Celtic V and Xerxes win Catalina Island Race

by Casa de Campo Media on 17 Feb 2008

Casa de Campo Dave Dunnigan http://www.casadecamporegatta.com/

On yet another beautiful Caribbean day, the fleet at the Casa De Campo Regatta today swelled to add several new entries for the 23-mile race around Santa Catalina Island, and it was Pepe Rodriguez's Frers 45 Celtic V that crushed the IRC Class A, while Gustavo Alba's Beneteau 30.5 Xerxes won PHRF Class B by a much closer margin of 2 minutes.

The race start certainly looked promising enough, with a 12-knot easterly propelling the fleet first around a windward mark left to starboard and then on a long downwind ride to leave Santa Catalina island to port. That easterly became fitful, however, and died down to less than 6 knots at times, with sizable 1-metre seas making it particularly challenging for the smaller boats.

'We struggle in not having the horsepower the bigger boats have in those light lumpy conditions,' said helmsman Scott MacLeod, who on Tony Torres' Beneteau 265 Elizabeth is one of the smallest boats in the fleet, and has to try and compete against substantially larger boats in the IRC Class A 'but we had a fun time and plenty of Presidente Beer aboard'

But once the fleet converged at the north end of the island, the tradewinds picked up again, and started to fill in to a brisk 18 knots for the long 10-mile beat back to the finish line set off the harbor mouth at the Casa de Campo Marina. It was those who excelled upwind in these conditions that reaped their rewards.

After a disastrous second race yesterday, Celtic V returned today in style, helped in part by acquiring more crew from the hapless Melges 24 Let's Ride that broke their spar yesterday. They managed to get around the first turning mark ahead of Gianfranco Fini's larger Bellissima and extended that lead for the remainder of the race to a corrected time win of over 20 minutes ahead of the tiny J/24 Escuela, ably sailed by Javier Rodriguez.

Racing resumes tomorrow for the final day of the Casa de Campo Regatta, with one windward-leeward buoy race planned to determine the final standings for the event.

Results, Catalina Island Race
IRC Class A
1. Celtic V Frers 45 Pepe Rodriguez 3:36:45
2. Escuela J/24 Javier Rodriguez 3:56:13
3. Bellissima Comet 51 Gianfranco Fini 4:04:49

PHRF Class B
1. Xerxes Beneteau 30.5 Gustavo Alba 4:21:54
2. Orion Hunter 301 Sven Holmbo 4:23:09
3. Waylander Hallberg-Rassy 43 Tony Strutt 4:24:49

The Casa de Campo Regatta for the El Presidente Cup is also supported by Deutsche Bank, and daily results and photos can be found on the event website at www.casadecamporegatta.com
Daily video highlights from T2P Productions can be found at www.t2p.tv
If you want to link to this article then please use this URL: www.sail-world.com/41901

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