Can Mascalzone make it three in a row?

We talk to Adrian Stead about defending the Rolex Farr 40 World Championship crown

There are a few tumultuous weeks ahead for Adrian Stead with a Farr 40 World Championship to defend with Mascalzone Latino boss Vincenzo Onorato and the arrival of child no1 scheduled for just days after.

Stead has just returned from Acura Miami Grand Prix where after setting the tone, winning the first two races, an ugly 12th and 14th and three 9ths in their scoreline saw them lose to former world championship and Farr 40 Class President Jim Richardson and Terry Hutchinson aboard Barking Mad.

Despite all manner of new distractions, from TP52s to RC44s, the Farr 40 class never seems to have been stronger with an exceptional turn-out of boats expected for the Worlds in April. “The fleet is probably the toughest its ever been at the moment,” confirms Stead. “A Worlds in America always brings out as many people as possible with some very strong American boats but also some very strong international boats. It is shaping up for at least 30-32 boats to be there.” The level of competition will certainly be at its highest as the Worlds will be the culmination of Acura Key West, Acura Miami Grand Prix and the pre-Worlds immediately before it. A majority of the top contenders are sailing all of these but according to Stead notable boats missing from Miami last week were Ernesto Bertarelli’s Alinghi and Alessandro Barnada’s Fiamma.



“I think putting the masthead spinnakers on just made them all the more fun to sail and keep people coming back,” says Stead of the Farr 40’s continuing popularity despite it being 11 years old now. “A lot of the people in the class are the same people who have been in it since the inception with few people leaving who haven’t been happy.” In fact Stead was sailing on board Barking Mad in Miami back in 1998 when they won the first Farr 40 World Championship.

The fleet continues to be peppered with America’s Cup stars - in addition to Alinghi, Paul Cayard sailing with the Howes on Warpath, Gavin Brady on Ramrod, plus Team New Zealanders all over the place with Ray Davies on Peter de Ridder’s Mean Machine, Dean Barker on Hasso Plattner’s Morning Glory and Kelvin Harrap and Rob Salthouse on Wolfgang Stolz’s Opus One - to name just a few. “If you look over the last three races the top boat was SLED, the Japanese boat with Stirfry and Jeff Madrigali on board,” says Stead.

Obviously the Farr 40s is an owner driver class with numbers of pros per boat strictly limited, but one feels that with the present America’s Cup hiatus, most of Valencia is currently in Miami. “Everyone has always been in and out of the class. There are a few more people around, but there are a lot of people who have done plenty of hours in the class,” says Stead.

Stead believes that of the 30 or so boats there are around 10 serious contenders for the top spot at the Worlds. “We’ve seen who can put together a good series and one thing we saw last week was some tricky conditions - quite shifty, very different types of breeze, we had a day of quite big waves from the ESE, we had a bit of flat water. And we saw at the regatta in November when it was very light and choppy was that there’s more and more people coming to play. Ian Walker on Goombay Smash put in a good performance and he’ll be in there in the results.

“The class is just good fun. It is as competitive as ever. There is very little bitching. Everyone sails and enjoys it. The class is pretty well disciplined. It comes down to very good management of the class. Between Jim Richardson, Geoff Stagg and the Executive Committee, they have kept the class tight and have gone to venues the owners want to go sailing in and have attracted the best people. People are already thinking about the next Worlds in Sardinia which we know are going to be good, potentially better than the Worlds in Miami in terms of a venue. I think the last Worlds in Sardinia were the biggest - that was impressive.”

So how does one up one’s game in such a rigorously controlled class? “You can’t stand still in this class. We keep working on our sails and on our team and on our boat and on various boat handling areas where we feel we can improve. This year we have added Tim Burnell to the boat which is a pretty good addition. He drives the Race Vision for the start and he is a great natural sailor and helps give information to myself and Gerry Mitchell.

“We deliberately went out to Miami two days early to do some boat handling. We were working particularly on hoists and drops and some starting drills.”

With the change in the sail inventory there is still development work to be carried out there. “The class has allowed three masthead spinnakers now and one fractional whereas last year it was a maximum of two mastheads and one fractional. So in effect you have another spinnaker to fit in your inventory so you have to balance how small you make the VMG and how big you make the S1, the normal runner, and there is a full-sized chute that has to be above a certain cloth weight that everyone has to have. So we are trying to refine that as well. And also because the sails are buttoned, you can’t change your sail inventory during a regatta, you have to make the best time of your sailing outside of your training to evaluate them.”

While Onorato won his first Worlds two years with Russell Coutts calling tactics, last year Stead had moved into this slot and having been part of the Mascalzone Latino Cup campaign last year, Stead is spending most of his time afloat with Onorato.

Perhaps core to their approach is just sailing regularly on Onorato’s wide array of one design keel boats. “The game plan with Vincenzo is that we try and sail a regatta once a month. We really sail 10 regattas a year and that is primarily in the Farr 40 but it might be in the RC44 or in the M30. Also have also ordered a Melges 32 for November to sail in the US in December,” says Stead. “The boats look bloody good fun. They are a slightly different style of sailing. We’ve been sharing the race course with them for the last two regattas and you can see what a good class it is. Vincenzo is happy to get one and go for a sail.”

With Stuart Robinson no longer competing on the MedCup circuit, Stead has had various offers to sail on other boats which to date he has declined. However one event he has found time to include in his schedule this year is the Barts Bucket event for superyachts in the French Caribbean paradise of St Barts where he is sailing with designer Ed Dubois on board the 145ft long Salperton. “I have got Andy Heming and Simon Clarke coming along, so it should be a bit of fun. They are all pursuit races, but it is horrendously big gear.”

His sailing with Neville Crichton on board the Alfa Romeo maxi is also being limited to the Maxi Worlds this year and Stead says he doesn’t know how much longer he will be able to continue sailing on this. A new smaller (around 70ft) Alfa Romeo is currently under construction at McConaghys to another Reichel Pugh design, however Onorato is considering having an IRC boat of a similar size built for 2009-11 and this would present a clash for Stead.

“We are waiting to see if we get some sponsorship before we go ahead,” he says of the new boat. If this does come to pass then Onorato’s goal will be to compete in all the classic offshore 500 milers such as the Rolex Fastnet Race, Sydney-Hobart Race, Middle Sea Race, Bermuda Race etc. Sounds like a nice program…