| KINGSTON, ON-(26-7-2002) The global title for the Quantum J24 Worlds will be on the line today when the keel boats sail the final race in the championship on Lake Ontario.
Newport’s Brad Read, seeking to become a multiple world champion like his brother Kenny, who has won six world titles, holds the lead over five other boats who are within 15 points of the leader.
Rochester’s Mike Ingham is the closest although he lost ground to Read yesterday. Ingham came ninth while the 37-year-old Read, the 2000 world champion, was fifth.
Read, who has not been first or second in any race, has 33 points under the Olympic low-point scoring system. He is discarding a finish of 23 as his drop race. Ingham is second with 38 points and is throwing out a finish of 29th.
The competitiveness of the fleet continued to be showcased yesterday when the seventh race of the series produced another different winner. No skipper has been able to win twice in the five-day championship, which ends today with a single race on the Foxtrot course, southwest of Snake Island.
Port Credit’s Rudy Wolfs, who has had a quiet regatta after winning the U.S. Nationals in May in Charleston, S.C., won yesterday’s race. It was the first time Wolfs has had a top-10 finish. Wolfs remains well back in the 62-boat fleet in 20th position.
Vermont’s Andy Horton came second and used the good finish to move up to third in the fleet.
Only one Canadian boat has cracked the top 10. Todd Irving of the Royal Canadian Yacht Club in Toronto, with three top-five finishes for the series, is ninth. Irving helped set Canadian J24 history on Wednesday when he finished second behind fellow Royal Canadian yacht club member David Shaver in the morning race. It was the first time at the J24 Worlds that Canadian boats had finished one-two in a race.
Wolfs followed that up with another victory for the Canadian contingent yesterday. Brent Hughes of Ajax also cracked the top 10 for the first time, placing seventh.
Read, who predicted averaging fifth-place points in the series would win the title, came fifth for his second straight race. Three of the six finishes he is counting have been fifths.
Today, second-place Ingham will need to put six boats between himself and Read to take the world title away from the Newport skipper.
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