Lakes.
MARINA DEL REY, Calif.—A 19-year-old girl was the favorite to win the Laser Radial Women's Worlds this week, but it won't be America's Paige Railey, the defending champion and No. 1-ranked competitor in the new Olympic class.
Instead, it appears the title is Lijia Xu's to lose. After an 11th-place finish followed by her first win of the week Thursday, the tall and slender lesser known teenager from Shanghai has a 12-point lead over Germany's Petra Niemann with two of 12 races remaining Friday. The other four top five contenders---Florida's No. 2-ranked Anna Tunnicliffe, France's Sarah Steyaert, Poland's three-time world champion Katarzyna Szotynska and France's Solenne Brain---all fell out of contention on a tricky day when going the wrong way cost a painful price.
Railey is in the rare territory of ninth overall, 47 points off the pace, after a 29th and a fourth.
With the second and last discard race now factored into the scoring, Xu could afford at least one bad race Friday, but she doesn't seem concerned.
"To win the world championship isn't my first goal," she said. "Making progress would mean more to getting to my goal."
The Olympics?
"That's everybody's goal. I just want to get the chance to represent my country in the Olympics."
Which, of course, will be in her country in 2008.
Xu has been best at solving the Chinese puzzle that is Santa Monica Bay. After a day and a half of mid-teens breeze, the wind went back to a light 5 ½ to 9 knots Thursday, and most of Xu's closest pursuers suffered in the shifts and lulls. She fought for 11th place in the first race but still extended her lead on the next three, as Niemann chased her all the way.
And when she overtook Australia's Krystal Weir, the 2004 world champion, to win the second race she all but put the title in the bank, as No. 2-ranked Anna Tunnicliffe of Florida suffered 33rd and 10 places---her worst day of the week by far---and Railey's hopes for a comeback all but vanished with a 29th, though she kept fighting to finish the second race with a fourth.
The best results of the day were posted by Belgium's No, 8-ranked Evi Van Acker with a 1-3, Niemann (2-5) and Mexico's Tania Elias Calles Wolf (6-2).
Van Acker, a 20-year-old chemistry student at the University of Amsterdam, said, "[The wind] was really [favored on the] right today. I wasn't sure of it, but it just felt right, and all of the other girls in the lead had gone to the left side [of the course]. I felt good today."
Calles Wolf said, "It was very shifty, and the breeze was up and down all the time."
Xu and Van Acker seem likely to meet again at Qingdao, and probably a few times before. Van Acker said that in Belgium "it's just me and a bunch of younger girls sailing Radials, and nobody else is running a full campaign."
Weir, 21, sailed her best race in a disappointing week to lead Xu in the second race until the second upwind leg.
"She caught me when I just didn't cover her well," Weir said.
"I've had a very up and down regatta. Yesterday I had a 20 and a 4 and today I had a 22 and a 2. The conditions are quite challenging and the starts are quite congested. If you don't get a good start and have to go through the fleet, it's tough."
But like most of her peers, she likes the boat switch.
"It was a good decision," she said. "The Europe was more technical and the same girls were always in the top 10. Now it's much more competitive."
Meanwhile, Railey and nine others in the women's Gold fleet, along with the women's Silver and the men's Radial Worlds, are tiptoeing with two yellow flag infractions involving Rule 42 kinetics---pumping the sail, sculling or rocking. Three means a boot from the regatta. In all, there have been 35 first yellows plus the 10 seconds.
Portsmouth, R.I. (August 4, 2006) - For many youth sailors from across the country, it all comes down to this: after months of training and competing in qualifying regattas, the best youth sailors in the country are getting a chance to win a National Championship title at US SAILING's Chubb U.S. Junior Championships, made up of the U.S. Junior Single-, Double- and Triplehanded Championships.
This month, the 90 competitors will follow in the footsteps of thousands of other sailors who have competed in any of these three events since the oldest, the U.S. Junior Triplehanded Championship, was first held in 1930. The Chubb U.S. Junior Championships kick off this weekend with the U.S. Junior Triplehanded Championship for the Sears Cup at Bayview Yacht Club in Detroit, Mich., August 5-9. Meanwhile, the U.S. Junior Singlehanded and Doublehanded Championships for the Bemis and Smythe Trophies, will be held together at Texas Corinthian Yacht Club in Kemah, TX, from August 8th through 13th.
Many familiar faces will be competing in the Chubb U.S. Junior Championships. One of them is Cam Cullman (Rye, N.Y.), winner of last year's U.S. Junior Singlehanded Championship. The 17-year-old sailor elected to compete in the event, sailed in the Laser Full Rig, even though he qualified for the US Laser Radial Youth World Team to compete in the Laser Radial Youth World Championship, held simultaneously in California. Cullman is still getting an excellent opportunity to prepare for the Championship: he's currently competing in the Laser Radial World Championship (for all ages).
