Virago into the lead

After day one of fleet racing at the Rolex Farr One Design Invitational in Miami reports Dana Paxton

There is nothing like warm Florida sunshine and steady 15-knot breezes to knock the cobwebs out of that portion of the brain responsible for sailing a boat. Many of the international sailors competing in the Rolex Farr One Design Invitational have come from as far away as Brazil, France, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands and Norway and have not been on a racecourse since the end of the summer season.

For the 27 teams competing, a spin around the buoys just off Miami's South Beach provided a welcome start to the winter sailing schedule. This first-ever event combines class starts for the Rolex Mumm 30 and the Rolex Farr 40 North American Championships where winners will be awarded specially engraved Rolex timepieces. An open class for Farr 395s is also being run by the Storm Trysail Club Race Committee. The 11-race series that continues through Sunday, November 22.

In the Farr 40 class, Virago, owned by Stuart Townsend opened with a 3-4-2 and leads the highly-competitive 17 boat fleet, but at this stage it's anybody's game and all of the owners, tacticians and crews will have their work cut out for them. Atalanti, owned by George Andreadis from Greece is in second with Samba Pa Ti, owned by John Kilroy in third.

Andreadis, vice-president of the International Sailing Federation, explained the trouble that led to a eighth place in the first race. "We had a little problem with weed on the propeller shaft," he said. "We think that was the problem. We cleaned it and then did much better." Atalanti then went on to score two third places. Rolex Yachtsman of the Year Ed Baird serves as tactician onboard.

Six of the Farr 40s participated in the Rolex Farr 40 Match Race earlier this week with Jim Richardson's Barking Mad taking honours. Richardson credited the two days and 10 races of that event working on boat speed and crew work as the key to his winning today's first race. "We got off to a really good start," he said. "We had good boat speed and sailed the course the way we wanted to. But it was close. There were a lot of boats
nipping at our heels!"

The Mumm 30 class is led by Off the Gauge, owned by Jack Lefort who considers this week a fun sailing vacation for him and his friends. They finished fourth in the first race, but went on to a second and ended the day with a win. Lucky for Lefort, his "friends only crew" includes two-time Rolex Yachtsman of the Year and America's Cup sailor Ken Read sailing as tactician.

"As you can see from our scores today, "rusty" was our middle name," Read joked. "Jackie did a great job driving out bunch of old buddies."

Peter Davidson's Farr 395 Shades of Gray is leading the Farr 395 class with three straight wins.

Preliminary Results November 19, 2003

Pos	Boat Name	Owner	R1	R2	R3	Tot
	Farr 395
1	SHADES OF GRAY	Peter Davidson	1	1	1	3
2	SPINAL SHOCK	Gordon Donald	3 dnc	3 dnc	3 dnc	9
	Farr 40s
1	VIRAGO	Stuart Townsend	3	4	2	9
2	ATALANTI	George Andreadis	8	3	3	14
3	SAMBA PA TI	John Kilroy	2	1	12	15
4	SHADOW ROCK	Geremia / Stoneberg	13	2	1	16
5	BARKING MAD	Jim Richardson	1	11	4	16
6	NERONE	Mezzaroma/Sodo Migliori	4	7	6	17
7	BAMBAKOU	John Counmantaros	11	8	5	24
8	TWINS 2	Erik Maris	6	10	11	27
9	GOOD TIMES	Eduardo Ramos	5	14	10	29
10	NORWEGIAN STEAM	Eiviind Astrup	10	6	13	29
11	MEAN MACHINE	Peter de Ridder	17	5	8	30
12	SOTTO VOCE	Arien van Vemde	7	16	9	32
13	RIOT	Mark Ewing	12	17	7	36
14	SOLUTION	John Thompson	9	15	15	39
15	PHISH FOOD	Alexis Michas	14	13	14	41
16	FLASH GORDON	Helmut Jahn	16	9	17	42
17	Le RENARD	Steve Phillips	15	12	16	43
	Mumm 30
1	OFF THE GAUGE	Jack Lefort	4	2	1	7
2	USA65	David Pyles	1	3	7	11
3	TRAMP	Tom Ritter	6	1	5	12
4	TEAM INTERMEC	Dan Cheresh	2	6	4	12
5	GO FIGURE	Dave Koski	3	7	3	13
6	TURBO DUCK	Bodo/Nick vd Wense	5	4	6	15
7	TEAM BOLD	Nelson Stephenson	8	8	2	18
8	CYGNET	Rick Swann	10 dnc	5	8	23
9	CHAMPOSA	Jonathan McDonagh	7	9	9	25

Title sponsor is Rolex Watch U.S.A. Organizers include the Storm Trysail Club, Mumm 30 and Farr 40 Class Associations. Avalon Majestic Hotel is the official hotel. North Sails and Lewmar are supporting sponsors.

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