Sardinian Farr 40 farce

Difficult conditions overwhelm race management, The Daily Sail reports from the race course.

Day one of the Farr 40 Pre-Worlds, or day one of the third Med event for the class, was conducted under difficult conditions off Porto Rotondo, Sardinia.

The Italian breeze was to prove very uncooperative but it was the race committee who stood out as the most unsteady factor for the day.

Thirty six boats, each with a massive investment to attend Sardinia, raced under, at times, farcical conditions as the race committee struggled to get a grip of proceedings.

“Hopeless”, “The worst race management I have seen”, and “Very poor”, is all the the competitors could comment on their return to the dock at 7pm, after eight hours on the water and two dubious races.

The day started with a solid twenty five knot breeze. Unsurprisingly it took three recalls and finally the black flag to get the fleet away on the first race. A big shift on the run resulted in the committee ringing the bell for a change of windward mark, only for the leading boats never to find it on the second lap. In an almost comical farce, around twenty Farr 40’s were overlapped as they tried to round the windward mark; which at the time was in the back of a speedboat heading east.

The race was to be abandoned, with the second attempt turning into a reach-a-thon as a very poor and biased course was laid. Eight boats sat out this race, called over on the black flag start in the previous race. Notables who looked on included hot favourite Alinghi, Australlians Southern Star and Alberto Signorini in Seven.

Even with the windshifts the committee failed to move the course quick enough and the fleet just had a one gybe run into the finish.

After a one hour break for ‘lunch’ (for who we don’t know), the breeze started to drop and after a recall for the second race the postponement flag went up. With not much relocation going on, the race course was now orientated with the windward mark situated under massive cliffs on the southern end of the bay.

To cut a long story short, the race went inside out with the boats on the right hand side sailing a great circle route to the windward mark on starboard, only to round the ‘windward’ mark, gybe and do another great circle route back. Mark Heeley’s GBR 25 managed to dodge the bullets and score a first, this takes them to fourth overall.

Embarrassed boats of the day include Nerone in 22th, Madina in 27th, Atalanti in 28th, and Barking Mad in 29th The worst day was had by the highly competent team on Seven. Wth Tomasso Chieffi on tactics, they are now 63 points off the lead after two races and rooted to the bottom of the table.

As they say, tomorrow’s another day. With the race committee spotted behind a container in the marina here, with raised voices and finger wagging, the fleet hopes things will smarten up pretty swiftly.

1. Farrfelu, 2,5
2. Warpath, 9,2
3 Mean Machine, 1, 11
4 GBR 25, 12,1
5 Victirc 5, 6,14