Rolex IMS Offshore World Championships Day Three

BLUE YANKEE SAILS AWAY FROM FLEET IN DIFFERENT BREEZE AT ROLEX IMS OFFSHORE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP 2000

Day Three: The long offshore race begins

NEWPORT, R.I. (July 17, 2000)--A good start for Blue Yankee at the pin end of the line put her in a good tactical position as 34 boats headed off on the distance race of the Rolex IMS Offshore World Championship 2000 at Newport.

Steve Benjamin, the Olympic silver medallist, tacked Bob Towse's Reichel/Pugh 66 and crossed the fleet on port soon after the start. By the first windward mark--a mile away--she was in a good position to stretch her legs on the long port fetch out to sea. An hour into the race, and she was on a different heading in different breeze, which could prove decisive.

Idler also made an excellent start on a good transit out of the middle of the line and led the fleet around the first mark, hoisting her spinnaker and holding it on a tight reach while boats behind her jostled to hold their clear air. Brad Read and his brother Ken, the America's Cup sailor and six-time J/24 World Champion, are calling the shots for the Nelson/Marek 52's owner, George David. Like many of the top-quality sailors here, the Reads grew up sailing in these waters, and nearly all the leading contenders have at least one crew man who understands the waters around this part of America.

But Ken Read said too much knowledge sometimes works against you. "You don't want to get too caught up in any preconceived ideas about what the conditions are going to be like. You can miss things that way." Read prefers a seat-of-the-pants approach, along with unshakeable confidence in the crew and the boat. "This boat is going fast at the moment. The key is to let it do its own thing. Like a good horse, you don't want to yank on the reins too hard."

With this race counting for double points, this is Idler's opportunity to make up the ground on Vim, Craig Speck's Nelson/Marek design which has kept a clean sheet after three races. But Read knows that there is only so much he can control in the outcome of this long race, scheduled to last around 24 hours for the leading boats. "We figure the best we can do is to win our class, and see what happens for Vim in her race. You've got to win the battle before you can win the war."

Vim has hardly made a wrong move this week, with Bruce Nelson's modifications to the three-year-old hull paying dividends in all conditions. Like Idler, Vim has her own Newport expert in America's Cup sailor Moose McClintock, so this will be a battle of knowledge as much as of boat speed.

But other boats like Jim Richardson's Farr 40 Barking Mad have no local knowledge experts, with guest sailor Bouwe Bekking, the Dutch Whitbread sailor, adhering to Read's theory that: "Too much knowledge is a dangerous thing. We'll take it as it comes. As long as we don't have too much upwind sailing we'll do well. Give us some reaching and running and we'll be fast."

Mascalzone Latino, the brand new Italian Farr 43, is leading the Cruising/Racing division with two wins and a second. Multiple world champion Vasco Vascotto was clearly relaxed about the long race, seemingly more intent on having a laugh with his crew mates than on what the wind might be doing. "We have a local knowledge expert, he knows a lot of pubs in Newport," said Vasco, who said he would be happy with whatever the wind gave them as long as it wasn't fog. But this relaxed approach has paid off so far, helped no doubt by the fact that Vincenzo's Onorato new blue boat has turned out to be a pocket rocket - as many IMS pundits had predicted.

The other Italian entry, Atlantico Yah Man, was looking to make up for a mediocre race in Narragansett Bay yesterday. America's Cup sailor Tommaso Chieffi, who won the Rolex IMS Worlds in Sardinia last year at the helm of the same boat, said the Frers design was still very fast in light airs. But he admitted they had suffered for lack of clear air as one of the smaller boats in their class. "Yesterday, what started out as a great race ended up a disaster. We just couldn't go where we wanted to go," said Chieffi. "But we should be able to sail our own race today, and the forecast is good for smaller boats, with the wind due to pick up in the later stages of the race."