Farr 40 Pre-Worlds Day One Results

by Rob Kothe on 25 Feb 2005 Soft sailing conditions prevailed for the first day of the 2005 Farr 40 Pre-Worlds off Sydney Heads.

It was a superb start to the series for the Italian crews. Marco Rodolfi’s TWT leads from Massimo Mezzaroma’s and Antinio Sodo Miglioro’s Nerone with Australia’s Neville Crichton’s Team Shockwave third, preventing a clean sweep of the top placings, ahead of Vincenzo Onorato’s Mascalzone Latino.

The day started slowly. Experienced Principal Race Officer Peter Reggio, the popular American official known better as Luigi, delayed the first attempt at a start from 11am until after 12:40pm when the soft northeaster had lifted to five knots, conditions being easy with the softest of swells producing no bumps at all. The 28-boat fleet pushed the start line and suffered three general recalls.

Under the threat of a Z flag (providing a 20% penalty for boats over the line), race one started at last.

Jim Richardson’s Barking Mad was fast away on the pin. However at the first mark Mascalzone Latino led from Barking Mad, TWT, John Thompson’s Solution and Steve O’Rourke’s Panther. Next came Alfa Romeo, she would have been better placed had she not had to complete a 360-penalty turn after hitting the mark.

Notably, Hasso Plattner’s Morning Glory was well back in the fleet along with Philippe Kahn’s Pegasus after both experienced early problems.

At the second spinnaker hoist Mascalzone Latino was three boat lengths ahead of TWT, with another four boat lengths back to Barking Mad, Nerone, then John Calvert-Jones’ Southern Star, Panther, Solutions, Richard Perini’s Evolution. At this stage the Australian pre-event favourite, was still suffering from a poor start and poor first beat and was placed 21st.

In a building eight know breeze, a cloud of white spinnakers wafted towards the finish.

Italy placed one, two and four. Mascalzone took the gun from, TWT, Barking Mad, Nerone, Southern Star and Panther with Solutions on the pin, just squeezing out Team Shockwave and Emotional Hooligan.

Then came Morning Glory, making up 15 places. However, she was penalised six places after being adjudged over the start line, not a good start for tactician Russell Coutts.

The breeze was steady around eight knots for the second windward-leeward race, again with 1.5-mile legs.

Lang Walker’s Kokomo started fast midline and she led TWT, Erik Maris’ French entry Twins 2 and the Kiwi John Melville’s Bobby’s Girl.

After a good first race, Barking Mad was buried and mid race was well back in second last place.

TWT came in fast from the left to win from Morning Glory, Kokomo, Team Shockwave and Nerone. Barking Mad recovered nine places to finish 17th.

In race three, tactician Vasco Vascotto positioned Nerone on pin, with Richard Perini’s Evolution next, Crown Prince Frederik’s Nanoq was well placed above her, with TWT on her hip.

Mascalzone Latino was serious disadvantaged. Adrian Stead trying a port tack start could not find a hole in the starboard stream and was buried.

There was a change of course to 220 on the first run and after her clear start, Nerone led from Shockwave, Warpath, Joe Fly, Emotional Hooligan, TWT and Brighton Star.

With the breeze building Nerone lead to the finish, ahead of Team Shockwave, Ichiban, Warpath and TWT.

Dockside Tiziano Nava the TWT tactician was all smiles. ‘TWT is a young team, starting in the class in 2003 and we are still learning. We were fifth at the 2004 Worlds and our aim is at least a top five finish in Sydney. Today we tried to start on the pin, because we wanted to play on the left and that worked for us.’

Second placed Nerone’s Vasco Vascotto explained his tactics today. ‘We have good speed, so we just concentrated on clean starts, mid-line, except in the last race when we have a good pin start. We were not surprised that TWT sailed so well today. At home TWT is very much even with us in speed.’

For the rest of the world, Neville Crichton’s Team Shockwave carried the flag well today. Her two wins on the final day of the Hamilton Island sponsored Australian Nationals, showed she is good enough to win at this level.

Michael Coxon, commented, ‘We are trying not to be too fancy. We seem to have the speed, we are concentrating on our starts now, probably our weakest area at the moment. Our goal is to just to keep chipping away. It’s going to be an interesting week.’

Cruising Yacht Club of Australia
Rolex Farr 40 One-Design Pre-Worlds
Pointscore


Bow No. Yacht Name Sail Owners Name R1 R2 R3 R4 R5 R6 R7 R8 R9 Total Place

19 TWT ITA13711 Marco Rodolfi 2 1 5 8 1

08 Nerone ITA1972 Massimo Mezzaroma/Antonio Sodo Migliori 4 5 1 10 2

01 Team Shockwave 5077 Neville Crichton 8 4 2 14 3

14 Mascalzone Latino ITA1 Vincenzo Onorato 1 8 11 20 4

21 Barking Mad USA 50995 Jim Richardson 3 17 9 29 5

27 Southern Star AUS1770 John Calvert-Jones 5 9 16 30 6

23 Solution USA4040 John Thomson 7 10 14 31 7

06 Ichi Ban 6038 Matt Allen 22 7 3 32 8

10 Morning Glory GR40101 Hasso Plattner 16 2 15 33 9

20 Brighton Star B2000 David Gotze 13 13 8 34 10

11 Joe Fly ITA1805 Giovanni Maspero 18 15 6 39 11

24 Warpath USA69 Steve and Fred Howe 12 25 4 41 12

16 Twins 2 FRA 007 Erik Maris 11 6 24 41 12

15 Emotional Hooligan 615 Marcus Blackmore 9 26 7 42 14

03 Kokomo 8883 Lang Walker 21 3 18 42 14

17 Phish Food USA50055 Alexis Michas 17 19 12 48 16

13 Norwegian Steam NOR40 Eivind Astrup 20 16 13 49 17

26 Nanoq DEN7217 HRH Crown Prince Frederick 15 12 22 49 17

07 Evolution AUS6422 Richard Perini 26 14 10 50 19

12 Fiamma GBR25R Alessandro Barnaba 14 18 19 51 20

05 Bobby’s Girl NZL40010 John Melville 24 11 21 56 21

25 Venom USA40063 Brett Neill/Peter Taylor 19 21 17 57 22

02 Panther AUS8001 Steve O'Rourke 6 24 27 57 22

22 War Games YC222 David Urry 16 23 20 59 24

28 Sputnik 6040 Ivan Wheen 23 27 23 73 25

18 Pegasus USA81818 Philippe Kahn 29 20 26 75 26

04 Belle Property AUS470 Chris Meehan 29 22 28 79 27

09 Intersell AUS6530 Michael Blumentals 27 28 25 80 28