Grand Prix Sailor is a 13-year-old racing news publication of Sailing World Magazine (http://https://www.sailingworld.com/).READ WINS CONGRESSIONAL CUPWe note Ken Read’s win at the Congressional Cup over the weekend, although we worry about the lack of good recipes for crow, and the ecological effects of a sudden decrease in the crow population. After an early exit from the Louis Vuitton series, Read showed some of the world’s finest matchracers that Team Saucony will be a force to be reckoned with during this year’s Swedish Match Tour. After taking a hammering from the press and other worthies over his performance in the last America’s Cup Challenger Series, Read, ably assisted by Terry Hutchison, Moose McClintock, Jerry Kirby, Morgan Trubovich, and Andrew Scott-all members of the 2002 Stars and Stripes team-silenced critics with a strong comeback performance in the Congressional Cup, beating Gavin Brady 2-1 in the finals. “It’s fun to win a Swedish Match Tour event, especially after our experience at the Louis Vuitton Cup,” said Read. “We never lost confidence in ourselves even though there were a lot of doubters in our ability after the challenger series. Hopefully this sends a message that the Stars & Stripes team are a good bunch of sailors.” And like ever-hopeful Boston Red Sox fans, Read’s supporters and friends in Newport will once again allow themselves to dream about the return of a certain silver ewer that departed their waters 20 years ago this Summer. http://www.lbyc.orgUS SAILING TEAM CHOSENThe Olympic Sailing Committee (OSC) of US SAILING, national governing body for the sport, has named the members of its 2003 US Sailing Team. To recruit and develop athletes for upcoming Olympiads, the US Sailing Team annually distinguishes the top five sailors in each of the nine classes (11 divisions) chosen for Olympic competition. For 2004 those classes (divisions) are: Europe (women); Finn (men); 470 (men and women); Laser (open); Mistral (men and women); 49er, Star, Tornado (all open); and Yngling (women). The 2004 Olympic Regatta is scheduled for August 13-29, in Athens, Greece. Membership on the US Sailing Team identifies sailors as strong contenders for an Olympic berth and provides them with coaching, training opportunities and financial assistance in addition to national recognition. For a complete list of the sailors chosen, see: http://www.ussailing.org/pressreleases/2003/usst.htmSTRUBLE/OLIVER WIN ALTER CUPAfter an eventful week of racing in strong winds in Clearwater, Fla., Matt Struble and W.F. Oliver have been crowned U.S. Multihull Champions and awarded the Alter Cup Trophy. The event was sailed on Bimare Javelin 2s. Defending champion Struble dominated the event, winning all of his races, except for Race 16 when his boat was holed and one hull submerged. “This was another good year,” said Matt Struble. “I think downwind we had a clear advantage, and tactically upwind we sailed real well. The biggest advantage we had was I had had a fair amount of time on the boat.” www.ussailing.org/alter/.BBR REGATTA ACCEPTING ONLINE REGISTRATIONSwww.BuzzardsBayRegatta.com (http://www.buzzardsbayregatta.com), is now accepting on-line registrations for the Buzzards Bay Regatta (BBR) on August 1, 2 & 3, 2003, at Padanaram in South Dartmouth. The on-line registration provides a secured transaction through PayPal. Register on or before July 18th and avoid the $20.00 additional fee for registrations after that date. The registration for 420s, PHRF and Multihulls closes on Monday, July 28. The 420 class is limited to 110 boats, so register early. On-line registration for all other classes closes on Thursday, July 31.MUMM 30 WINS SYDNEY-MOOLOOLABA The Sydney-Mooloolaba is a 469-mile race up Australia’s East Coast and is the final race in the Cruising YC of Australia’s Bluewater Pointscore Series that began in July last year with the Sydney to Gold Coast Race and includes points from the Sydney Hobart Race.Anthony Paterson’s Mumm 30, Tow Truck, which left three quarters of the remaining 40-boat fleet in its wake