Mascalzone ahead by a point

Going into the final day of racing at the Rolex Farr 40 Worlds in Miami

After a day of struggling with light and very shifty winds, the leader of the 33 boat fleet at the Rolex Farr 40 Worlds remains Mascalzone Latino, Vincenzo Onorato's Italian entry, with Joe Fly (ITA) in second and Alinghi (SUI) moving up into the third place slot. Two races were held today and two races remain to be sailed tomorrow in the 10 race series. There are no throw-outs - or discard races - in the ultra-competitive Farr 40 Class. No one knows better than Onorato, the defending champion, and his team that a one-point lead is not a cushion.

"It was tough racing out there," said John Kostecki, tactician on board Mascalzone Latino. "To try and stay ahead of the pack in quite shifty winds, it was tricky. Joe Fly sailed well to beat us in two races. We sailed well; not as good as they did, but still did well."

The Latin Rascals scored a 6-3, compared to Joe Fly's 5-2 scores. "We didn't want to separate from them too much since we're so close on points," said Kostecki. "We definitely wanted to go into tomorrow being close instead of them being in the lead. We're happy with today.

For Joe Fly's helmsman Giovanni Maspero, who has kept a low profile so as not to jinx his team, tomorrow is a chance to reach for the champion's title.

Ernesto Bertarelli's Alinghi (SUI) is now one step closer to the top. "We are a little bit better today than yesterday," said Bertarelli. "Yesterday we had a bad race, which is very expensive in this regatta, so today we came back a little bit. We didn't make any changes to our game other than working harder. I haven't had much practice on these boats this year, so I guess every race we get a little better."

Tomorrow will be a chance to improve again. "Anything can happen tomorrow with two races to go, we have to continue to do well," said Bertarelli. He will count on tactician Brad Butterworth and mainsail trimmer Warwick Fleury.

The Swiss sailor has participated in the Farr 40 Class for quite a long time and was the 2001 Farr 40 World Champion. "I like the world championship," Bertarelli continued. "That's almost the only regatta I do and maybe just one other during the year. It's more for fun. I enjoy the fact that it is very competitive and I have a lot of friends here too."

For Barking Mad, Jim Richardson's Newport-based boat came second in the first race and saw its chances of moving up the leader board improve. The increase was not to be in the last race when Barking Mad found itself on the wrong side of the race course and scored a 24, causing them to drop off the podium into fourth place overall.

The first race saw a brief delay in getting racing underway on time, as the wind shifted, forcing the race committee to re-set the course. With one minute to go before the starting signal Erik Maris's Twins (FRA) and Lang and Sue Walker's Kokomo (AUS) found themselves on the line near the pin end. They had nowhere to go but across the line, and their position seemingly dragged the rest of the fleet over the line with them. Another general recall was signaled with the Z flag (a 10% scoring penalty) in place. Twins again was the most aggressive starter and paid the price, having to return to the line, incurring a penalty.

By the first mark rounding, Lisa & Martin Hill's Estate Master (AUS) led the fleet, followed by Flash Gordon (USA) and Silver Bullet (DEN). Mascalzone Latino picked the shifts correctly and passed a number of boats downwind to finish 6th and hold onto the overall lead. Joe Fly (ITA) and Barking Mad - yesterday's second and third overall - came around in fourth and fifth, respectively, giving Joe Fly the overall lead at that moment over Mascalzone Latino, which rounded the mark in ninth.



On the run to the finish line, Estate Master (AUS) found itself on the correct side of the course benefiting from a sizeable left hand shift and captured the race victory. "I understand in the Farr 40s that if you win one, one day you're chicken the next day you're feathers" said owner/helmsman Martin Hill. "Everyone understands that you have to go right at the beginning of the start. So there's a lot of competition for that boat end of the line. It's very important and everyone has the right idea to go right.

"We had two good starts," continued Hill. "There's good communication among the crew. The boat prefers light to moderate breeze, and we have spent about six weeks in Miami trying to understand the oscillating breezes."

This is Estate Master's debut on the international stage. "It's always been our dream to compete in a world championship and to see our friends cheering us on is really great," concluded Hil.

Flash Gordon, Helmut Jahn's Chicago-based boat, had the day's second best overall performance, finishing the first race in third place, with a fourth place in the second race for the 68-year-old helmsman.

Nanoq, the entry helmed by HRH Crown Prince Frederik finished the race in fourth, the next in 10th although the Danish team added a 10% scoring penalty. That performance moved them into 6th place overall. "It was a very good day," said the Crown Prince. "The first race was amazing for us. We had a good start, actually our starts have been good since the Pre-Worlds. We had the right race tactics."

Although he makes such an impressive performance sound simple, he admitted that he prefers sailing upwind. "Downwind was a struggle," he said. "We were scared a bit of our downwind sailing. We stayed in our lanes, focused and kept our lanes, taking time with our gybes."