Past champions are also returning in the triplehanded event: Fred Strammer (Nokomis, Fla.), who led his team to the title in 2004, is returning after not qualifying for the event last year. Evan Aras (Annapolis, Md.), who was on the last year's winning team of the triplehanded event, has made the move to the singlehanded Laser. In the doublehanded event, the title will be up for grabs, as previous winners aren't returning.
MARINA DEL REY, Calif.—Two days earlier Paige Railey, the defending champion who was struggling in the Laser Radial Women's Worlds, allowed that "I've got to step it up."
In light of the ill wind that blew her way Wednesday, that is now an understatement. Minutes after an encouraging fifth in the day's first race, she was compelled to withdraw from the second.
Her boat was OK; the only thing broken was her heart. She is in seventh place, 27 points behind the new leader, Lijia Xu of China.
Railey was yellow-flagged by an on-water judge for sculling---i.e., thrashing her tiller to and fro to gain propulsion---at the start. Because it was her second such violation of the week---the first drew only a double penalty turn---she had to drop out and take a last-place score or lose the option of using the race as a discard at the end of the six championship round races through Friday. She returned to the California Yacht Club launch ramp under tow by her coach, reportedly in tears.
Railey, ranked No. 1 in the world in the women's new Olympic class, started the championship round in 11th place in the 45-boat Gold fleet, which became the elite group after the first 6 of 12 races comprising the qualifying series. The other 44 boats are now sailing for Silver honors.
Railey, 19, of Florida, actually was fifth before the first discard kicked in after Tuesday's races (an adjustment in the standings completed after the evening's press release) but her worst discard was a 12th, while France's Solenne Brain temporarily moved into first place by dropping a 21st and Xu skyrocketed into third by tossing a 33rd.
Xu is thriving with a string of 2-3-3 finishes in the big winds that blessed the last three races. After hitting 16 knots late Tuesday, the breeze started at 15 Wednesday and built to 17, with seas of 3 to 4 feet that tossed the little boats like corks.
And Xu (pronounced zoo) is learning to love it.
As she prepared to launch her boat Wednesday morning, she noted that she didn't particularly like strong wind but said, "No matter what the wind is, I think I can beat it."
After posting a pair of thirds, she said, modestly, "I'm happy that I have made some progress. Before, I'm not good in strong wind at all, especially upwind. We used to sail a Europe [dinghy] and it was much easier compared to Laser boats."
Xu, 19, lives in Shanghai. Ironically, her newfound skills may not help her in the 2008 Olympics at Qingdao.
"The wind is very light, the current is strong, and the worst thing is the heavy fog," she said. "It will take lots of patience."
The Gold winners Wednesday were Tania Elias Calles Wolf of Mexico City and Sari Multala of Finland, who stand ninth and 13th. Calles Wolf's problem was that she followed her wire-to-wire win with a 28th, which is now her discard.
"I just had a great start in the first race and kept it going," she said, holding an ice bag on her left shoulder. "But I'm breaking down. I hurt my shoulder and my knee [before the event] and they're still very sore."
Asked about her prospects of representing Mexico in the Olympics, she said, "That's an easy one. I'm the only one"---meaning, the only Mexican sailor with Olympic aspirations. "The issue is to qualify the country."
Like many of these competitors, she switched from a Europe, which she sailed to 17th place at Sydney in 2000 and 12th place at Athens in 2004.
"The Laser Radial is more demanding than the Europe and there is more competition, so it’s great," she said.
The Laser Radial Worlds are supported by sponsors Nestlé, producer of Arrowhead Water and PowerBar©; Vanguard Boats, Sailing World Magazine, Body Glove and the John B. and Nelly Llanos Kilroy Foundation. Their Web sites may be accessed through the logos in this release.
The fifth biennial New York Yacht Club Race Week at Newport presented by Rolex hosted 168 boats over nine straight days with a variety of competitive sailing choices. The event's unique split-racing format makes it a popular draw, allowing sailors to customize their competitive experience in three different formats: handicap racing, one design racing and optional distance racing held on an mid-week day. The handicap racing session in the first half of the week (July 15-18) hosted 66 boats in three IRC and three PHRF classes as well as in separate classes for Classics and 12 Meters. In the second session (July 20-23) for one-design racing, 102 boats competed in seven classes with major championships determined in the Beneteau First 36.7, Farr 395, Farr 40 and the J/109 classes (North American Championships) and the Melges 32 class (National Championship).
