The Onion Patch Series ended last Friday afternoon on Bermuda’s Great Sound with two six-leg races held in light breezes. The series, which is made up of two buoy races in Newport, Bermuda Race, and two more day races in Bermuda, was won by George David’s Nelson/Marek IMS 50 Idler, who squeaked by Tom Stark’s brand-new Swan 45 Rush by eight tenths of a point. The series also counted as the 2002 North American IMS Championship.
The team racing series for the Onion Patch was won by the Storm Trysail Club’s White Team made up of Bob Towse’s Blue Yankee, Jim Bishop’s J/44 Gold Digger and Orion a Taylor 41 owned by Don Patterson. In second was the New York YC’s Red team of Aura (Bill Kardash) Temptress (Richard Shulman and Kirk Cooper) and Idler (Tony Bessinger) clinched 2nd place from the Club’s Blue Team thanks in part to Idler‘s overall performance in the Bermuda Anniversary Regatta on Friday. Larry Dickie’s Nelson/Marek 47 Ptarmigan was the overall winner for the day. http://www.bermudarace.coma
World renowned superyacht builder Oceanfast, will build the 25 meter maxi yachts that will contest the Antarctica Cup, which starts in December 2004.
Austal is a Western Australian company, based just south of Fremantle, and has a state-of-the-art boat building facility that is ideally suited to the construction of up to fifteen of these Ron Holland designed maxi yachts in the time frame available.
The Antarctica Cup is a 14,500 nautical mile, non-stop, dash around the bottom of the planet, starting and finishing in Fremantle, and with a total of $6.4 million in prize money.
http://www.antarcticacup.com/
The Swedish Match Tour has announced its schedule of events for 2002/2003. With the addition of the UBS Challenge in Newport, RI, July 31 through August 4, the Swedish Match Tour grows from eight events to nine as it starts its fourth year.
As in years past, the Swedish Match Tours competition schedule begins with the eighth annual Trofeo Challenge Roberto Trombini Match Race, July 15 22, in Ravenna, Italy, on the shores of the Adriatic Sea.
From Ravenna, the Swedish Match Tour moves on to Newport, RI, for the UBS Challenge, July 31 August 4, which returns Americas Cup-style sailing to Newport for the first time since the Auld Mug left the United States nearly twenty years ago.
The Danish Open 2002, August 13 18, is the third stop of the year and features teams taking to the waters of Skovshoved Harbor – just north of Copenhagen and home of the KDY/SKS Match Race Center.
The Swedish Match Tour next returns to Bermuda, October 12 20, for the newly sponsored ADT Gold Cup. The ADT Gold Cup is raced in International One Designs (IODs) and features a 24 team knockout format as well as, for the first time, a womens competition.
At present, the Swedish Match Tour resumes its schedule in 2003 with the Steinlager Line 7 Cup in March. Event dates are still being finalized with the recognition that the event will be coordinated around the Americas Cup.
The Swedish Match Tour then makes its second visit to the Congressional Cup in Long Beach, CA, April 6 12, where defending champion Peter Holmberg will undoubtedly be on a quest for his fifth overall and third consecutive “Crimson Jacket” which is awarded to the winning skipper.
The Swedish Match Tour resumes in May with the ACI HT Cronet Cup, May 27 June 2, held in Split, Croatia, on the South Adriatic coast.
The eighth event on Swedish Match Tour 2002/3 is the Match Race Germany, June 5 9, held along the promenade of Langenargen at Lake Constance in southern Germany.
Swedish Match Tour 2002/3 concludes the first week of July with the Swedish Match Tour finale, the Swedish Match Cup, in Marstrand, Sweden.
The Swedish Match Tours next and final event of the 2001/2 season is the Swedish Match Cup in Marstrand, Sweden, July 17. http://www.swedishmatchtour.com.
Aldo Fozzati’s Swan 45 La Forza del Destino won the Giraglia Rolex Cup held June 17-22. The event is comprised of three buoy races and one distance race. The distance race–243 miles from St. Tropez-scoglio della Giraglia-Genoa from which the whole event takes its name–boasted a record number of participants: 185 boats set off from the small French port on June 20.
