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Friday, March 29, 2024
HomeNewsArchivesRegatta: Wind Plays Hide and Seek Saturday

Regatta: Wind Plays Hide and Seek Saturday

Racing in the Melges Class. (Photo by Rolex/Ingrid Abery)Despite winds that played hide and seek all Saturday afternoon, Michigan sailor Dalton DeVos maintained his lead in the Melges 32 class in the 40th International Rolex Regatta taking place in the waters off St. Thomas.

Saturday’s action took place on three stages. The one-design Melges 32 class started out in Great Bay, but playful winds caused the race committee to re-set marks further out in Pillsbury Sound. Races in the IC-24 and Beach Cat classes were delayed a half hour at mid-day as the wind ebbed and finally flowed in Jersey Bay. The spinnaker and non-spinnaker fleets had no trouble finding steady wind on courses set along the south coast of neighboring St. John.

After seven races, DeVos and his crew aboard Delta stretched their frontrunner status to six points over second-place Argo, sailed by New York’s Jason Carroll. The team aboard ngoni, which is sailing in its first Melges 32 regatta, was happy to maintain mid-class position, says Ian Tillett, ngoni’s pit man.

“We had the boat and hadn’t used it, so we decided to bring it across and race. I’ll tell you we’re enjoying it a lot. It’s better than the cold weather back in the UK,” Tillett said.

In CSA Racing 1, Rick Wesslund’s J/120, El Ocaso, remained in the front of the pack, despite taking his first second place finish of the regatta to Puerto Rico’s Sergio Sagramoso, aboard the J/122, Lazy Dog, in the afternoon’s long distance race.

One ship bringing a distinctive shape to the regatta is the Farr-designed 68-footer, Ceramco NZ, a five-time Whitbread Round the World Racer that would have won its first entry in 1981-1982 except for an epic dismasting and jury-rig by New Zealand’s famous yachtsman Sir Peter Blake.

Lupa of London takes the lead in the IRC Class. (Photo by Rolex/Ingrid Abery)“This was the first boat built with a favorable design to surf the big waves in the Southern Ocean,” explained Ceramco NZ’s owner, Diane Masters, of Newport, Rhode Island. “We need at least 20 to 25 knots of wind and then we’re untouchable. In light winds like this, we don’t have a chance at winning, but we’re all having a great time.”

Masters said she plans to sail Ceramco NZ back to New Zealand this fall in time for its annual dismasting party.

There could be a cloud on the horizon for St. Croix’s Robert Armstrong’s, Bad Girl. The J/100 continues in the forefront of the CSA Spinnaker 2 Class, but Puerto Rico’s Jose Santiago’s J/105, Dark Star, closed in to within one point of the lead.

“We beat them (Bad Girl) in the first short race of the day, and they beat us on the last longer one,” explains Santiago. “We’re a lot better upwind, especially in the better breeze. We’re hoping for more wind tomorrow so we can win the Rolex.”

A 3-2-1 finish over two days of racing made it clear that Puerto Rico’s Jerome O’Neill’s J/39, Crystal, was headed straight to the top of the class. St. Thomas’ Tim Snow’s Modified Oceanis 440, Three Harkoms, followed in second by one point, while St. Croix’s Stan Joines’ nearly all-teenager crewed J/36, Paladin, moved up to third place.

“We had a great day,” said Joines, the band director at St. Croix’s Central High School, who sailed with six students as well as his six-year-old son, Jeremiah. “The kids are excited. Plus, they do what I tell them to without arguing. That’s what makes it fun.”

In the IRC class, it was Lupa of London that added two more first place bullets to its score.

“This is the first time we’ve raced the Rolex Regatta,” said Andy Clark, crew boss for the UK-based Baltic 78 in which the 18-member crew represent six different nationalities. “We sailed well today. The short course was good to keep the crew busy. The long race added a good balance. We’re hoping to do well again tomorrow. At this point it looks like we’ve got the cards and luck in hand.”

Puerto Rico’s Fraito Lugo is poised to pick up his 10th Rolex by winning the IC-24 class. Lugo, who has won four of these prestigious timepieces in the J/24 class, two in the Melges 24 class and three in the IC-24 class aboard his Orion, is five points ahead of Cachondo in second and Magic Bus third. Cachondo is skippered by Puerto Rico’s 20-something year old Marco Teixidor, while Magic Bus’s helmsman is St. Thomas high school senior, Ian Barrows.

Youth reigns supreme in the Beach Cat class too. St. Thomas’ John Holmberg leads aboard his Hobie 16, Humbug, with his 15-year-old son, Kai, as crew. In fourth is the top all-girls team of Rhode Island’s Sandra Tartaglino and St. Thomas’ Isabelle Austin-Green, on the Hobie 16, In Irons.

“I like the Hobie because it’s fast and there’s also an element of dinghy sailing to it. It’s small and compact, but you use a trapeze,” explains Austin-Green, a 16-year-old high school sophomore. “We would have done even better if the goose neck off the boom didn’t break, since we had to go in and miss the first race in order to fix it.”

Racing concludes Sunday with starts at 11 a.m. and competition in Pillsbury Sound. The awards ceremony begins at 6 p.m.

The St. Thomas Yacht Club-hosted IRR is the oldest regatta in Rolex’s portfolio of international sailing events and dates back to 1974. More information and results are available online at www.rolexcupregatta.com. Readers can also visit the IRR on Facebook and follow the action on Twitter at: #irr40

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