Rolex Farr 40 Worlds 2006 - Day 1 report

by Brett Filby on 7 Sep 2006 'We just have to do it better,' commented Matt Allen, reflecting on the first day’s sailing in the Farr 40 Worlds Championships on the waters of Newport Rhode Island. Allen, one of three Australian skippers is racing Ichi Ban. He continued, ‘if you do not get a clear lane from the gun you just struggle to sail your original game plan'.

'In the first race we didn’t get a great start but stuck to our original strategy to get to our preferred side of the course and try and use our boat speed, fortunately this paid off and we managed a close fourth in the first race'.

This race was sailed in a very contestable 8 to 10 knot breeze and showed just how competitive the racing is going to be at these championships, with some of the form teams and recent winners in the class struggling to get close to the front. Winner of last weekend’s pre world regatta and past world champ, Jim Richards crossed with a tenth place, while current World champion Richard Perini with Evolution, would liked to have swapped positions with his rival, finishing mid fleet in sixteenth place.

First home in race one was Flash Gordon ahead of two the star Italian teams, current European champion Mascalzone Latino and winner in 2003 Nerone. The world-renowned Architect Helmet Jahn is finding himself consistently at the front of the fleet on a regular basis this season.

He has been a great supporter of the class for many years but has never really returned any outstanding results at this level. His success could well be ‘the father and son’ combination onboard where Helmet Jahn steers for the start and sails the boat for the upwind legs, and his son takes over the boat as the spinnaker goes up. Surely unique, but in their case it certainly worked brilliantly.

Race 2 and the breeze increased to about 15 knots. Again a perfect score for the Jahn father son combination on Flash Gordon, with the minor placing’s a European affair with German team Opus One second, followed by America’s Cup holder Alinghi with Brad Butterworth onboard in third.

Ichi Ban dropped to a painful 22nd in Race 2. As Matt Allen reports; 'We again had trouble in the second race with not getting off the line as well as we would have liked. Just finding ourselves getting bounced around far to much by other boats, and not able to get to our preferred side of the course or even get a proper lane to settle and just try and go fast.' The almost frustrated, but always relaxed Allen continues, 'again feel we have excellent boat speed but just difficulty in finding a clear runway to use it.'

The other Australian teams also struggled to get away on Day 1 as Kokomo returns to the dock with two 13th places in both races, with Defending Champion Evolution with a morning race 16th and what must be an alarming 35th in the afternoon’s race. The team is certainly, without question, one of the best at this game and are expected to fight back.

After a disappointing opening day defending champion Richard Perini commented on their less than successful start.

'Evolution's first start was very ordinary, but a good first run got us back a little to claw back to 16th by the finish.

'The second race of the day was very disappointing for the team, as we watched a reasonable start disintegrate with a series of shifts that we found ourselves on the wrong side of... 35th placing making it rather difficult to keep the chin up! However, plenty more sailing left in the regatta, so almost certainly we should have better news tomorrow!'

Like most top level events, consistency is the key word, but is certainly more prominent in the Farr 40 one design class with such a high level of support from so many of the world’s best individuals and teams.

Aided by a well scheduled break in the America’s Cup, some of the ‘best’ are competing at this event, with Alinghi, Mascalzone Latino, Nerone, Barking Mad, Ichi Ban, Mean Machine, Fiamma naming just some of the teams, sporting current America’s Cup professionals onboard. Taking this into account, it’s going to be a regatta where many teams will get a chance to shine.