- Local News for Southern Sailors - February 2002 Next Story
Feast and famine at Key West
By Doran Cushing
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I don't know
if you can blame global warming or too many tourists, but the weather at Key West is changing. What had been for years a predictably breezy race venue has become unpredictable and downright frustrating of late...like the rest of the places most of us sail. It's just that we expect MORE from Key West. 
With a new title sponsor—Terra Nova Trading—the premier racing event in North America returned to Key West for the 15th year with more than 300 boats and several thousand sailors. Like squeezing a dozen college students into a VW bug, the nightly party tent violates several laws of physics and liquids.
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New for 2002 was a multihull fleet of Corsair F28Rs, possible throwouts for all fleets (which changed some of the scoring dynamics considerably), and somewhat higher entry fees...but who's counting if you want to race at Key West.
Yeh, the weather wasn't ideal, what with an opening day of very light air, two light to medium (6 - 12 knots) days, one medium day (12 to 18 knots), and the final day when the wind stayed home. But it still beats the alternative in 90 percent of the rest of the northern hemisphere.
For those who have not been to Key West during race week, let me set the tone. Incredible boats everywhere you turn—both the visiting race boats and the resident schooners and even the "cattlemarans" for the tourists. Indescribable chaos in the most popular bars...centering on overindulging, lewd and lascivious behavior, and whatever else rocks your clock. The party tent seems like Sunday school if you later decide to rumble down Duval Street into the night. This is a friendly town where bicyclists, dogs, and sailors can pretty much do as they please. But the race week is serious business for most of the crews until the racing is over.
Doran Cushing photos
This, as stated before, is the biggest sailing event in North America. And in 2002 it took on additional significance as host of the Melges 24 Worlds. The competition was so deep people like world champion Vince Brun had to watch 19 other boats finish in front of him in one race—his throwout. Despite six top-ten finishes, Brun was a distant third to Franco Rossini of Italy, who won five straight races. That has to be considered an impossible feat in any 77-boat starting line filled with Olympians, world champions, and AC veterans...but he pulled it off.
The rules called for a throwout in all of the fleets after seven races (eight for the Melges). Some fleets, like the smaller/slower-rated PHRF boats, didn't get to seven races when Friday's closing races never got started. Other fleets, including the power-packed Farr 40s, did get a seventh race and the throwout...and it likely saved two-time defending champion Atalanti XI with North sailmaker Ethan Bixby of St. Petersburg aboard as trimmer.
The Greek-based Atalanti XI won the event in a walk two years ago, then raced to the final gun in 2001 to savor a close win. This year the throwout allowed owner Andreadis to discard a DSQ in the sixth race, finish no better than third in any race, and recapture the Farr 40 title for a record third time with only a two-point margin when the final race was never begun for lack of wind. Being good and being lucky is an unbeatable combination.
For this sailor, the F28R races held the most magic as 13 teams with varying levels of expertise and experience competed. Randy Smyth proved two things: one, that even with four very smart racers onboard, if you don't read the sailing instructions, you can find yourself rounding the wrong mark on the course. He also proved that near-flawless sail handling, smart tactics, and boat speed are tough to beat... as they are in any boat.
It took only the slightest blip at one of the corners for a leader to become the sucking wind boat. And with the course filled with 30-foot sport boats, 70-foot sleds, and lots of other very large wind shadows, course management was probably more important than tacking on a small shift.
Californian Tim McKegney was the skipper of record for LIL Loe. His team ended up throwing out a third place finish and still finished second, six points behind Smyth, Notary, Marsh, and Styne after seven races.
Doug Harkrider's Georgia-based team was in the hunt until a mainsail failure on the breezy day forced them to retire and throw out the race. They finished third, three points behind McKegney and nine points behind the Smyth team.
The rest of the fleet never seriously challenged the top three boats. They may have had their moments, but through the widely varying wind conditions, only the top three boats seemed to be able to shift gears and keep the sails going up and down cleanly. Time on the water...priceless!
It wasn't a bad year for the Southern boats. Two of the top performances were turned in on the 28-boat J/105 course. The Charleston, SC-based Tern 7, skippered by J/boat guy Robert Johnstone, edged the Naples-based J/105 Flame for overall honors with a three-point margin after six races (no throwout). Dean Cleall's Olson 30 Baddog from Bradenton, FL, took PHRF 6 honors in a 10-boat fleet of sport-type boats ranging from 60 to 105 PHRF. Teddy Turner's Charleston-based SR 33 Speed Racer finished third in PHRF 7. Pearce Wood's J/80 from New Orleans finished second in the 23-boat fleet.
