Rolex Big Boat Series - Serious talent on San Francisco Bay

by Barby MacGowan on 14 Sep 2010 The 46th annual Rolex Big Boat Series, hosted by California’s St. Francis Yacht Club, is setting up to showcase major sailing talent along with some sweet IRC and One-Design action over four days of competition on San Francisco Bay. Racing will start on Thursday September 16.

Of 99 boats signed up, 26 are IRC (handicap racing) entrants, which will be further divided by rating into four classes, one of which is the newly featured light displacement--read super-fast--sport boat class. The balance of the fleet is comprised of one-design (single type) boats, with the Melges 32s leading in entrants at 27. Not far behind, however, is the J/105 class with 24 entrants, followed by J/120s (8 entrants), Express 37s (8), and One Design 35s (6).

The large turnout in Melges 32 class can be attributed in part to that class’s World Championship, scheduled to follow immediately on the heels of the Rolex Big Boat Series and also to be hosted by St. Francis Yacht Club. Among the teams signed up for what is being dutifully called the Melges 32 'Pre Worlds' is Doug Douglass’ (Stamford, Conn.) Goombay Smash, with two-time Olympic bronze medalist Charlie McKee serving as tactician before America’s Cup veteran Russell Coutts steps on for the Worlds.

Goombay Smash is new for Douglass, better known for his class successes on a Farr 40 of the same name, and the Pre-Worlds will be his team’s first time sailing this boat in a regatta. According to mainsail trimmer Marco Constant, getting the boat up to speed was a chore, since it had been taken out of racing configuration, but he was confident of the resin in the crew mix: a core team, including Douglass and himself, that has sailed together plenty on the Farr 40.

'Two different techniques, two different styles, two different schools of sail,' said Constant about the feisty Melges 32s vs. the more predictable Farr 40s. 'Both take an extremely high amount of finesse to sail, but the Melges 32s take less wind to get going on a plane.' He added that with San Francisco Bay’s predictably high winds during September, that single trait is sure to be good for the show.

Charlie McKee will meet his brother Jonathan play-for-play when the latter McKee takes his position as tactician aboard John Porter’s (Winnetka, Ill.) Full Throttle. Jonathan McKee, also a two-time Olympic medalist, has a Melges 24 World Championship to his credit and will have as his crew mates another set of brothers: Vincent and Corbett Porter, sons of the skipper.

Among the other headliners, Pieter Taselaar’s (Scarsdale, N.Y./Newport, R.I.) Bliksem team will perhaps be the most watched. As reigning world champions, they should match up well with Luca Lalli’s Italian entry B-Lin Sailing, which just won the 2010 Audi Melges 32 Sailing Series and has such notables aboard as two-time and reigning Melges 24 World Champion Lorenzo Bressani along with Federico Michetti, who has won the worlds a record three times, twice with Bressani at the helm.

With new entries hailing from the Sierras and south to Mexico, the 2010 Rolex Big Boat Series promises great competition for veterans and first timers alike.

'All the real players are coming out, for sure,' said Regatta Chair Norman Davant, pointing out that among three Japanese entries Masakazu Toyama’s Ebb Tide will be returning to compete in the One Design 35 class, and two entries from Mexico—the TP52 Patches and the Kernan 68 Peligroso—will be introducing new owners Jorge Ripstein and Lorenzo Berho, respectively, to racing in the Rolex Big Boat Series IRC class.

'It’s going to be a good race in the IRC Class A,' said Davant, 'with Peligroso, as the bigger boat, most likely out in front and trying to save her time on Patches and the other TP52s Mayhem (Ashley Wolfe, Calgary, Alberta, CAN) and Flash (Mick Sheins/Mark Jones, Diablo, Calif.), as well as the Reichel Pugh 52 Vincitore (Jim Mitchell, Zurich, Switzerland).' Davant noted that Vincitore, with the same crew as will sail here--including Chris Dickson as skipper and Davant as tactician--won the 2009 Rolex US-IRC National Championship held in conjunction with last year’s Rolex Big Boat Series. Other returning IRC class winners from last year include Gerard Sheridan’s (San Francisco) Elan 40 Tupelo Honey and Dan Woolery’s (Alamo, Calif.) King 40 Soozal.

Last year, in the ultra competitive J/120 fleet, the outcome of the last race determined the overall winner. This year, defending champion Barry Lewis (Atherton, Calif.), aboard Chance, will most certainly be challenged by John Wimer's (Half Moon Bay, Calif.) Desdemona; 2008’s winner Mister Magoo, steered by Steve Madeira (Menlo Park, Calif.); and Don Payan's (Hillsborough, Calif.) Dayenu, which finished third last year.

In J/105 class, defending champion Chris Perkins (San Francisco) aboard Good Timin’ will be threatened by 2009 J/105 North American Champion Bruce Stone (San Francisco), steering Arbitrage, while in the Express 37 fleet, defending champions Kame Richards/Bill Bridge (Alameda, Calif.) aboard Golden Moon will be working just as hard to keep the crown.

The Rolex Big Boat Series includes two races per day, with one long, Bay tour on Sunday; of nine classes, six will be announced as eligible for Perpetual Trophies and Rolex watches as prizes just prior to the start of the regatta.

The St. Francis Yacht Club is considered one of the world’s most spectacular venues for sailboat racing, with the club perched high on the shore of San Francisco Bay, where spectators can watch boats chase one another to the finish line set between a special mark and the yardarm atop the club’s second-floor Race Deck.

Competitors, friends and fans can follow the regatta through the event website http://www.rolexbigboatseries.com. With streaming blogs and race results direct from the race course, GPS-based boat tracking, live video, sailors interviews and daily highlights videos, all of the site’s information will stream to the website courtesy of the StFYC’s recently launched WiMax network.

Rolex Big Boat Series is part of the Rolex Yachting Portfolio that includes over 20 world-class sailing events that take place around the world including the Rolex Miami OCR, Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup, Rolex Fastnet Race, Rolex Farr 40 World Championship, New York Yacht Club Race Week at Newport presented by Rolex, and the Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race.

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