Italy fights back

But too late to take on the invincible Barking Mad, after day three of the Rolex Farr 40 Worlds in San Francisco

Three more solid results in today’s races on San Francisco Bay have put Jim Richardson’s Barking Mad team into a nearly unbeatable position going into the final day of the Rolex Farr 40 Worlds.

With eighth, seventh and fifth place finishes Richardson’s team now stand on 38 points overall, leading Nerone, the defending World Champions, just hanging on to second place on 73. However this lead could have been much smaller, when it nearly all turned wrong for the New England team in today’s second race. After the start they were forced out to the left hand side of the course and when they tacked back they lost further ground by playing it safe, ducking several right-of-way boats coming through on starboard tack.

“We got around the buoy probably in 26th place and Nerone was third or something,” recounted Richardson. “We gybed right around the spacer mark and we caught a great puff, so we gained probably 10-12 places on the run.” They followed this with a better second beat and another good run to finish seventh to Nerone’s 11th. “We saw the potential to lose a lot of our lead to Nerone in that race, but the crew worked really really hard. We were sweating bullets trying to make the boat go faster and trying to make every manoeuvre as good as we could,” continued Richardson.

While Nerone are still hanging on to second, by the admission of tactician Vasco Vascotto today was one of the worst days of their entire Farr 40 campaign. “Come back for the Italians? It was come back into last position for us… We did a really bad job. The other Italians did a good job. In the second race we were third and we hit a mark. So we did a 360 and lost some positions, but worse we lost control.” Vascotto adds that the mark they hit was one of the leeward marks at a time when there were no other boats around. “That was the stupid thing. We did a lot of stupid mistakes, which is why we are a little upset,” said the very upset tactician.

A feature of today’s racing was that going into the final day Italian boats now hold three of the top four positions, with Marco Rodolfi’s TWT in third and America’s Cup boss Vincenzo Onorato’s Mascalzone Latino just one point behind in fourth.

After a slow start to this regatta, Onorato’s team had today’s best results - “a good day at the office” as British tactician Adrian Stead put it. In race one they started at the pin end and did well from a shift and the tide up the left side. At the top mark they led but were being chased hard by Chuck Parish’s Slingshot on which local expert Dee Smith is calling tactics and Steve Phillips’ Le Renard with veteran Star sailor Mark Reynolds on board. While Slingshot pulled ahead to win the race Onorato’s team hung in there winning a final dash to the finish line against Le Renard to take second.

The second race Mascalzone Latino won. Again they rounded the weather mark in the top group and made their gains on the run. “The key is if you can get away fast at the top mark and just put some distance on people,” described Stead. “It takes so little to be at the back in this fleet. We learned some pretty harsh lessons at the Pre-Worlds last weekend when we wrapped ourselves around the windward mark twice. So we did some work on short tacks - ducking and stuff like that - and it has all helped.”

Today’s final race was won by one of the two and a half female skippers in the 31 boat Rolex Farr 40 Worlds fleet (on Crocodile Rock, Alex Geremia and Scott Harris are both designated helms).

On John and Deneen Demourkas’ Farr 40 it was wife Deneen who helmed their yacht Groovederci to victory in today’s final race. “We started where we wanted to – at the [committee] boat and immediately tacked right – it was the time of day to do that and we just kept going. At the weather mark Heartbreaker were just to leeward of us and we were both laying and they came up underneath us.” They overtook on the run to take the lead, holding this until the end of the usual long final beat to the finish.

The Demourkases first met through sailing in Santa Barbara, CA and this year husband John, one of the founders of Nexxus Haircare Products Co. has only managed to helm ‘their’ boat when Deneen was off in Europe competing in the month long Tour de France a la Voile in their Mumm 30. “I wanted to buy a boat that we could share,” recounts a resigned husband,” but the sharing didn’t happen and it got to the stage where she had way too much experience at the helm.” On board they sail with New Zealander tactician Stu Bannatyne, previously a watch leader on illbruck winner of the last Volvo Ocean Race.

Deneen says she doesn’t get any breaks being a female helmsman in this fleet. “I try threatening them: ‘woman driver - look out!’ But they don’t buy it.” On the subject of why there aren’t more female helms in this fleet she adds: “I don’t know. I have never understood why there aren’t more. I guess it is not a role that women are accustomed to in sailing. It takes some money to do, particularly in this fleet. But I think if there are people out there and I would encourage them that if this was something that they ever thought they wanted to do, they should do it.”

The only other female skipper, Mary Coleman on Astra, is currently 25th.

Two final races are due to be held tomorrow at the Rolex Farr 40 World Championship and the Barking Mad crew will more than ever be playing it safe - “winning by not making mistakes,” as Jim Richardson puts it. “We are not celebrating yet.”

Results:

Pos	Boat	Owner	R1	R2	R3	R4	R5	R6	R7	R8	Tot
1	Barking Mad	James Richardson	9	2	1	4	2	8	7	5	38
2	Nerone	Massimo Mezzaroma	10	3	3	8	6	10	11	22	73
3	TWT	Marco Rodolfi	2	16	20	23	3	4	3	10	81
4	Mascalzone Latino	Vincenzo Onorato	21	25	13	7	7	2	1	6	82
5	Warpath	Steve & Fred Howe	15	12	5	2	10	17	5	18	84
6	Le Renard	Steve Phillips	17	10	2	26	8	3	6	14	86
7	Mean Machine	Peter De Ridder	7	1	10	12	4	26	19	11	90
8	Slingshot	Chuck Parrish	16	9	15	5	32	1	13	3	94
9	Twins 2	Erik Maris	5	13	6	10	24	12	8	17	95
10	Evolution	Richard Perini	12	11	11	20	1	13	4	24	96
11	Heartbreaker	Robert L. Hughes	13	22	7	14	13	19	9	2	99
12	Riot	Marc Ewing	8	19	8	6	9	11	26	12	99
13	Norwegian Steam	Eivind Astrup	1	5	21	18	18	5	21	19	108
14	Joe Fly	Giovanni Maspero	20	8	18	17	17	23	2	4	109
15	Shadow	Peter Stoneberg	11	6	24	1	11	14	28	16	111
16	Crocodile Rock	Scott Harris/ Alex Geremia	14	26	16	11	15	7	16	21	126
17	Pegasus	Philippe Kahn	6	27	4	3	29	21	23	15	128
18	Groovederci	Deneen & John Demourkas	25	14	25	9	23	18	14	1	129
19	Samba Pa Ti	John Kilroy	26	4	9	22	21	24	20	9	135
20	Sotto Voce	Arien van Vemde	19	29	14	16	5	22	10	25	140
21	Sled	Takashi Okura	3	17	22	13	16	16	25	29	141
22	Peregrine	David Thomson	31	15	17	15	25	9	17	27	156
23	Struntje Light	Wolfgang Schaefer	22	23	23	30	14	20	12	13	157
24	Pendragon V	John MacLaurin	27	28	12	24	22	30	15	7	165
25	Astra	Mary Coleman	30	7	26	21	19	6	27	31	167
26	Kokomo	Lang Walker	29	24	28	25	20	15	18	8	167
27	Virago	Stuart + Marrgwen Townsend	28	20	29	19	12	29	24	20	181
28	Temptress	Alan Field	4	21	19	28	26	27	31	26	182
29	Nitemare	Tom Neill	24	18	27	27	28	25	29	30	208
30	Flash Gordon	Helmut Jahn	18	30	32	29	27	28	30	23	217
31	Piranha	David Voss	23	32	30	31	30	31	22	28	227