Key West Race Week – Update

Today the weather conditions returned back to normal and we had a busy day with 3 races in all classes. The wind started out at 18-20 knots in the first race and dropped steadily over the day down to a low of 9 knots midway through the third race. The sky was overcast and rain cells were all around and pulling the wind right and left. The committee on race course 1 did a great job of moving the marks around to keep the course pretty square.

Onboard Warpath, we had a decent day and are currently in 8th place out of the 25 entires. We had a bad start in the first race and struggled to get 13th. In the last two races we had good starts and stayed near the front of the fleet finishing 8th and 7th. The top boats had a bit of speed on us so we have some work to do to get our mast and mainsail working better together.

The top boat for the day was current world champions, Mascalzone Latino, from Naples, Italy with scores of 2,2,3. Mascalzone, Mean Machine (NED), Barking Mad (USA) and Nerone (ITA) are the top of this fleet and no surprise that they were all at the top today. All are past World Champions in the Farr 40 class.

The one design Farr 40’s are so even in speed that even after a 2 mile windward leg, they all seem to arrive at the same time. This makes getting around the windward mark very exciting and sometimes expensive. I think there were a few prangs today, some even with damage. Fortunately, we were not involved in any.

The fleet is gearing up for the World Championship in Miami in April. Key West and the SORC in March are top regattas in their own right but they have the added significance of being usefull in preparation for the World Championship.

The results were not final at the time I wrote this due to some protests. You can find the complete results at; www.premiere-racing.com

Here is some other information that may be useful:

Follow the results and the racing at Premiere-Racing.com. Blogging from all four courses, Kattack race tracking, and daily video reports will bring the action home. Be sure to check ESPN.com each evening for a 4-5 minute Gary Jobson production that will feature racing highlights of different classes each day.