During the week, five competitors were rewarded for outstanding accomplishments with the ultimate prize, a Rolex Steel Submariner timepiece: Andrew Fisher (Greenwich, Conn.) in the IRC division, Tom Rich (Middletown, R.I.) in the PHRF division, Takashi Okura (Tokyo, Japan) in the Farr 40 class; Tom D'Albora (E. Greenwich, R.I.) in the Beneteau 36.7 class; and Jon Halbert (Dallas, Texas) in the J/109 class.
Winning six of 11 races in IRC Class 2 and IRC division overall was Andrew Fisher, skippering his Swan 45 Bandit. His nearest competitor was second-place finisher Blair Brown (Newton, Mass.), sailing his Taylor 45 Sforzando. "Early in the week there were a couple of other boats we were concerned about rating-wise, but Sforzando ended up being the most competitively sailed boat relative to us," said Fisher. "It was good handicap racing," he added, explaining that the two boat's IRC ratings were so close that in the final race, Bandit corrected out at only 4 seconds faster over the finish line than Sforzando."
Posting 11 points - the lowest possible score over 11 races - was Tom Rich aboard his Peterson 42 Settler. He earned one point for every race he won, leaving nine others in his PHRF Class 5 behind him. That performance also earned him a Rolex timepiece for best overall performance in PHRF. "We won the starts and then we were gone," said Rich. "No one ever passed us except once in the first race. We didn't blow a tack or mess up a spinnaker set - we made no mistakes, and we were always in clear air." For Rich, it was not just about flawless crew work. It was about family, too. Among his all-Rhode Island crew were his two daughters, two nephews, a cousin and his wife.
Although Takashi Okura's boat Sled posted impressive finishes in nine races over four days, achieving a win in this competitive class - where every boat is training for the upcoming Rolex Farr 40 World Championship, to be hosted by the New York Yacht Club September 6-9 - was quite difficult. "We started racing in the Farr 40 class at the 2000 Key West Race Week and there were 27 boats there," he said. "I was 27th every day, every race. At the bottom for the whole week! Since then we have been trying to improve every time we race. Sometimes, it can be challenging with five Japanese and five Americans on the boat. But, we have been sailing together for a very long time and we are comfortable with each other.
"Winning this is fabulous," said Okura, who is a member of the Kansai Yacht Club in Osaka Bay. "It is a great team to sail with on the boat. I have been sailing with Tony Rey since 2001, and I am comfortable sailing with him. Chuck Brown (Newport, R.I.) trims our main sail; he was a trimmer for Stars & Stripes and he does very well."
Also crediting his crew of many years was Tom D'Albora, who with his Coconut team won the Beneteau 36.7 class. "Most of us have been sailing together for the past 15 years," he said. "We had the best time. Clearly when you're winning it's great. We're all pretty excited." The class win gave D'Albora the class's North American Championship title. "It's funny I didn't know we'd also win a Rolex," he said. "We all joked around a bit about it, and when they read our names at the awards ceremony, we looked at each other. There were a lot of great boats out there and a lot of great sailors. Winning the Rolex sweetened the deal for us."
The newly named Farr 395 North American Champion Roger Wagner (Upper Saddle River, N.J.) echoed the theme of the week: consistency. "The crew was working like a team," he said. "The sail changes, the spinnaker jibes were all really good." The Endurance team's not-so-secret tactical weapon was three-time Olympian Peter Bromby from Bermuda. "No question having Peter trimming the main sail and calling tactics helped us," he said. "He's a Star champion and delightful to have on board." Second-place went to Tsunami, the 2005 Farr 395 North American champion that is owned by three friends from Maryland: Preben Ostberg, Bud Daily and John Aras.
In the J/109 class, John Halbert's Vitesse (Dallas, Texas) won the class and its inaugural North American Championship. Vitesse's win in the final race of the series, combined with Gut Feeling, owned by Ted Herlihy (S. Dartmouth, Mass.), being disqualified from the final race added enough points to Halbert's scoreline to give him the win and Herlihy third place. Relentless, owned by Al Minella (Greenwich, Conn.) was second.
Another inaugural championship was the Melges 32 National Championship. It was won by Jeff Ecklund (Fort Lauderdale, Fla.) with crew Harry Melges, III, Hans Melges, Bill Wiggins, Jim Condon, Andy Labanauskas and Bill Chamberlain on Star. "It's great being the first Melges 32 national champion," he said. "So far this is the largest turnout for a regatta. This was the first time that all of these boats have sailed against each other. The class is great and it's a growing class full of really good sailors. Our whole crew is happy and relieved because we've been duking it out against New Wave all week and they've beaten us before." New Wave, owned by Mike Carroll and Marty Kullman (Clearwater, Fla.) finished in second place.
