12 Metre World Championship: At the halfway mark, things are heating up
by Barby MacGowan 4 Aug 2023 00:36 PDT
July 30 - August 5, 2023
The 12 Metres in Modern Division sailing today on Rhode Island Sound © Stephen Cloutier
With six races under their sailing belts, the 12 Metre sailors here for the 12 Metre World Championship are more than halfway through their scheduled nine-race series. The ten-boat fleet of historic 12 Metre sloops - measuring 68-72 feet long and split evenly into Modern and Traditional/Vintage Divisions - started racing Tuesday (August 1), and though excruciatingly light winds on that day only allowed for a single race, Wednesday's 5-8 knot breezes yielded two races, and today's 10-12 knot breezes generously fueled three races.
"It was tricky and difficult for the first two days," said New Zealander Murray Jones, who serves as tactician for Takashi Okura's Japanese entry Freedom (US-30), which was leading Modern Division going into today with a one-point margin over Jack LeFort's (Winter Park, Fla./Jamestown, R.I.) Challenge XII (KA-10). "We're not the fastest boat in light winds, so we were just happy to make it through in good shape." Murray has sailed in six America's Cups (1995, 2000 and 2016 aboard New Zealand; 2003, 2007, and 2010 Alinghi; and 2013 Oracle), winning all but one (2010)
Today's relatively stronger winds showed that Freedom had legs, but Challenge XII had the better pace and tactics to turn in a full string of victories over the three races, with Freedom taking second in all three. "It was really fantastic 12 Metre sailing today," said LeFort, explaining that Freedom is "extraordinarily well sailed" and in the second race the two boats were overlapped almost the whole time. "It wasn't until the middle of the last leg (of the windward-leeward twice around course) that we were able to get inside them on a jibe."
Serving as Challenge XII's tactician was Ken Read (Middletown,R.I.), helmsman on two Stars & Stripes America's Cup campaigns (2000, 2003) and strategist/coach for the Young America campaign in 1995. "Ken makes the decisions on where to go and the rest of us just try to get the boat there as fast as we can," said LeFort. "Today's were good conditions for Challenge XII; we were right in our sweet spot."
In Traditional/Vintage Division, Mark Watson's (Newport, R.I.) Onawa (US-6) had the upper hand on Tuesday and Wednesday over Robert Morton's (Middletown, R.I.) American Eagle (US-21), but only by a point going into today's racing. Watson had said his team had done "a good job seeing where the wind was and getting into it" and Morton had been ecstatic over winning the first race of the series. Morton's goal was to sail consistently and his score line of 2-4-2 today, added to his previous 1-4-2, allowed him to take the overall lead. With a 5-2-5 today, Onawa dropped to third place behind Kevin Hegarty/Anthony Chiurco's (Newport, R.I.) Columbia (US-16), which won all three races today.
Racing continues tomorrow, with two scheduled races, and concludes with a final race on Saturday, preceded by a 12 Metre Parade of Sail around Newport Harbor.
The 2023 12 Metre World Championship is sanctioned by the International Twelve Metre Association (ITMA) and hosted by the 12 Metre Yacht Club Newport Station in partnership with Organizing Authority Ida Lewis Yacht Club.
12 Metre Worlds blog: 12mRworlds.com