Upsetting the form book

Helmut Jahn leads Farr 40 Worlds with two race wins

Flash Gordon was firing on all cylinders today while other leading lights stalled out during a tricky opening day at the Rolex Farr 40 World Championship in Newport, Rhode Island. The formula for Flash Gordon's success includes world-renowned architect Helmut Jahn steering his Flash Gordon upwind, then handing over to his son Evan downwind. An unorthodox approach, but one that did them no harm in the light south-westerly breeze that blew across Rhode Island Sound.

In the first race of the day, Flash Gordon got a nice start off the pin end of the line, in good company with leading contenders such as 2004 World Champion and winner of last week's Pre-Worlds, Jim Richardson on Barking Mad. However, where Barking Mad tacked off to protect the middle of the course, Flash Gordon kept on going, rounding the first mark narrowly ahead of Vincenzo Onorato's Mascalzone Latino. Barking Mad dropped to around 10th when tactician Terry Hutchinson's conservative strategy failed to pay off.

By the leeward gate, Onorato had drawn level with the leader, his tactician Russell Coutts opting for the right-hand side while Flash Gordon's Mark Ivey took the left. Ivey's call paid off and Flash Gordon led for the rest of the race, taking the win ahead of Mascalzone Latino and another Italian entry, the 2003 World Champion Nerone, owned by Massimo Mezzaroma and Antonio Migliori.

For the second race the breeze had built from 7 knots up to 12 or 13, and this time Flash Gordon started near the committee boat, her start only bettered by Wolfgang Stolz's German entry Opus One. Once again Flash Gordon's strategy paid off while this time many of the leading lights struggled on the left side of the course. Flash Gordon and Opus One were sufficiently far ahead toward the top of the first leg that the Americans even put a couple of covering tacks on the Germans. Behind the first two a battle ensued for the next few places, with Ernesto Bertarelli's Alinghi doing a good job of picking off boats here and there around the course, including surfing past Erik Maris on Twins by mere inches across the finish to take third ahead of the French team.

At the end of day one, Flash Gordon sits proudly at the top of the leader board, with 2 points to second-place Alinghi's 8 points. Henrik Jansen's Danish team, Silver Bullet, showed incredible form in their first-ever Farr 40 regatta and are third overall with 14 points.



Helmut Jahn was delighted, but tried to keep a lid on his emotions. "It was a dream day, we did exactly what we wanted to do," he said. "We wanted to find a good spot on the line, and get off the line cleanly, which we did. We've been working on this for eight years. We have a good coach in Ed Adams, and I think everyone on the boat has improved the way they do their job. But we are not celebrating, we are just going home tonight, and hope we can do the same - or something similar - tomorrow."

For Brad Butterworth and the rest of Ernesto Bertarelli's team on Alinghi, this week represents a bit of a holiday from their America's Cup training. "Ernesto loves the class, and I love it too, it's fun," he said. "It's hard to start consistently in this fleet. I think the Farr 40 is a standalone class, it's a high quality class, and I believe the hardest class to win."

A hard class to win it seems, even for the reigning World Champion. Richard Perini suffered the worst possible start to his campaign to defend the title that he won in Sydney last year, scoring a 16th and 35th in the 38-boat fleet. In fact the first race 16th represented a very good climb through the fleet after a poor first beat, so it wasn't all doom and gloom on board the Australian boat. Tactician Rob Brown commented: "It was a little bit disappointing, but the boys have got their heads held high. I think everyone's going to have a bad one, I just hope we don't have any more. We placed a little more importance on the weather forecast than maybe we should have done, and paid the price for that. Sailing at the back of this fleet, you've got to be a pretty good sailor back there, it's very hard work. It was tough, but our chins are still up, and we'll go out there tomorrow and take it on."

The Opening Ceremonies were held last night at New York Yacht Club, Harbour Court, where Commodore George Hinman welcomed competitors from 12 countries: Australia, Brazil, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Japan, UK, and U.S.

Today's after-race social events took place at Belle Mer on Goat Island, where the North Sails Race Day award was presented to Flash Gordon.

Results

1. Flash Gordon, Helmut Jahn, Chicago, Illinois, USA, 1-1, 2 points
2. Alinghi, Ernesto Bertarelli, Valencia, ESP, 5-3, 8
3. Silver Bullet, Henrik Jensen, Copenhagen, DEN, 7-7, 14
4. Twins, Erik Maris, Paris, FRA, 14-4, 18
5. Pegasus, Philippe Kahn, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA, 13-5, 18
6. Nerone, Mezzaroma/Migliori, Rome, ITA, 3-16, 19
7. Opus One, Wolfgang Stolz, Frankfurt, GER, 20-2, 22
8. Barking Mad, Jim Richardson, Boston, Mass/Newport, RI, USA, 10-14, 24
9. Ichi Ban, Matt Allen, Sydney, AUS, 4-22, 26
10. Appreciation, Jeff Siegal, Riverside, Conn., USA 8-19, 27


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