on the first night of the 2003 race looks like the overall winner in the IRC fleet. While official results are hours away, the corrected time calculations suggest that Tow Truck has won by at least an hour over the Sydney 38 Cuckoo’s Nest [the overall IMS winner]. “We had the opportunity on the first night with a bunch of young dinghy sailors to see just how hard we could push the boat,” said crewmember Brett Philby. The conditions were just perfect for us, we had perfect angles, and five talented steerers.” Tow Truck and its crew will be escaping the impending Australian winter and heading to the Northern hemisphere for the Tour de France Voile, held this summer in France. http://bne449d.server-web.com/mooloolaba/default.asp?key=21AROUND ALONE RE-STARTLeg 5, the final leg of the 2002-2003Around Alone Race got underway on Sunday, bound for Newport, R.I., 4,000 miles away. The only boat missing from the line-up was Derek Hatfield on Spirit of Canada, who started his own race at 01:52 GMT this morning, rejoining Leg 4 in a race to complete Leg 4. Bermudian skipper Alan Paris on BTC Velocity won the start, immediately followed by Emma Richards on Pindar and Bruce Schwab on Ocean Planet. In a group at the committee boat end were Brad Van Liew on Tommy Hilfiger Freedom America, Bernard Stamm on Bobst Group – Armor Lux and Kojiro Shiarishi on Spirit of Yukoh, all a few seconds late, but sailing at full speed. The fleet headed downwind towards a turning mark four miles away with the leaders vying for first place. At first it was Dubois who steamed into the lead, but Stamm was not to be denied and at the mark it was the familiar sight of Bobst Group – Armor Lux at the front of the pack. Schwab on Ocean Planet showed blazing speed with his narrow Tom Wylie design and followed Stamm around the mark a mere half boat-length astern. Dubois on Solidaires was third at the mark. Brad Van Liew also found himself at the front of his class and was the first Class 2 boat to round the turning mark. At the first set of position reports, the top spots were held by Bobst Group – Armor Lux, Solidaires, and Pindar in Class 1, and Tommy Hilfiger Freedom America, Spirit of yukoh and Everest Horizontal in Class 2. The first boats are expected to arrive at the finish around May 1st 2003. http://www.aroundalone.com www.sail-world.comMELBOURNE -OSAKAAt 4 p.m. Japan time Monday, Maverick II, the overall and Open Racer leader was 14 miles south of Kii Suido, the passage between Awaji-Shima Island and mainland which is the entrance to Osaka Bay and is now only a little over 100 miles away from the finish. Having managed to sail 4,838 miles without mishap, all skipper Brian Petersen and crew John Bankart have to do is successfully navigate the heavily trafficked Osaka Bay, gateway to one of the busiest seaports in the world. To view fleet positions, which update hourly, see http://www.sail-world.com/osaka/index.cfm’SRSID=52FOR WOMEN ONLYBoatU.S. is sponsoring the annual Women’s Sailing Conference to be held June 7, 2003 at the Corinthian YC in Marblehead, Mass. Now in its second year, the women-only event allows female sailors of all levels to hone their skills though a series of workshops and on-the-water coaching–all led by women instructors.A National Women’s Sailing Association (NWSA) event, the highlight of this year’s Conference will be speaker Dawn Riley, the America’s Cup and round-the-world Whitbread racer, 1999 Rolex Yachtswoman of the Year, and CEO of America True, a non-profit foundation that introduces young people to the joys of sailing.Practical conference topics include diesel troubleshooting, weather, introduction to racing, basic sail trim, GPS and navigation. http://www.boatus.com/women/wsc.htmODYSSÉE D’ULYSSE Samuel Manuard, the designer and skipper of the Mini 6.50 prototype Tip Top Too has arrived first in Tunisia more than 7 hours before second place finisher Moulin Roty (Armel Tripon / Erwan Leroux),winning the first leg of the doublehanded race. Manuard finished at 0208:48 early Friday morning. Moulin Roty finished at 9h33:50, followed by Seafari (Pia L’Obry / Yannick Bestaven) at 10h33:20.Due to considerable damage to the fleet during the rough conditions on this passage, the race committee has extended the deadline for arrival to 0000h April 14, after which the late arrivals will receive a penalty of 120% of the time of the last competitor of its class. No information yet on a postponement of second leg, scheduled for noon on Tuesday April 15. The race started April 6 in Antibbes, the next leg takes the fleet back to Antibbes, via the strait of Bonifacio between Corsica and Sardinia.