Star boats turn to Bay winds in championships

by Jim Doyle on 30 Sep 2006

Stars preparing for 2006 Star Worlds Chuck Lantz http://www.ChuckLantz.com

Sailors in the Star fleet are the monastic monks of the sailing world, enduring an extremely physical training regime that some compare to torture. But the Star's devotees swear there is nothing like the thrill of harnessing the wind in these racing machines.

Almost 80 boats from as far away as Japan, China, Australia, New Zealand, Poland, and the Ukraine are registered to compete in the Star World Championships regatta, which begins Sunday on San Francisco Bay. The races will be run on various courses in the calm yet windblown waters off Berkeley and the Emeryville mudflats.

The regatta, sponsored by Wells Fargo Private Bank and hosted by the St. Francis Yacht Club, runs through Friday Oct. 6 -- unless weather delays extend the racing into next weekend.

'I've sailed a lot of boats over the years,' said skipper Peter Vessella of Burlingame, 'but to me the Starboat epitomizes all the challenges of sailing -- all wrapped up in one boat.'

Only the strongest, most fit crew members can hope to hike-out over the rails of the two-person Star for extended periods of time and manage to keep this keelboat from heeling over too far in a stiff breeze. Only the most cunning skippers -- astute observers of wind and tidal currents, and cutthroat strategists -- can navigate these 22.7-foot-long keelboats to victory in a crowded fleet.

The world competition in the Olympic-class boat has attracted sailboat racing pros and top-ranked international amateurs from 25 nations. Among those who have turned up for the event is Brazilian skipper Torben Grael, a veteran America's Cup tactician and five-time Olympic medalist who won a Gold Medal in the Star Class at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens.

The fleet also includes Paul Cayard of Kentfield, winner of the Whitbread Round the World Race, and a former America's Cup syndicate chief, skipper, and helmsman for various teams.

This year's favorites include skipper Xavier Rohart of France, who won the 2005 Star Worlds in Buenos Aires; Iain Percy of Great Britain; Fredrik Loof of Sweden; Mark Reynolds of San Diego, who won the gold medal in the Star Class in the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney; and Australian skipper James Spithill, an America's Cup pro who now sails for Italy's Lunna Rossa syndicate.

Only a few women are signed up for the event.

'It's a pretty serious group of guys,' said skipper Steve Gould of San Francisco. 'Quite a few are just racing Starboats fulltime, and some are taking time away from America's Cup campaigns. ... The difference (in skill level) shows up in the big breeze on San Francisco Bay. Sailing on the bay is like when you reach the mountain stages in the Tour de France.'

Designed in the early 1900s by Francis Sweisguth of New York, the International Star is the oldest Olympic class and still holds its simple, elegant lines. More than 7,500 Stars have been built during the class' history; about 2,000 are raced worldwide. Those who've wrestled the Star include Marin sailor John Kostecki, winner of the Volvo Round the World Race.

A Star weighs nearly 1,500 pounds, with most of its weight in the keel. Its overpowered sail plan includes a large mainsail (on a long boom) and a jib. Crew members wear a hiking vest, a simple harness that helps the sailor leverage his weight out of the boat.

