OctCoverTemplate 9/23/10 11:52 AM Page 1 Latitude 38 VOLUME 400 October 2010 WE GO WHERE THE WIND BLOWS OUR TH 400 ISSUE! OCTOBER OCTOBER 2010 VOLUME 400 ROLEX BIG BOAT SERIES At fi rst blush, the 46th Rolex Big Boat Series appeared rather unremarkable. Absent were the four straight days of breeze into the 30s and sunny skies. Although the 98 boats in four IRC and fi ve one design divisions eclipsed last year's 95 in four and seven respectively, the median waterline got smaller. But look a little closer, and you see that despite these differences, this year's event had some really remarkable aspects that made it every bit the regatta as last year's, if not more. First of all, the weather, perhaps the most ma- ligned — for good reason — part of this year's event had a silver lining. Despite the fact that the sun didn't show up really until Saturday afternoon, making for an admittedly un photogenic regatta, the fog, cutoff low, and cooler inland temperatures that provided upper-level cloud cover and made for a gray Bay almost all weekend long, also provided some of LATITUDE/ROB the most visitor-friendly conditions in a while. With rare, and highly-variable wind angles, the breeze Stefano Nicolussi, Luca Faravelli, Federico Michetti and skipper Luca Lalli are all consistently trumped current as the major strategic smiles after winning the Melges 32 division at the Rolex Big Boat Series; spread, a factor. And local knowledge? You could throw at least handful of the 27 boats roll toward Alcatraz on Friday afternoon; inset, hike!! some of it out the window. Thursday's two races were sailed in pea-soup fog and breeze that peaked at around the mid-20s, which made for some challenging navigating and close calls with other boats and commercial traffi c that provided the perfect test. "Quite honestly we were lucky that a crewmember brought a handheld GPS aboard so that we were able to fi nd marks," said 1D35 division winner Jon Hunt. "We were blundering around, overstanding marks and looking for marks where they were supposed to be, not exactly there. There were fog horns everywhere, it was disorienting, challenging steering with no visual reference, and the ferries and commercial traffi c kept appearing out of nowhere. There was big stress in fi nding laylines, keeping track of competitors, and staying away from big steel bows, but big relief when the fi nish line came out of the fog." As the breeze got lighter through the weekend, never getting much higher than the mid-teens, another benefi t was that it made for a less physically taxing event. "You didn't get off the water feeling like you'd been in a heavyweight wrestling match," observed J/120 division winner Don Payan. "Usually, you get off the water and you're black and blue and sore. This was very civilized." Unfortunately, the weather did make for an abbreviated Bay Tour on Sunday and no race to Pt. Bonita for the second year in a row. Where last year's headline-grabbing class was IRC A, this DANIEL FORSTER/ROLEX year it was the Melges 32s, the only grand prix one design class in America at the moment, sailing their pre-worlds at the event. Along with the IRC A divisions, the 32s provided the bulk of the top-level pros found on the docks, both sailors and coaches, as well as the international fl air — the regatta boasted entries from New Zealand, Canada, Mexico, the Czech Republic, Japan and Great Britain. This year marked the fi rst time since probably the Farr 40 days of yore that there was a big concentration of talent present at the Rolex Big Boat Series. Melges 32 The Melges 32s represented the smallest boats at this year's Rolex Big Boat Series, but drew the largest fl eet, and so sailed ERIK SIMONSON/WWW.H2OSHOTS.COM — GRANDPRIXALLTHEWAY ROLEX BIG BOAT SERIES Lorenzo Brassani, the class that some of them had to fi n- Flavio Favini and ish deep, and you'd be surprised to see Melges Europe's where many of them ended up. The top Federico Michetti local boat was John Kilroy Jr.'s Samba Pa along with Ste- Ti in seventh place, while Don Jesberg's fano Nicolusi, Viva ended up in 11th, Philippe Kahn's Luca Faravela, Pegasus MotionX in 14th, and Stephen Carlo Zermini and Pugh's Taboo fi nished in 16th. Lorenzo Del Rio But all those big names didn't seem reigned supreme to bother Lalli, who works for his family's DANIEL FORSTER/ROLEX in a class replete construction business. with America's "We know we aren't