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In PHRF 8, perennial winner Peter De Beukelaer took honors with his Tripp 26 Dream Cookie, based in Jackson, MS. In PHRF 9, Dan Myers' Moorings 38 E-Ticket from Lighthouse Point, FL, led the fleet with four bullets in six races.
Ex-Whitbread sailor Kuli Kulinichenko of Tampa, FL, crewed with the winning team aboard Rima in the six-boat IMS fleet. In PHRF 1, a bad decision took out the Andrews 68 Titan XI as Stephen Murray's New Orleans-based Andrews 70 Decision almost sank Titan XI with a port tack T-bone just forward of the helm station. In PHRF 3, Michael Carroll's Tampa Bay-based Henderson 30 team aboard New Wave finished second, edging Melges 30 rivals Tiburon by one point. Last year these two teams switched boats on the final day to settle a dispute about which crew was better. Another New Orleans boat, Richard Rubin's Tripp 40 Chutzpah, finished second in PHRF 4, one point out of first.
The Key West race week schedule is always a full schedule. There are daily speed clinics, the nightly party tent, a 5K running race, and endless opportunities to hurt yourself on and off the boats. For those who don't earn the party pass from the skipper, the six-day ticket was $50 this year and worth every penny if you like booze, bumping elbows with some rock stars, and some daily videos of the action.
New this year was Premiere Racing's sponsorship program called "Industry Partners." Participating at the platinum level was Lewmar and Samsom Rope Technologies; at the gold level was Bainbridge Sailcloth, Carroll Marine, Dimension Polyant, Farr International, Navtec, J/Boats, North Sails, Quantum, and West Marine. Silver sponsors included Corsair Trimarans and UK Sailmakers, and bronze sponsors were Aramid Rigging, B & G, Contender Sailcloth, 1D 35, Harken, Henri Lloyd, and Ullman Sails.
For full results, see www.premiere-racing.com.
The race to Key West
It's intended to be a feeder event for Key West Race
Week but the Fort Lauderdale to Key West distance race doesn't quite work out that way. Less than a third of the distance racers also raced the circles off Key West. With so much at stake in the Keys, it's no wonder the one-designs don't push the program and race down.
But for us distance freaks, the 160-mile run along Florida's barrier reef is a challenge of tactics, damage control, and surviving the early morning doldrums.
Thirty-nine boats made the trip, leaving from the ocean side of Fort Lauderdale Jan. 16. The weather forecast called for northeast to east, but we mostly dealt with a southeast breeze—sometimes light, sometimes into the teens. It was good for apparent wind but not always good for staying close to the rhumb line down the reef. Stray a few miles to the south of rhumb and you're deep in the Gulf Stream with one to four knots of current on the bow and speed-stealing waves.
After two years of frustration with no wind at the start or finish, the 2002 edition was more balanced with most of the boats finishing in less than 26 hours. As in past years, the slower you went early on, the more you were punished late in the race as wind and tide worked against you.
First to finish was the Andrews 70 Decision (20 hours 33 minutes) but they corrected to last in PHRF 1. First to finish in multihulls was Dave Calvert's Osborne 42 Green Flash (21 hours 11 minutes), and they corrected to second in the five-boat multihull fleet. Posting the best overall corrected time was the Moorings/Beneteau 38 E-Ticket, which won its PHRF class at the race week also.
Other class winners included Chessie Racing (Farr 52) in PHRF 1, Pipe Dream IX (J/160) in PHRF 2, Lighthorse (Melges 30) in PHRF 3, Woof (J/105 in PHRF 4), and tri Southwinds in the multihull division.
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From the editor: It cannot go unmentioned what happened at the awards ceremony some 30 hours after most of the boats finished. The multihull results were wrong as the RC had not run the numbers for the ratings. They also erroneously changed the ratings on two boats from their own scratch sheet. When asked to fix the results, this sailor was told to "shut up and sit down" by race hauncho Bob Meagher...the same Lauderdale Yacht Club member who didn't give a crap about the problems with several fleets at SORC last year. Was he involved in the decision to bail out on the club's hosting of the Melges Worlds? And he's the same LYC member who promised for one year to provide the second place trophy tri Southwinds earned in the race down in 2000. I quit asking a year ago...I don't need your stinkin' trophy!
Meagher obviously has a problem with admitting fault, with making things right, and with treating all competitors with the same respect they deserve. I can guarantee that the owners of the 70-footers would not have been told to "shut up and sit down" if they questioned the results. And I won't shut up and sit down as long as incompetence and arrogance reigns. And, as one of my gutless multihull competitors suggested, I will not "make nice" to people who disrespect all of us. Your skipper paid a $200 entry fee and had to pay $20 for each of his crew to attend the awards party...and guess what...no awards due to the refusal of the RC to figure out the scores for FIVE boats! Make nice?