| TORONTO, CANADA-(21-9-2004) Last year Samuel Kahn, then age 14, stunned the sport when he sailed a Melges 24 to the class world championship on his first try. Tuesday, four inches taller at 6-2 but still too young to own a driver's license, he finished third and first before stumbling to 17th in the third race on the first day of the Bell Mumm 30 World Championship---his first day racing one of the 31-foot sloops after sailing it only three days in practice.
Do you think . . . ?
`I'm kind of surprised,` he said. `I didn't think we'd be doing so well.`
Then someone handed him a score sheet of the day's results.
`Cool,` he said. `Dad's leading.`
That would be Philippe Kahn, the California and Hawaii-based software developer whose steady 5-3-5 string earned him a one-point lead over one of the local hopes, Fred Sherratt, sailing Steadfast for the host Royal Canadian Yacht Club, and two points over Tom Ritter's Tramp, which won the opening race.
Shark Kahn, in fourth place eight points back, said, `My dad's leading, so I can't take it easy on him anymore.`
Eight more races are scheduled over the next three days at the western end of Lake Ontario. Winds Tuesday were moderate slipping to light and shifting 30 degrees through the afternoon. The 21 boats from four countries raced a 1.6-nautical mile windward-leeward course, twice around.
`It was a tricky day,` said Stu Bannatyne, an America's Cup and Volvo Ocean Race veteran who called tactics for Philippe Kahn. `When you saw a trend it really paid to push it that way.`
Shark Kahn's tactician was Richard Clarke, a three-time Olympian for Canada who grew up here. Other recognizable names aboard were Brian Janney and Brian Lee, who sailed with Clarke and Kahn on his Melges crew, and Mark Golsch and Mark (Crusty) Christensen.
Clarke teased his skipper, `He just drove the boat well, did what we said and concentrated.`
Philippe Kahn's pitman, Tony Rankin, said his skipper didn't much talk about his son during the racing. `He might have said, 'He's doing pretty well,' `Rankin said, `but it's a pretty quiet boat.`
Richard Swann's Cygnet from Fairfield, Conn. jumped up to fifth place by winning the last race Tuesday.
`I owe it all to my tactician [Mark Ivey],` he said, slapping the native Californian on the shoulder. `We did a good job of playing the sides and got lucky with some wind shifts.`
They beat Deneen Demourkas' sixth-place Groovederci from Santa Barbara by 1 ½ boat lengths. `We were the first boat to jibe down the last run,` Ivey said. `It was one of those do or die moments. Then we defended the inside [to the finish].`
Ritter, who settled into a pair of sevenths after winning the first race, noted a mellow mood on the first day. `People were being very gracious and considerate out there,` he said. `I didn't hear any yelling or swearing. I let a couple of port [tack] boats cross us and was shown the same favor once or twice.`
Some---including Shark Kahn in the last race---were obliged to do penalty turns for routine infractions, but no protests were filed at the end of the day. Ritter doesn't expect it to last.
`We're all showing the love early because the hate's coming soon enough,` he said.
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