| KEY WEST, FL. USA-(5-1-2005) Fair weather getaway, celebrity sailor conclave, debutante ball for new boats and some of the best sailboat racing on the planet-as the entry list for Key West 2005 presented by Nautica firms up, it's clear that the Northern Hemisphere's largest midwinter keelboat regatta remains all of those.
Nine races are scheduled over five days, Monday-Friday, Jan. 17-21. Preliminary class splits, Sailing Instructions, Notice and Conditions of Race, schedule of events and much more are now posted at www.Premiere-Racing.com
Entries are approaching 300 as America's East Coast digs itself out from a Christmas freeze and the West Coast wrings itself out from record rains, leaving visions of sailing in balmy breezes on turquoise water dancing in sailors' heads.
Among them are more than a dozen Olympic medal winners, past and present, and an even larger dose of America's Cup and Volvo Ocean Race participants---including Russell Coutts, the Kiwi core of his winning Alinghi crew from 2003 (on separate boats) and illbruck's victorious round-the-world skipper, John Kostecki---all of whom will be tested by the most serious weekend warriors anywhere. Coutts and Alinghi have parted company, but he'll be calling tactics on Hasso Plattner's Farr 40, Morning Glory.
Former Alinghi mates Brad Butterworth, Warwick Fleury, Dean Phipps and Simon Daubney will carry on without their former skipper on Dan Meyers' CM 60, Numbers, from Newport, R.I.
Coutts expects them to enjoy the week. `It is probably the best collection of one-design keel boat fleet racing talent in the world,` he said. `It is well organized and usually has good sailing conditions, with few or no protests.`
The boats are from 14 foreign countries and a record 36 states, including Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia, led by New York, 31; Illinois, 23; Florida, 22; California, 19, and Maryland and Michigan with 18 each.
New boats making their debut include Dooie Isdale's Diode 36, Rampant; a Melges 32, and the McAllister/Silver JS 9000, A Lil' Tipsy, from Colington Harbor, N.C. Also, Ian Maclean's Ker 11.3, Blue Belle, from The Hamble, UK is making its Key West debut.
The Melges 32 is something new from Zenda, Wis., by way of Trinidad. Melges Performance Boats vice-president Andy Burdick said it is basically a Melges 30 re-designed by Reichel/Pugh with a six-foot taller rig and new sail plan. Longtime Melges 24 campaigner Jeff Ecklund will sail it with Harry and Hans Melges on board.
`We tested it at Key West a few years back, but we haven't built a Melges 30 in six or seven years because of our capacity in Zenda,` Burdick said. `Now we have Soca Sailboats in Trinidad producing the boat, [along with] our new Melges 17 scow. We're going to go mainstream into production.
`It's a super-size Melges 24---really quite exciting. The goal is to become a one-design class at some point but, like the Melges 24, it has to start out in PHRF.`
Key West has grown other one-design classes, most notably the J/105s that have a record 40 entries this time. Jim Johnstone, director of sales for J/Boats in Newport, R.I., said one reason for the J/105s' boom at Key West and elsewhere is the development of boat transport operations, which he estimated will deliver most of the fleet to this southernmost point in the continental U.S. For a busy owner, the logistics can make the difference whether he enters or not.
The entry list includes six one-design winners from last January: Dutch businessman Peter De Ridder's Farr 40, Mean Machine, the Boat of the Week from Monaco; Bodo and Nick von der Wense's Mumm 30, Turbo Duck, from Annapolis; the Richard Bergmann/Shawn Bennett J/105 Zuni Bear, San Diego; Bob Harkrider's Corsair 28R trimaran, Bad Boys, Augusta, Ga.; Bob Wilson's C&C 99, Trumpeter, Toronto, and the Chuck Simon/Bill Buckles T-10, Liquor Box, Key West and Vermillion, Ohio.
Also, the 1D35s' most recent winner, David Kirk of Chicago, leads the class back after a year's hiatus. Their national championship is on the line.
PHRF winners returning are Mike Rose's J/133, Raincloud, Kemah, Tex.; the John Dane/Michael Gray Melges 30, Tiburon, New Orleans; David Hudgel's Sydney 36, Bounder, Detroit, and Robert Patroni's Evelyn 32-2, Phaedra, from Pensacola, Fla.
Phaedra has been repaired after suffering severe damage from Hurricane Ivan. `Ivan totaled her,` Patroni said. `But it takes more than a category 4 hurricane to keep an Evelyn down. We wouldn't miss it for the world.`
There will be at least two married couples on separate boats. San Diego's Peter and JJ Isler will face off in a clash of five Transpac 52s and assorted big boats in PHRF 1. JJ will drive Roger Sturgeon's TP52, Rosebud; Peter will call tactics on Marco Birch's B/C 58, Talisman. Santa Barbara's Deneen Demourkas will race a Mumm 30 while hubby John drives the family Farr 40---both called Groovederci.
JJ Isler---bronze in 1992 and silver in 2000---also is one of the Olympic notables, along with Kevin Burnham and Charlie Ogletree, gold and silver, respectively, at Athens last summer.
Others are Kostecki, Mark Reynolds, Jonathan and Charlie McKee, Jeff Madrigali, Randy Smyth, Robbie Haines and John Bertrand, plus Canada's Ross Macdonald and New Zealand's Coutts and John Cutler. Burnham, Isler, the McKees, Smyth and Macdonald have won two medals each, Reynolds three.
Burnham will park his 470 and Ogletree his Tornado catamaran to compete as rivals on Philippe Kahn's and Alex Ascencios' Melges 24s, respectively.
Kahn isn't sure which Pegasus he'll sail on-the Farr 40 or the Melges 24. But he's certain he'll be here.
`It's a great event---a perfect regatta,` Kahn said. `The race committee does a great job. They talk on the radio and explain everything to you. It's awesome. It's the greatest regatta in North America.`
Most of the others listed above will race as tacticians in the fierce Farr 40 fleet or on other big boats.
Australia's James Spithill, the new helmsman for Italy's Luna Rossa challenge, will drive a Melges 24 entered by teammates Jonathan and Charlie McKee.
One-design classes include the Farr 40, Mumm 30, 1D35, Swan 45, J/105 (a record 40), J/120, J/109, J/80, J/29, C&C 99, T10, Corsair 28R and the largest fleet of all, the Melges 24s with 61.
Key West 2005 sponsors are Nautica, Mount Gay Rum, B&G, Lewmar, Samson Rope Technologies, and the Florida Keys and Key West Tourist Development Council. The Historic Seaport is the Official Site.
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