2015 Rolex Farr 40 Worlds - It's never really over … until it's over
by Farr 40 Class Association on 30 Sep 2015
Corinthian winner Gary Ezor on Coquille Sarah Proctor
The World Championship hung in the balance until the final leg of the eleventh and last race of the series. The leading contenders were battling for position on the last two legs of that race and even the final victor was unsure of the outcome until the points were announced from the Committee Vessel. 'Unbelievable .I didn't think that this could happen,' was the dockside comment from John Demourkas, the new Champion.
He was genuinely surprised, after he had finished ninth in the first race of the day and considered his chances to be marginal at most. While he finished second, with Groovederci, in the final race, it was the battle between his two greatest rivals throughout the last race that settled the issue. Wolfgang Schaefer's Struntje Light and Alex Roepers' Plenty had both been in the winner's position, but the internecine battle between them put paid to each of their winning chances.
It became decisive on the first downwind leg of that race when Struntje Light held Plenty beyond the layline to the leeward gate and led her rival around the right hand buoy. But up the next leg, it all turned bleak for Struntje Light upwind when she missed a shift and with it her chance of the championship. But Plenty had missed it too and they started down the final leg in seventh and eighth places. They held those places in the increasing south-westerly breeze but it wasn't enough to beat Groovederci.
That race had been the property of the Class President, Martin Hill, from the get-go. His Estate Master claimed the pin end at the start and stayed in clear air to lead all the way round the 4.4 mile course to be a convincing winner. It gave him sixth place overall, but he predicts a possible rise at the next Rolex World Championship, which will be held on his home waters off Sydney.
In the regular Californian sunshine, the sea-breeze was a little later than usual to materialize and Race Officer Peter 'Luigi' Reggio had to keep an eye on the clock in order to get the first race to finish in time for a start prior to 1500 hrs - the limit imposed by the Sailing Instructions. He made it, starting the first race just before 1400.
Wolfgang Schaefer, from Germany, had a clear start with room to tack immediately to go in search of the predicted right hand shift. The move paid and he led throughout to take the race from Alberto Rossi's Enfant Terrible from Italy and Hasip Gencer's Asterisk Uno from Turkey - European domination!
Fourth place went to the Corinthian leader, Gary Ezor's Coquille, and that result confirmed eighth place overall for Ezor. 'I'm floating on a cloud,' he said soon after stepping ashore, 'Last year I was last, and this year I am first; hard to beat that!'
2015 Rolex Farr 40 World Championship - Final Cumulative Results
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