Star World Championship Entry List

Skipper Crew Sail # Country

Fabian Mac Gowan Federico Engelhard 7907 ARG

Juan Kouyoumdjian Nicolas Rosas 8212 ARG

Iain Murray Andrew Palfrey 7836 AUS

James Spithill Rodney Hagebols 8269 AUS

Peter Conde Andrew Hunn 8234 AUS

Roberto Tomasini Grinover Walter Passegger 8216 AUT

Steven Kelly William Holowesko 8265 BAH

Peter Ficker Ronald Seifert 8109 BRA

Robert Scheidt Bruno Prada 8127 BRA

Torben Grael Marcelo Ferreina 8240 BRA

Nedko Vassilev Paul Erikson 7437 BUL

Alex Fox Dunnery Best 7899 CAN

Brian Cramer Tyler Bjorn 8143 CAN

Dennis Burgess Dave Kershaw 7451 CAN

Shaojun Wang He Wang 1049 CH

Rodrigo Zuazola Marcos Fuentes 8181 CHI

Vicente Gimeno Luis Felipe Herman 7237 CHI

Marin Lovrovic Jr. Marin Lovrovic Sr. 7955 CRO

Jose Garcia De Soto Alvaro Elorza 7420 ESP

Xavier Rohart Pascal Rambeau 8107 FRA

Iain Percy Steve Mitchell 8144 GBR

Marc Pickel Ingo Borkowski 8213 GER

Robert Stanjek Frithjof Kleen 7971 GER

Robert Forintos Andras Komm 7900 HUN

Tibor Tenke Jozsef Bendicsek 8166 HUN

Maurice O'Connell Edmund Peel 8028 IRL

Alberto Barovier Umberto Coppola 8014 ITA

Antonio Tamburini Renzo Ricci 8183 ITA

Diego Negri Luigi Viale 8266 ITA

Francesco Bruni Gilberto Nobili 8180 ITA

Luca Modena Michele Marchesini 822h ITA

Luca Simeone Nando Colaninno 8076 ITA

Kunio Suzuki Daichi Wada 7979 JPN

Eizens Cepurnieks Aleksander Muzicenko 813 LAT

Erik Broekhof Erik Veldhuizen TBA NL

Hamish Pepper Carl Williams 8187 NZL

Rohan Lord Miles Addy 8061 NZL

Steve Johnson Stephan Cohen 7609 NZL

Arkadiusz Wierzbicki Piotr Zawistowski 7858 POL

Mateusz Kusznierewicz Dominik Zycki 8252 POL

Afonso Domingo Bernardo Santos 8253 POR

Dmitriy Vokhmintsev Vladimir Lyasnikov 7805 RUS

Christoph Gautschi Jurg Konig 8009 SUI

Daniel Stegmeier Beat Stegmeier 7990 SUI

Flavio Marazzi Etienne Hunter 8138 SUI

Henrik Dannesboe Idor Kaptourovitch 8232 SUI

Fredrik Loof Anders Ekstrom 8256 SWE

Ingvar Krook Per Nilsson 7978 SWE

Arthur Anosov David Caesar 8157 UKR

Vasyl Gureyev Volodymyr Korotkov 8205 UKR

Andrew Macdonald Brian Fatih 8250 USA

Andy Horton Brad Nichol 8156 USA

Bill Allen Brad Lichter 8215 USA

Bill Buchan Erik Bentzen 8260 USA

Brian Huse Scott Killam 6890 USA

Derek DeCouteau Joseph Donnette USA

Doug Smith TBD 8072 USA

Erik Lidecis Michael Marzahl 8176 USA

Foss Miller Greg Newhall 7844 USA

George Szabo Eric Monrow 8273 USA

Jed Miller Rick Sassara 7469 USA

Jim Buckingham Mike Dorgan 8207 USA

Jock Kohlhas Roman Gotsulyak 8043 USA

Joe Londrigan David Giles 8238 USA

John Dane III Austin Sperry 8268 USA

John MacCausland Bob Schofield 8195 USA

Karl Anderson Edward Morey 8177 USA

Mark Mendelblatt Mark Strube 8267 USA

Mark Reynolds Hal Haenel 8239 USA

Paul Cayard Brian Sharp 8259 USA

Peter Vessella J. Darin Jensen 8059 USA

Philippe Kahn Joe Londrigan 8246 USA

Richard Pearce TBD TBD USA

Rick Merriman Rick Peters 8222 USA

Scot Merrick Crystine Lee 4103 USA

Steve Gould Greg Sieck 8088 USA

William Fields Richard Burgess 8189 USA

Preparing for 2006 Star Worlds © Chuck Lantz http://www.ChuckLantz.com

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Star boats turn to Bay winds in championships

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