"It's not normally like this"

The Daily Sail's Andy Nicholson, sailing on Virago, reports from the Farr 40 pre Worlds

“It’s not normally like this.” This has been the most used phrase here in San Francisco over the past two days of racing at the Farr 40 Pre Worlds. This five race series over Saturday and Sunday has seen John Kilroy’s Samba Pa Ti show her colours as the Worlds favourite and also the most likely 40 of five previous title holders here competing to secure the first ‘two time’ World Champion title in the class.

San Francisco harbour is just as you imagine it would be – except it is much bigger than it appears on TV. All the famous bits are a few miles apart, but the sheltered waterway disappears over the horizon to the south. It all gets sucked in and out under the (in comparison) small Golden Gate Bridge giving the bay it’s fearsome tidal reputation.

The scratching of heads about the weather is because the standard San Fran seabreeze has been somewhat petulant and unreliable. Before the weekend, conditions were more ‘settled’ and a calm morning would give way to a swiftly building cold seabreeze from the west – 20 knots plus funnelling under the Golden Gate to give a picture perfect regatta venue. The sun hasn’t stopped shining for six days now.

What the weekend’s conditions have shown is that the racing certainly isn’t over until the very last moment and the Rolex Farr 40 Worlds are going to be some event.

Things looked a little quiet last week. Maybe half of the teams were here and out on the water but there was no real focus occurring. The pre Worlds have been held out of San Francisco Yacht Club (SFYC), which is on the north side of the bay and a 25 minute drive over the bridge from the Worlds venue of the St Francis Yacht Club (StFYC). Some teams have based themselves near SFYC and some on this side in San Fran proper near the StFYC. The bay is big and so the boats have been spread thinly over the water making it all feel a little lonely.

Doing tuning runs in 25 knots, flat water, sunshine, in foulie trousers and T shirts, heading for the Golden Gate bridge, passing Alcatraz island 300m to port with the skyscrapers of downtown two miles to the east IS TOUGH!


Crewman Tom Roop on the helm with downtown San Fran in the background

You will all be pleased to learn that the house prices here are out of control too. We’re fortunate enough to be staying in a fantastic six bedroom house just one block away from the StFYC – for you to buy it you would be looking at little change from $15m. According to our ex- San Fran resident on the boat we are hanging out in one of the most expensive districts of one of the most expensive cities in the world. Just half a mile away a one bed, one bathroom flat is up for sale for $750,000. For us who pull ropes this boils down to having tangible modest luxuries like a 10 foot cinema screen in the family room downstairs.

All of the racing has been taking place in the ‘Berkley Circle’ – this is an area to the east of Alcatraz and out of the worst of the tidal influences and also a little further away from the strongest of the seabreezes. Because the seabreeze hasn’t been too well established the wind has been puffy and very shifty- we got left for dead on one start as the wind dropped to 10 knots while everyone around us was cranked up in 18 knots.

It has all been pretty close boat on boat, but I think everyone has escaped without any cosmetic damage to their boats. Groovederci had a ‘chat’ with us after the first start (which was general recalled) as we took a rather cavalier approach in the final stages that would have taken some of their fence away, which was fair enough. When the race got underway though, it was Groovederci that came in on port at the windward mark and ended up doing a 720. Here we go, it’s Farr 40 racing.

Defending champion Nerone took the gun on the first race and looks to be in pretty good form all round. The seasoned Italian team with Vasco Vascotto on tactics are certainly joint favourites in my book. Another European boat putting in a good display also has been Rudolfi Marco’s TWT. At this early stage Wolfgang Schaffer’s Strunge Light and Eivind Astup’s Norwegian Steam have not really featured.

Mean Machine has shown flashes, they ended up buried in one race, but apart from that have sailed well to score good races (definitely top five). Of the three ‘down under’ yachts I would say that Richard Perini’s Evolution has the upper hand of Kokomo and Peregrine on the race course.