It certainly helps to have Bouwe Bekking, the Volvo Ocean Race legend, on board. The relationship has been a solid one since the past Worlds in Copenhagen. "I listen to what he says, making slow movements with the tiller," said the Crown Prince. "It's difficult in medium to light wind. We have a lot of talking and feedback sailing downwind. We had someone calling the far away puffs and the near puffs. We tried to avoid anyone jibing behind us."

And if he could choose, what kind of conditions would the Crown Prince prefer tomorrow? "Ideally, there will be no wind and no racing," he joked. "We prefer light wind. We'll work like we did today and remember our boat mode, the same as today."

By the second race, the wind had shifted yet again, making the race committee work extra hard to keep the course squared to the wind direction. With the increasing shifts, many of the competitors found themselves approaching the starting line well in advance of the legal time to start the race. "We had six 'over early' boats the first time we tried to start the race," said Peter 'Luigi' Reggio. who has a long history with Farr 40 Class racing, serving on the race committee mark boat during the Class's first world championship in 1998. Since then, he has been involved in six of the 11 world championships, five of them as Principal Race Officer. "I've never seen this fleet so aggressive."

Racing concludes tomorrow.

Results:

Pos	Sail no	Boat	Owner	R1	R2	R3	R4	R5	R6	R7	R8	Tot
1	ITA 1	MASCALZONE LATINO	Vincenzo Onorato	3	12	1	14	3	5	6	3	47
2	ITA 1805	JOE FLY	Giovanni Maspero	9	1	8	15	6	2	5	2	48
3	SUI 81818	ALINGHI	Ernesto Bertarelli	8	14	6	6	7	20	9	4 scp	74
4	USA 50955	BARKING MAD	Jim Richardson	23	5	3	2	16	6	2	24	81
5	MON 40	MEAN MACHINE	Peter de Ridder	24	3	9	9	14	1	14	9	83
6	DEN 7	NANOQ	HRH Crown Prince Frederik	13	15	16	20	17	9	4	13 scp	107
7	USA 46999	RAMROD	Rod Jabin	22	8	17	3	10	21	10	19 scp	110
8	USA 69	WARPATH	Fred & Steve Howe	12	13	14	24	11	8	18	11	111
9	ITA 40102	CALVI NETWORK	Carlo Alberini	6	9	12	33	26	14	7	7	114
10	GRE 40	ATALANTI	Stratis Andreadis	5	2	25	7	24	11	15	26 scp	115
11	GER 5565	OPUS ONE	Wolfgang Stolz	15	16	21	1	5	23	22	15	118
12	AUS 615	ESTATE MASTER	Lisa & Martin Hill	31	18	30	4	18	13	1	6	121
13	AUS 8883	KOKOMO	Lang Walker	20	7	20	12	15	7	17	26	124
14	ITA 1972	NERONE	Massimo Mezzaroma	19	19	2	29	1	25	13	21 scp	129
15	DEN 112	SILVER BULLET	Henrik Jansen	17	29	32	22	2	10	11	8	131
16	USA 50001	FLASH GORDON	Helmut Jahn	14	23	31	10	30	16	3	4	131
17	USA 46957	GROOVEDERCI 57	Deneen Demourkas	11	6	5	16	29	24	21	20	132
18	USA 2	GOOMBAY SMASH	William Douglass	25	25	15	8	20	22	16	5	136
19	GER 40126	MORNING GLORY	Hasso Plattner	29	20	13	18	4	29	8	16 scp	137
20	ITA 252	FIAMMA	Alessandro Bamaba	4	17	28	5	31	12	25	22	144
21	JPN 5095	SLED	Takashi Okura	2	10	18	11	25	31	23	28 scp	148
22	GBR 1640R	ASTERISK	Ole van der Heide	10	31	11	30	22	3	20	22 scp	149
23	USA 7289	GROOVEDERCI 127	John Demourkas	28	4	19	17	8	26	27	20 scp	149
24	USA 60059	PLENTY	Alexander Roepers	21	11	4	27	28	17	12	31 scp	151
25	FRA 007	TWINS	Erik Maris	27	26	7	25	19	4	34 zfp	12	154
26	USA 50092	HEARTBREAKER	Robert Hughes	1	21	22	13	27	27	19	32 scp	162
27	USA 4040	INFINITY	John Thomson	7	24	23	31	13	19	28	34 zfp	179
28	AUS 5077	HOOLIGAN	Marcus Blackmore	18	22	10	28	23	33	30	21 scp	185
29	ITA 1161	CANNONBALL	Dario Ferrari	32	32	26	19	9	18	32	21	189
30	BRA 2283	DSK COMIFIN	Danilo Salsi	16	34 dsq	29	23	12	32	24	34 zfp	204
31	GER 5055	STRUNTJE LIGHT	Wolfgang Schaefer	26	27	24	32	33	15	26	30	213
32	DEN 2900	BACKBONE	Thomas Kiaer	30	28	27	26	21	28	29	30 scp	219
33	USA 51990	NIMBUS BLUE	Hunt Lawrence/USMMA	33	30	34 dnc	21	32	30	31	31	242