Rolex IMS World Championships Review

TIME IS THE ESSENCE OF IMS SUCCESS

2nd-8th July

Sailors look back with watery eyes on the halcyon days of 50-footer racing, ten or more years ago, when teams from all round the world gathered for some of the toughest grand prix racing ever witnessed.

Well those days are back. Eleven IMS 50s came to Valencia to compete amongst a total fleet of 64 at the Rolex IMS Offshore World Championship 2001. After winning the cruiser/racer division with ease at the World Championships in Newport last year, Vincenzo Onorato decided to defend his title in a brand new Farr 52 called - like all his boats - Mascalzone Latino.

But he was up against stiff competition, from Pasquale Landolfi's Italian Brava Q8 to Fernando Leon's Cam, formerly known as Esmeralda and a virtual sistership to Mascalzone Latino. With his team also focused on the next America's Cup, Onorato had set himself a difficult task in attempting to secure his second Rolex IMS Offshore World Championship. "It was wonderful for us to win in Newport last year, so we wanted to come and race again at this championship," said the shipping tycoon.

But with his new boat arriving 45 days late, defending the title would not be easy. The crew went sailing the new Mascalzone Latino just two days before the regatta began at the Real Club Nautico de Valencia. They were still calibrating the electronics the day before the first race. It was not the best way to prepare for a world-class regatta. "We are still moving the mast rake around big amounts to find the best set-up," said a frustrated Paolo Cian, Onorato's helmsman in his America's Cup challenge.

By comparison, the Spanish teams looked extremely well rehearsed for their first IMS Worlds on home waters. The Spanish IMS fleet is the most competitive in the world, with virtually all the top boats boasting an Olympic Champion at the helm or on tactics. King Juan Carlos of Spain chooses to race aboard the Farr 53 Bribon with one of the most decorated Olympians of all, Brazil's Torben Grael who has won four medals and now races with the Prada America's Cup team. Without sailors of this calibre, you don't even stand a chance at the top of IMS racing.

But despite Bribon's domination of the Spanish circuit in 2000, she could make little impact on the Rolex IMS Worlds this year. The game moves on quickly in IMS, and last year's model sometimes struggles to keep up with the latest developments.

For Fernando Leon, bringing the year-old Esmeralda over from the US was a compromise. "It is a dream of mine to design and build my own 50-foot yacht, but by the time I found a sponsor we were running out of time to launch a new boat for this year." Instead, the 1996 Tornado Olympic Champion made a bid for a highly successful Farr boat that had done well on the west coast of the USA last year. It was not the ideal situation, but buying Esmeralda was the next best thing in Leon's eyes.

Now rebranded in the green and gold of Cam, the Spanish bank, Leon's preparation looked excellent given the short time he had been given to be ready for this season. Like most of the 50-foot fleet, Cam is an all-out racing machine, but the biggest threat this week was to come from a humble-looking cruiser/racer called Telefonica Movistar, an IMX-40 production boat helmed by Pedro Campos. As Spain's America's Cup helmsman, Campos knows how to play the game, and this week he was gambling on racing the smallest boat in Class A, the big boat division. "We have to sail in bad air at the start of the race," he explained, " but after that we get to sail our own wind."

The strategy was unorthodox, but it appeared to work, and going into the last day of competition he posed the biggest threat to Cam's chances of victory. Leon had sailed an almost perfect regatta, with Cam displaying the same awesome speed that she had displayed in her former guise as Esmeralda. But in the middle of the seven-race event, it all went wrong when it was going so right.

In 20-knot winds under a sunny blue sky, race 4 saw Leon and his team on Cam surging to the front of the 50-footer fleet, with only the Argentinian Maxi yacht Alexia in front. Then the main halyard snapped and her hopes of victory started sliding down the mast. Leon's fortunes had taken a turn for the worse. Cam was out of the race and suddenly way down the overall rankings.

Leon's back was against the wall - he would have to sail perfectly for the rest of the week and hope that a minimum of six races were sailed - otherwise he would be counting a retirement in his scores. The favourite in Class B faced a similar crisis. Double Olympic Champion Luis Doreste had started too early in race 2 and been disqualified. He too would have to race the Sinergia 40, Telepizza-Pepsi, to perfection if he was to stand any chance of overall success.

But one yacht in the small-boat division was sailing head and shoulders above the rest, the IMX-40 Salty Dog, raced by a Dutch team. When she won the double-scoring third race of the series, the 110-mile overnight race along the coast of Spain, Salty Dog leapt into the lead of Class B. And she was getting stronger in the short, inshore races. Spain's stranglehold on the IMS Worlds was not looking so assured.

But then Salty Dog fell victim to a spot measurement check. The Spanish IMS measurer found the boat did not comply with her stability rating and 50 per cent was added to all her race scores. In an instant, skipper Jochem Visser and his team had plummeted from 1st to 24th in the rankings. Visser, understandably, was in shock. "We had the boat measured and checked by an IMS measurer in Germany, so we don't know what we have done wrong." With no appeals procedure open to him, it was a bitter pill for Visser to swallow. Chief IMS measurer Nicola Sironi was unrepentant. "This team are not new to this game, they know the rules and they know the system. It may seem like a harsh penalty but that is how it is laid out in the IMS rules."

It was a decision that left the way clear for Telepizza-Pepsi, and Doreste just needed a solid result in the seventh race to secure victory in Class B. In a light-to-moderate breeze he raced the Sinergia 40 to 5th place, to beat the runner-up, Italian IMX-40 Wind-Exploit, by 11.75 points.

With the wind beginning to die in the final race, Campos' small-boat strategy in Class A was for once working against him. His IMX-40 dropped further and further behind the pack of 50-footers and he finished 11th in race 7, by far his worst score of the series. The gamble that had looked so good for so long, did not pay off when it mattered most. Victory went to Cam by 8.75 points, with Telefonica Movistar the runner-up ahead of Brava Q8.

It had been an eventful week. Alexia, Alberto Roemmers' beautiful Maxi yacht, had her moment of glory when she won the long offshore race not only on line honours but on corrected time by almost five minutes. It was a race that started in 10 knots, peaked at 40, and finished in a flat calm. And it was a race that Niek Lamm, owner of the brand new 50-footer Exposure, would rather have forgotten. Crew error saw her carbon rig snap in two just as they were preparing for a gybe in 25 knots. "We don't know exactly what happened," said American crewman Tucker Thompson. "It happened real quick, but the team's OK, there are no recriminations. At least with a carbon rig we can glue it back together." But for this regatta, they would have to wait another year.

For defending champions Mascalzone Latino, Valencia was a matter of too little too late. Onorato's team started the week poorly and ended it solidly, finishing 6th in Class A. Team manager Paolo Scutellaro admitted they had been fighting a losing battle all along: "Time was against us and we have been making big adjustments this week. Other boats have made tiny changes while we are still learning basic things about our boat. I think we will be re-rating her to be more like Cam under IMS." When IMS races are won and lost by seconds, you have to know how to squeeze every last ounce of speed out of your boat. The Italians knew that, and Mascalzone's time will return.

Already, the likes of Scutellaro, Leon and Doreste will be embarking on the planning phase for the Rolex IMS Offshore World Championship in 2002. They know that in IMS racing, good things rarely come to those who wait. In a world of fast-moving developments, time is always the greatest challenge.

More Information:

• YachtsandYachting.com IMS Page