| ATLANTIS, BAHAMAS-(14-11-2002) It was another good day for
Terry McLaughlin's Canadian team aboard Defiant, but the evening could prove
tough in the protest room. Defiant won the first and third of three races on
this second day of the Rolex Farr 40 World Championships in Nassau. The
team's two victories are threatened, however, by two protests involving
incidents at the start. In race three, the Race Committee has protested Flash
Gordon, Helmut Jahn's Chicago entry, for fouling on the anchor line of its
committee boat. A resulting chain of protests worked backward to Defiant, the
alleged source of the problem. In race one, Crocodile Rock, owned by Alex
Geremia and Scott Harris of Santa Barbara, Calif., protested Defiant for
barging at the start.
`The fleet is very aggressive,` said Crocodile Rock's tactician Robbie
Haines, an Olympic Gold medallist from San Diego, Calif. `Consistency and
staying out of trouble is the key here.` With finish positions of 12-10-2
today, Crocodile Rock rose from ninth to third overall in the ideal 20-25
knot breezes.
Also making huge gains today was Le Renard, skippered by Steve Phillips of
Arnold, Md., when it posted finishes of 2-7-10 to move up from eighth to
second place overall. `As much as everyone wanted to win today, you just have
to say that a second is fine,` said tactician Mark Reynolds of San Diego,
Calif., explaining that Le Renard was winning today's first race up until the
last quarter of the last downwind leg. It was then that Defiant caught them.
`I've learned from experience that in this class you just need to be in the to
p ten every race.` Under that premise, Reynolds, a Rolex Yachtsman of the
Year and three-time Olympic medallist, is satisfied with Le Renard's two
worse finishes for the day. `In both those races, we were much deeper at
times and much better at other times.`
Today's second race was won by Breeze, the Italian entry skippered by
Vincenzo Onorato, who came straight to this championship after being
eliminated from the America's Cup Challenger Races in New Zealand. Breeze
currently is in 13th.
Sailing through Saturday on the waters off Atlantis, Paradise Island are 25
teams representing eight nations.
Today officially was Bahamas Ministry of Tourism Day. The event is hosted by
the Storm Trysail Club. Full results can be found at www.farr40.org
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