Swans prepare their battle lines

Rolex Swan American Regatta gets underway tomorrow in Newport, RI

The day before the Rolex Swan American Regatta in Newport, Rhode Island, and former champion Frank Savage is sounding confident of success again aboard his immaculately prepared Swan 56 Lolita.

“I expect to win the overall trophy and my chances are very good as Lolita will be in excellent shape and I have an excellent crew,” said Savage, who has raced this biennial regatta five times and won the overall trophy in 2001. “I always keep Lolita in top form. In preparation for this regatta, she has been in the boat yard for almost three weeks for a bottom job and checking all of the rigging and winches.”

Lolita will be racing in Racing Class A, home of the big boats, with Clay Deutsch’s Swan 68 Chippewa being the largest in the regatta. Like Savage, Deutsch is a ‘work hard, play hard’ kind of owner, and he acknowledged Lolita’s status as the pre-event favorite. “ Lolita’s crew is always competitive,” said Deutsch. “We see a lot of them on the race course, and we know that whenever we manage to beat them we’ve done something pretty special. Frank has a good team around him, and most of the crew has sailed with him for many years. Crew stability is a vital factor for performing well.”

The unknown quantity in the big boat division is Jim Swartz’s brand new Swan 601 Moneypenny launched two weeks ago. Following on from the success of four Swan 601s racing around the Solent, in England, a month ago in the Rolex Swan European Regatta, Moneypenny’s participation in this regatta is being followed with eager anticipation on the North American racing scene. Volvo Ocean Race veteran Dee Smith will be calling tactics and the crew includes many America’s Cup veterans such as Kimo Worthington, Mike Toppa and Mark Strube. This gleaming new 60 footer could be the one to watch - certainly for line honours, but perhaps also for the ClubSwan award for the bets performance ovderall.

The Swan 44 Mk II class is well represented across two divisions, with some opting to compete in the spinnaker division of Racing Class B and others stowing the spinnaker to compete in Cruising Class D, numerically the biggest fleet in Newport this week. Perhaps the closest fought class will be Racing Class C, where nine Swan 45s will battle it out in the one-design competition. As usual, the Swan fleet is peppered with world-class talent, notably 2004 Olympic Gold Medallist Kevin Burnham, who is calling tactics for the Japanese Swan 45 Yasha, owned by Yukihiro Ishida.

Craig Speck’s Vim is arguably the favourite, as this well-prepared team returns to the regatta as defending champion from 2003. Speck is focused on doing the double, aiming to win the Swan 45 fleet as well as the overall trophy, although he acknowledges the difficulty of the task. “We are going to come back and try to win it again,” said Speck. “It will be tougher this time because we will have our own class, which means we won’t have other boats to work as blockers and the fleet is much closer during racing. Everyone has gotten a lot better and it is a stronger fleet.”

In total, a fleet of 39 Swan yachts have come from America, Asia and Europe to compete in the regatta, with a maximum of nine races scheduled to take place from July 25-29. Hosted by the New York Yacht Club and sponsored by Rolex, this is the 12th time that Swans will join together for a hotly contested series of racing on Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island Sound and the Atlantic Ocean.

On Monday, July 25, the Rolex Swan American Regatta will be featured on ESPN’s “SportsCenter Across America,” a 50-state-in-50-days summer tour of the popular sports news program. SportsCenter Across America begins July 17 and continues for 50 straight days, highlighting a sporting event in a different state each day through September 4. The SportsCenter Across America will originate from a mobile SportsCenter set located within the Rolex Swan American Regatta Village at the Newport Shipyard. The segment will air on the 6pm, 11pm and 1am (EST) editions of SportsCenter.