The fleet is heavily outnumbered by American teams and Samba Pa Ti, with Paul Cayard as local knowledge on board, has sofar excelled. Barking Mad, Crocodile Rock (a good each way bet), Slingshot and Pegasus are all notching up decent scores ahead of the bunch.

While the smart money would be on Nerone or Samba for the new wristwatch come Saturday, there remains plenty left in the equation. In Porto Cervo last year, Nerone came out the winner, but second place was Illbruck’s Nela (not here and not a big player on the circuit) and third Bambakou (not here, fast and well practiced). Fourth, as a result of a protest outcome, was Jim Richardson’s Barking Mad. If you are on the pace and can sail well (which means you are a top ten boat) then there is no reason why you couldn’t win the worlds if it went your way.

As with all 40 racing, there are no discards. The edge in boatspeed is elusive – if there is one then more often than not the benefit is mental rather than geographical. On Virago we only had one new sail up for the pre Worlds and seemed close enough to the others on boatspeed. So is this good or did everyone have old sails up? The regatta win will come down to a fast boat (of which there are plenty), a clean start (which is tricky), and some hard fought for luck - when that marginal cross works in favour of the 15 boat duck! Bring it all on. The Rolex Farr 40 Worlds start on Wednesday.

	SKIPPER	BOAT	RACE 1	RACE 2	RACE 3	RACE 4	RACE 5	TOTALS
1	JOHN KILROY	SAMBA PA TI	4	1	3	3	21	32
2	CHUCK PARRISH	SLINGSHOT	12	14	5	4	1	36
3	MASSIMO MEZZAROMA	NERONE	1	8	6	21	5	41
4	STEVE PHILLIPS	LE RENARD	25	7	1	7	10	50
5	GEREMIA/HARRIS	CROCODILE ROCK	17	2	8	15	9	51
6	BOB HUGHES	HEARTBREAKER	13	9	4	20	6	52
7	PETER DE RIDDER	MEAN MACHINE	2	11	26	13	2	54
8	PHILIPPE KAHN	PEGASUS 80808	30	6	9	2	7	54
9	DENEEN&JON DEMOURKAS	GROOVEDERCI	5	10	11	16	14	56
10	JAMES RICHARDSON	BARKING MAD	3	15	2	26	11	57
11	RODOLFI MARCO	TWT	9	4	10	28	8	59
12	MARC EWING	RIOT	8	26	24	1	13	72
13	RICHARD PERINI	EVOLUTION	29	18	15	12	4	78
14	PETER STONEBERG	SHADOW	22	19	12	5	20	78
15	ALAN FIELD	TEMPTRESS	18	13	19	14	16	80
16	S. & M. TOWNSEND	VIRAGO	6	5	27	24	19	81
17	DAVID THOMSON	PEREGRINE	28	17	13	22	3	83
18	VINCENZO ONORATO	MASCALZONE LATINO	23	21	7	10	22	83
19	TAKASHI OKURA	SLED	14	24	14	9	27	88
20	LANG WALKER	KOKOMO	16	20	22	6	28	92
21	STEVE & FRED HOWE	WARPATH	10	23	18	27	15	93
22	GIOVANNI MASPERO	JOE FLY	27	3	16	25	23	94
23	HELMUT JAHN	FLASH GORDON 4	7	29	20	23	17	96
24	ARIEN VAN VEMDE	SOTTO VOCE	24	12	DNF	19	12	98
25	JOHN MCLAURIN	PENDRAGON V	20	30	RDG	11	25	107
26	ERIK MARIS	TWINS 2	11	16	21	29	DSQ	108
27	MARY COLEMAN	ASTRA	19	28	17	18	26	108
28	EIVIND ASTRUP	NORWEGIAN STEAM	26	25	RDG	8	29	110
29	DAVID VOSS	PIRANHA	15	27	28	17	24	111
30	WOLFGANG SCHAEFER	STRUNTJE LIGHT	21	22	25	30	18	116