Melges 24 North American Championship – DAY 2

by Fiona Brown on 20 May 2006 The second day of the Melges 24 North American Championship brought more difficult racing as yet again Santa Cruz failed to deliver its typical conditions.

Of the three races completed the first two were largely light and shifty giving the Race Committee plenty to keep them busy.

The day's final race eventually brought a respectable 16-18 knots, sadly accompanied by rain, but the wind died away again leaving one boat unable to finish within the time limit.

With six races now sailed Brian Porter (Chicago, IL) and his Full Throttle team of Harry Melges, Dave Navin and John Porter retain their lead by just one point from Dave Ullman (Newport Beach, CA) with his crew Bill Hardesty, Brian Hutchinson, Casey Smith & Shana Phelan aboard Pegasus 505.

Seadon Wijsen (San Francisco, CA) sailing Pareto Optimal put in a very consistent 7, 4, 1 day to move up from 8th to 3rd on 26 points, just ahead of Bruce Ayres (Newport Beach, CA) in Monsoon who dropped down from 3rd to 4th with 29 points.

After a hard night of excellent partying courtesy of Pusser's Rum, the Sierra Nevada Brewing Co and Red Bull there were more than a few sore heads as they crews left the dock this morning. Unfortunately for those under the weather it was to be a testing day.

Despite the shifts the right hand side of the beat was favoured with virtually no one venturing left of centre all day. With a 1230 start time and difficult conditions PRO Hank Stuart knew he had is work cut out to get all three scheduled races completed so went to Z flag from the outset.

Despite this there was still a general recall, followed by individual recalls on the start of race four and a total of 17 boats were penalised. At the first weather mark it was Alba Batzill (GER), helming Courage X for Eddy Eich, who led the fleet, a position he declined to relinquish for the remainder of the race.

Frenchman Hubert Guy, sailing Enigma, rounded second from Ayres in third with Philippe Kahn (Santa Cruz, CA) aboard Pegasus 575 fourth. As Batzill consolidated his lead there was plenty of jockeying for position behind him. In the closing moments of the run Philippe Kahn slid into second 2nd with Guy 3rd. Brian Porter struggled out of the start but despite rounding the first mark well down the fleet he sailed an impressive race to pull up into 4th.

A shift after the sequence started force the Committee to postpone and re-lay the line for race five. As they did this the wind started to build and by the time the got underway it was up to around 12 knots. Fortunately the competitors were getting the hang of the Z flag and only three boats were called back on individual recall allowing the fleet away at the first attempt.

Batzill had a disastrous start when he made contact with Stan Eriksson and ended up drifting backwards in irons as the fleet sailed away from him.

Porter headed the fleet at the windward mark from Ayres and defending North American Champion Argyle Campbell (Newport Beach, CA) who was troubling the front of the fleet for the first time in the regatta.

Down the run Campbell made the smartest initial gybe and by a third of the way down had slipped into the lead from Porter.

Stephen Pugh (Sausalito, CA) had pulled up in to 3rd with Ayres 4th and Ullman 5th. A big right hand shift resulted in a 15 degree course change for the second beat. As they rounded the second weather mark dark clouds were heralded a wind increase allowing the boats to plane for the first time all day. Some quick thinking by Ayres put him into the lead and he crossed comfortably ahead of Campbell with Porter 3rd, Ullman 4th and Wijsen 5th. Despite his disastrous start Batzill clawed his way up to 7th.

As the Committee set up for race six the rain started and the wind increased to 16-18 knots. For the first time in the regatta the fleet got away clean at the first attempt. Dave Ullman got the best of the start and the best of the beat to round with an astonishing lead at the weather mark. He had the bit between his teeth a just kept on going, finishing with a 52 second lead.

Although Eich looked good in second after the first beat it was not to be his race and he ended up 7th again. Having finally found his form Campbell sailed another consistent race to finish second with Porter third and Philippe Kahn fourth.

Melges 24 positions after 6 races:
1 600 Full Throttle 02 Porter, Brian 13pts 2 3 2 4 3 3
2 505 Pegasus 505 09 Ullman, Dave 14 12 1 1 7 4 1
3 614 Pareto Optimal 21 Wijsen, Seadon 26 15 4 7 5 5 5
4 637 Monsoon 07 Ayres, Bruce 29 11 2 3 12 1 20
5 575 Pegasus 575 31 Kahn, Philippe 32 3 18 5 8 12 4
6 331 Go Dogs Go 28 Hawkins, Tim 40 7 7 9 25 11 6
7 595 Taboo 16 Pugn, Stephen 41 5 10 11 15 6 9
8 630 Rock n Roll 08 Campbell, Argyle 46 17 14 13 15 2 2
9 582 Courage X 01 Eich, Eddy 48 1 32 32 1 7 7
10 57 USA 49 24 Bennett, Shawn 48 9 6 4 23 15 14
11 397 Grinder 23 Littfin, Jeff 50 4 5 8 25 20 13
12 24 Smokin 15 Clark, Kevin 51 13 11 6 19 9 12
13 556 Enigma 10 Guy, Hubert 58 10 19 10 9 32 10
14 492 Pegasus 492 30 Kahn, Samuel 60 8 9 18 17 23 8
15 558 Sofa King Fast 29 Grippenstraw; Bassano 64 16 27 19 8 10 11
16 540 Breakn Wind 04 MacGregor, Matt 71 14 19 15 32 8 15
17 539 Brick House 17 Barkow, Jim 75 12 32 17 10 19 17
18 632 Pro Spirit 12 Eriksson, Stan 77 18 8 14 21 21 16
19 378 Tinseltown Rebellion 26 Lewis, Cam 82 24 15 18 12 16 21
20 552 Regazzoni 19 Donnelly, Nigel 90 21 17 29 16 14 22
21 180 Tropical Storm 22 Forster, Douglas 98 20 12 20 30 22 24
22 498 Personal Puff 13 Hauserman, Dan 98 23 20 21 20 18 19
23 66 Goose N' Duck 06 Bennett, D Paul 110 19 26 26 32 13 26
24 206 O Positive 27 Pritchard, Orion 110 22 16 24 32 25 23
25 591 White Lightning 03 Stoll, Bob 112 32 28 16 20 23 25
26 243 Trophy Wife 05 Klute, Glenn 112 25 23 22 32 24 18
27 379 Aqua Nut 25 Ashwanden, Peter 123 28 25 25 18 27 30
28 587 Fired Up 11 Kamins, Gary 135 30 27 28 23 29 28
29 417 Jam Jam 20 Ruxton, Neal 141 29 28 32 27 28 29
30 449 Flying Circus 18 Joyner, David 147 27 30 32 32 26 32
31 248 Nothing Ventured 14 Klenke, Tom 153 32 32 32 32 30 27

Racing continues until Sunday with four further races schedule.