–David McCreary, Scuttlebutt EuropeEvent website-http://www.odyssedulysse.comJUST CAN”T GET ENOUGHAmerican solo sailor, Tim Kent, of Milwaukee, Wisc. has announced his intention to compete for the Open 50 monohull FICO-Lacoste World Championship title on his Jim Antrim-designed 50 Everest Horizontal. Kent is currently sailing the 5th and final leg of the Around Alone.The FICO-Lacoste World Championship for Open 50 monohulls is comprised of four races. The first is the 28,000-mile Around Alone race, which started on September 15th 2002 from New York. Kent is in second overall in Class 2. If Kent can manage a podium finish in the Around Alone, it would catapult him into a dominant position in the FICO-Lacoste rankings heading into the rest of the series. The second race in the championship is the inaugural Saguenay-St. Pierre-Vendee race, a crewed event for Open 50 boats, that begins on June 15 from Saguenay, Quebec, Canada. Competitors sail to the St. Pierre Islands off the coast of Canada, have a 48-hour layover and a round the buoys regatta, then head across the Atlantic to the finish in Les Sables D’Olonne, France.The third race, also a crewed event, is the Rolex Fastnet; a sprint race which leaves from Cowes, Isle of Wight, England at the end of Cowes Week Regatta on Aug. 10, and takes the fleet around Fastnet Rock in the Irish Sea and finishes in Plymouth, England. The final race is the doublehanded Transat Jacques Vabre, which starts in Le Havre, France this November. This event includes multihulls and monohulls racing through the Bay of Biscay in the North Atlantic, before crossing the Doldrums and the Equator, and finishing in Salvador, Brazil. http://www.everesthorizontal.com NOT TOO PAINFULChallenge Business has announced a brand-new event, the Blue Water Challenge, an around the world race that will follow a warm-water route. As with the Global Challenge–the company’s flagship event–a fleet of Challenge Business-owned 72-foot yachts will be crewed by one professional skipper and seventeen men and women, ages 21 to 60. Equally matched to provide a level playing field, these crews will be made up of people from a wide range of different nationalities and backgrounds willing to pay to secure a berth on the distance race.The fleet will leave from Southampton and undertake a preliminary race to Hamburg, then officially start in the autumn of 2006. From Germany the fleet will head down the Channel and out in to the Atlantic. After a stopover in the Caribbean, the fleet will pass through the Panama Canal before racing to Mexico. They’ll then race across the Pacific, via Hawaii to Hong Kong, Malaysia, Cape Town, Brazil, and the finish inSouthampton. http://www.challengebusiness.comA GOOD DAYFans of the late author Patrick O’Brian will want to get over to Mystic Seaport in Mystic Conn., on Sunday, May 4 for Patrick O’Brian and His World: A Celebration Symposium. This all-day affair will feature sessions such as: The World of Patrick O’Brian, Sailing Square Rigged Ships, The Natural World of Patrick O’Brian, and Espionage in the Napoleonic Era. For information, see http://www.mysticseaport.orgGrand Prix Sailor is compiled by the editors of Sailing World magazine. If you’d like to subscribe, see http://https://www.sailingworld.com/ Contributing Editors: Tony Bessinger (tony.bessinger@sailingworld.com), Dave Reed (dave.reed@sailingworld.com), Stuart Streuli (stuart.streuli@sailingworld.com), John Burnham (john.burnham@sailingworld.com)