Entries:

Yacht	Skipper	Type	Sail no	Fleet
BANDIT	Andrew Fisher	Swan 45	45026	Swan 45
Bellicosa	Massimo Ferragamo	Swan 45	52225	Swan 45
Better Than...	Andrzej Rojek	Swan 45	18	Swan 45
DEVOCEAN	stephen de voe	Swan 45	45024	Swan 45
Goombay Smash	William Douglass	Swan 45	USA 45454	Swan 45
PLENTY	Alexander Roepers	Swan 45	USA52059	Swan 45
VIM	Craig Speck	SWAN 45	52445	Swan 45
Vixen	Dick Weismann	Swan	USA 45032	Swan 45
YASHA	Anthony Rey	Swan 45	JPN-6234	Swan 45
Affinity	Jon Desmond		US 50007	Racing Class (spinnaker)
Aqua Equinox	james Connelly	Swan 56	6237 BEL	Racing Class (spinnaker)
Avocation	Henry Schmitt	Swan 48	51235	Racing Class (spinnaker)
BANDIT	Andrew Fisher	SWAN 45	45026	Racing Class (spinnaker)
Bellicosa	Massimo Ferragamo	Swan 45	52225	Racing Class (spinnaker)
CHIPPEWA	Clayton Deutsch	SWAN 68	IVB6821	Racing Class (spinnaker)
Crescendo	Martin/Leon Jacobson/Christianakis	Swan 44mk11	IVB51244	Racing Class (spinnaker)
CYGNE	Raymond Peterson	SWAN 46	33813	Racing Class (spinnaker)
Falcon	Mark Minkus	Swan Cstm. 56	42233	Racing Class (spinnaker)
Godspeed	John Nugent	Swan	ANT5114	Racing Class (spinnaker)
Goombay Smash	William Douglass	Swan 45	USA 45454	Racing Class (spinnaker)
lLOLITA	Frank Savage	SWAN56 R/C	50056	Racing Class (spinnaker)
Moneypenny	Jim Swartz	Swan 601	61007	Racing Class (spinnaker)
Moondance	Cliff Crowley	Swan 44 MKII	69	Racing Class (spinnaker)
Privateer	Ronald O'Hanley	Swan 48/2	52140	Racing Class (spinnaker)
RUSE	William Marsh	Swan 44 Mark II	US 52044	Racing Class (spinnaker)
Sazerac	Gordon Ettie	Swan 40CB	50403	Racing Class (spinnaker)
Sky	James Reiher	Swan 53/28	USA 51382	Racing Class (spinnaker)
VIXEN	John Wayt	S&S Swan 44	12002	Racing Class (spinnaker)
xenophon	jeffrey rabuffo	Swan 44MKII	USA52853	Racing Class (spinnaker)
Alerre	Russell B. Hagen	Sloop CC	12	Cruising Class (non spinnaker)
Amanda	Roland Bathory		52253	Cruising Class (non spinnaker)
Clover III	Neal Finnegan	Swan 56 C/R	52056	Cruising Class (non spinnaker)
Defiance	Peter Noonan	Swan 56 C/R	51868	Cruising Class (non spinnaker)
Dire Wolf	Thomas Little	Swan 44 MkII	6697	Cruising Class (non spinnaker)
EDELWEISS	RICHARD EVANS	SWAN 38	51965	Cruising Class (non spinnaker)
Grace	Eugene Gold	Swan 53CB	41775	Cruising Class (non spinnaker)
Marianna	Robert Doris	Swan 57RS	50033	Cruising Class (non spinnaker)
Marie Blue	Carel Paauwe	Swan 60	GBR 6095	Cruising Class (non spinnaker)
Njord	William Kalis	Swan 371	52116	Cruising Class (non spinnaker)
Port Call	Kay Statz	Swan 46 MK I,CB	51764	Cruising Class (non spinnaker)
Reef Points	Joseph Huber	Swan 44 mkII	USA 52244	Cruising Class (non spinnaker)
Wind Dancer	Fernand Desgagnes	Swan 48 / Hull 128	USA 344	Cruising Class (non spinnaker)

Suppliers for the Rolex Swan American Regatta include the Bitter End Yacht Club, Graham Beck Winery, Inamar/ACE, OXYGEN, Peroni and Peters & May. As with every Swan regatta, the social program will be an integral part of the Rolex Swan American Regatta. ClubSwan, together with Rolex and the NYYC, has put together an action-packed program of entertainment throughout the week to include the Rolex Owners Dinner at the New York Yacht Club, Harbor Court and the Regatta Crew Party to be held at the Newport Regatta Club on Goat Island. The Final Prize giving will take place on July 29 at Harbor Court, when the overall winner of each class will be awarded a Rolex timepiece.