A wind of 4-5 knots and calm seas proved trying. The first to cross the line at 6:36am Saturday, June 22 was the Reichel-Pugh maxi Idea, owned by the Neapolitan businessman Raffaele Raiola, with Paolo Semeraro at the helm, followed a few hours later by My Song, and Riviera di Rimini.
The corrected time winner was La Forza del Destino_Second was _Calima, third was Bix-Dynameeting. http://sailing.org/Article_content.asp?ArticleID=2574
Rosina of Beaulieu, a Contessa 26 owned by Jeremy Rogers won the highly coveted Gold Roman Bowl, the top accolade for the Round the Island (Isle ofWight) Race 2002. The yacht, one of the smaller boats in the impressive 1,641-strong fleet, crossed the Round the Island Race finish line after 9h:15m:48.
Bear of Britain took the Vaphio Cup for the IRC Class One division in this
year’s Round the Island Race 2002, and for a while seemed to be the favorite to clinch the Gold Roman Bowl, hotly contested by yachts sailing under the IRC rating system. The student-crewed Farr 52 Bear of Britain, owned by Kit Hobday and Tim Louis, crossed the finish line at 5h:22m:53s. Rosina of Beaulieu beat Bear of Britain by a mere 17 seconds on handicap.
The 66th Round the Island Race got underway at 8:30 Saturday, June22, in a 12-13 knot southwesterly breeze off the Royal Yacht Squadron starting line, off Cowes, Isle of Wight. Rodney Pattisson’s course record, set in June 2001 aboard Francis Joyon’s trimaran, Dexia Eure et Loir had looked within reach at the race outset, but the day”s wind direction did not prove conducive to record-breaking.
Maiden II, Tracy Edward’s 110-foot maxi catamaran co-skippered by Brian Thompson and Helena Darvelid, took multihull line honors earlier today, finishing in 3h:21m18s, falling just 13 minutes short of the Round the Island Race course record. As first multihull to cross the finish line, Maiden II will collect the Freedom Challenge Bowl. http://www.roundtheisland.org.uk
The largest class racing in this year’s Block Island race Week was the J-105 Class, with 28 boats competing. After racing 8 races, Doug Esdorn’s Kinesem won over Carl Olson’s Morning Glory by a single point. Close racing was evident throughout the one design classes. Dr. Robert Salk’s Picante, Don Priestly’s Wet Paint and Sorenson’s Wet Leopard rounded out the top five with only 5 points.
After two days and four races Class A found itself in a three way tie with Tim Woodhouse’s custom Thompson 35 Rumours, Gino Bottino’s Tripp 43 Raven and Prebben Aras’s new Farr 395 Tsunami. Wednesday’s running of the around the Island race broke the tie with Tsunami coming on strong on the final leg to the finish. Sailing in a freshening breeze and a strong following tide Tsunami corrected over Rumours which finished fifth. Combined with Raven‘s fourth the tie was broken. Steve Garland’s Wired who started slowly on Monday’s racing came on strong with a first in Race 3 and now a 2nd in the Round Island Race.Tsunami went on to dominate the class with a 2-4-1-1-1-1-2, winning over Rumours (2nd) and Raven (3rd).
John Esposito’s J-29 Hustler win Class C over Sirprize, a well-sailed Sweden 38 owned by Bill Healy. Class D’s winner was Doug Davies’ J-27 Amethyst. Bob Johnstone’s J-120 Gannet won Class B with a 1-1-1-1-1-2-2. For full race reports and results, visit http://www.birw.net
The 2002 US SAILING Youth Sailing Championship, hosted by the San Diego YC, in San Diego, Calif., kicked off with a two day advanced racing clinic on Saturday. Competition begins today with over a hundred sailors under the age of 20 competing in Lasers, 420s, 470s and Europes. Spectators unable to attend may follow the competition on the first ever Youth Championship website (http://www.ussailing.org/youthchamp/).