Holding onto his lead for most of the week in the Swan 45 class was Massimo Ferragamo (New York, N.Y.) and Bellicosa. Posting a total score of 26 points, Ferragamo narrowly edged out Andrew Fisher (Greenwich, Conn.) and Bandit, with 28 points.
Tom Coates on Masquerade left few surprised by leading the J/105 class all week and winning Race Week for the second time. With a 3-1 on the final day, he ended with 18 points over second-place Indefatigable, owned by Phil Lotz (New Canaan, Conn.) with 30 points. "It really went our way," said Coates, who keeps two J/105s: one on the East Coast and one in San Francisco. "The scores aren't really indicative of how tough it was out there, how rough it was sailing, and how really competitive the fleet was. We had a flawless sailing week where things went our way, and when we were on the right side of the course it was because of Chris (Perkins)." Coates will compete in the J/105 North American Championship in California next month, and then in the Rolex Big Boat Series, in September in San Francisco.
Greg Albrecht's (Sea Cliff, N.Y) 11-race scoreline earned him victory in PHRF Class 3. He led the class all week with his Farr 395 Avalanche. Others who led from day one were Four Stars, Timothy McAdams' (Brewster, Mass.) Beneteau 44.7, which won IRC Class 4; Freight Train, Dick Hyde's (Belmont, Mass.) Frers 36 in PHRF Class 6; Stark Raving Mad, the Reichel/Pugh 66 skippered by Jim Madden (Newport Harbor, Calif.) in IRC Class 1; and Wright on White, the 12 Meter owned by Roger Right (Rio de Janeiro, BRA), which won the 12-Meter class overall and in Grand Prix division.
MARINA DEL REY, Calif.—There were two big winners Monday in the women's corner of the 2006 Laser Radial World Championships, and they came from different worlds.
Jo Aleh, 20, of New Zealand, a near novice at this level despite her No. 6 ranking, won both races in the Blue fleet while three-time world champion Katarzyna Szotynska, 26, of Poland may have launched her career comeback with a 1-2 in the Yellow fleet. With eight of 12 races still remaining through Friday, Szotynska is now in third place, while Aleh jumped from 21st to eighth.
Anna Tunnicliffe, the class's No. 2-ranked competitor from Florida, sailed a quiet 3-7 day that was enough to break out of a first-place tie into a one-point lead over France's
Solenne Brain (No. 16), who was 2-3 on the day.
No. 1-ranked and defending champion Paige Railey, 19, of Florida sailed a 10th and a ninth Monday---not yet dominant but good enough to keep her solidly among the leaders.
Brazil's Fabio Pillar moved into the men's lead by winning the last race as first-day leader Steven Krol of The Netherlands suffered 20th and 15th places.
To ease congestion, the 89 women entrants are being divided into Blue and Yellow fleets with separate starts for the first three days of qualifying races, with the fleets shuffled daily to balance the competition. Then, according to the standings, the top half will advance into the last six races over the last three days as the Gold fleet, going for the world title. The lower half becomes the Silver fleet. Both will carry over their qualifying results.
Winds were a painfully light 6-8 knots, even lighter than opening day Sunday, but Aleh and Katarzyna had the magic touch on their tillers.
Szotynska, who answers to the nickname "Schotka," dominated the women's Laser Radials with successive global titles from 2001 to 2003 before it was declared an Olympic class beginning with the competition at Qingdao, China in 2008. She came into this event ranked a modest 15th.
"It wasn't as competitive then as it is now," she said. "There were only 50 girls in the fleet. Before I was good sailing in heavy wind, but now I'm better when it's light. I'm much better than I used to be. I knew I'd have to get better if I wanted to go to the Olympics."
By contrast, Aleh said, "I'm just starting international sailing. I was second in the Youth Worlds two years ago."
She also was ninth and 21st in two previous Worlds before and after the class's Olympic leap.
So how did she solve the fluky nuances of Santa Monica Bay Monday?
"I didn't have a strategy," she said. "I was just sailing, getting the shifts and the pressure. It changes every beat."
And, of course, all eyes are on Railey.
"It's pretty tricky out there," she said. "The wind fills in but sometimes at the wrong time in the wrong place. It changes very upwind leg. You think you have it figured out and then you don't.
"So far I've been conservative . . . just gotta get my scores better, maybe sail a bit more aggressively. I've got to step it up."