Team Foreign Affair...Richard Perini's Mumm 30 on the winning trail again

by Richard Perini on 1 Jun 2002 With a decisive win at Key West and solid performances in the other two events in the US Mumm 30 Winter series, the Lewmar Cup and Accura SORC Foreign Affair took second place in the winter series and is now campaigning towards the Worlds.

Richard Perini emails a first day summary.

'Back in the US, this time Newport, Rhode Island for the Newport Gold Regatta.

We've barely got over the jet lag from Annapolis! Our normal team
is here, except for Cap, who is sailing for her home country France in
a women's match racing regatta. Cap's replacement is Ashley Farrington,
who normally sails with the German Mumm 30 team, so is no stranger to
this level of competition.

The pre-regatta tune-up was spent doing D4 sail evaluation with the
help of two of the leading Doyle guys, preparing the inventory for
the Worlds, coming up in September.

Day 1, 13-18 knots with dense fog!

Race 1 - Foreign Affair won the pin and with rather poor visibility, (30 metres)
but good speed, keeping to the middle of the course, got to the first
mark just ahead of the 10 boat fleet, and held the lead all the way
to grab the gun, with the rest of the fleet finishing within 30
seconds.

The fog got even worse for the second race, with the wind about the
same strength, but visibility almost nil, we headed off into a
5 leg race. This time, we went for a boat-end start, pulled it
off nicely, and settled into to a nice first beat.

Unfortunately, we just couldn't find the top mark, and overstood by 10 lengths in the fog, allowing 4 boats to slip inside us. We gained a spot every leg,
to regain 2nd by the last bottom mark, and finish the very unusual
day with a 1,2 to be boat of the day.

A frontal system is predicted for tonight, which should clear
all the fog, and leave us with 20-30 knots for tomorrow - exciting
stuff ahead!'