slow, and we're Cup, Volvo Ocean happy about that," Lalli said. "Next week, Race and Olympic we go to the World Championship, and we talent. Talent like know we can win." Mick Shlens and Mark Jones' TP 52 'Flash' pokes Stu Bannatyne, the Wilmot brothers, the Turns out, he was right, and you can a hole through Thursday's gloom. Greenhalgh brothers, Jonathon McKee, see the pictures in this month's Racing for a Rolex and the Commodore's Cup. So Morgan Larson, Tony Rey, John Lovell, Sheet. how grand prix was this fl edgling class Scott Nixon, Chris Larson, Gavin Brady, for whom the regatta was a warm-up to and on, and on, and on, and on. The IRC A its second-ever World Championship the coaching ranks were just as star-studded While not large at only fi ve boats, IRC following week? Enough that St. Francis with people like Dee Smith, Trevor Baylis YC PRO John Craig had to make an an- and Dave Ullman following their charges noucement at the skippers' meeting that around in RIBs all weekend long. RIBs would be strictly prohibited from There were so many good sailors in tying up to the guest docks, and that any Spread, 'Vincitore' and 'Wasabi' cross tacks; inset additional trailers that made their way to left, Dale Williams with the spoils of victory; inset the parking lot east of the club and were middle, Colin Booth and Jim Mitchell join Ricardo hooked into the power grid — which in- Brockmann and 'Peligrsoso' owner Lorenzo Berho cidentally covered every available outlet for the offi cial hand-over; inset right, Jorge Rip- on that end of the building — would have stein's 'Patches' made 'Vincitore' work for it. LATITUDE/ROB to keep their cords tidy, because well, there were just too many of each! Twenty-seven-year-old former 470 sailor, Italian Luca Lalli's B-lin — named for a colloquial expression that adorned his fi rst 470 — won the tight division with no local knowledge other than an animated LATITUDE/ROB web-based current map aboard. Carrying a one point lead into the fi nal race, Lalli dis- patched his closest competition with a bullet in the fi nal race. "Basically we just tried to control our competition on the starting line," Lalli said. "When [Jeff Ecklund's] Star went for the harbor, we knew we had won the regatta." While doing that without any local knowledge aboard is remarkable in and of itself, it's all the more so when you consider that B-lin sails with only basic electronics. "We don't sail with GPS," Lalli said. "That made it diffi cult in the fog situation, DANIEL FORSTER/ROLEX but we had focused one learning where the stationary buoys were." Lalli and his crew of Italian aces like Page 96 • Latitude 38 • October, 2010 — GRAND PRIX ALL THE WAY maybe a TransPac in the future. "It should give us a little more speed A was a high-quality fl eet that featured main, backing him up, Ripstein steered off the starting line to get clear of every- some truly grand prix programs that his new-to-him and newly-IRC'd boat to one else, and be just that much faster hailed from the U.S., Canada, Mexico, and four straight bullets after a DSQ in Race offshore," he said. nominally New Zealand. The biggest boat 2, setting the stage for a dogfi ght that saw Construction on the new boat is in the regatta, Lorenzo Berho's Kernan the two boats launch into a tacking duel already underway at Davie Norris Boat- 68 Peligroso, was never able to shake the shortly after the start on the Cityfront builders in Christchurch, New Zealand 52s that made up the rest of the division. course: Vincitore gained the advantage — which came through the recent 7.1 Defending champion Jim Mitchell and his off the starting line and only looked back earthquake unscathed — and with a electric blue R/P 52 Vincitore were back to to make sure they were between their projected launch date of June. Mitchell defend their title against last year's run- competition and the next shift, fi nishing said that though it will be tight, there's a ner up, Mark Jones and Mick Shlens' TP the race 30 seconds ahead of Patches on good chance he'll be at next year's Rolex 52 Flash, Ashley Wolfe's TP 52 Mayhem, corrected time. Big Boat Series with his new steed. and Rolex Big Boat Series newcomer “Usually you plan it all out and it Patches — which seemed to excel in Jorge Ripstein and his TP 52 Patches. doesn’t happen like you want it to,” Dick- the lighter air on Friday, Saturday and Mitchell, a Chicagoan now based son said.