Farr 40 Midwinters take it to the ocean

San Diego, CA (March 6, 2015) – After two days of racing inside San Diego Bay, the third day of the Farr 40 Midwinter Championship took the 11 teams offshore to the ocean course for three races.

Italian tactician Vasco Vascotto, who had dominated the bay venue, showed some mortality today as Alberto Rossi’s Enfant Terrible posted a 8-2-2. The Italians remain in first, but their lead over reigning World Champion Alex Roepers’ Plenty has shrunk from 8 to 5 points.

With one more day of racing planned, the fleet has the option of either the ocean or harbor course. A maximum of 11 races are planned with no discard. Racing concludes on Saturday, March 7.

Complete report by event media…
On the third day of racing, San Diego offered the Farr 40 Midwinter Championship sunny skies, flat waters and a steady breeze. “The sailing conditions have just been spectacular, we could not ask for more,” said Geoff Stagg, manager of the Farr 40 Class. “We’ve had two beautiful days of racing in the bay and now today we’re going to get three more gorgeous races on the ocean.”

Not only did the Bay Club Hotel & Marina Day of Racing bring competitors to a new venue, it brought them to a new order across the finish line.

If you took yesterday’s scoreboard and flipped it upside-down, it might look similar to the finish line of Race 7. On the first upwind leg, Plenty, Enfant and a handful of others over stood the upwind mark, pushing them further behind the competition. Determined not to let one bad maneuver keep them out of the race, Plenty gained two boats on the downwind sprint to the gate, four boats on the second upwind leg and ultimately finished in 3rd place.

Enfant moved from 10th place at the gate mark to finish in 8th place, an unfamiliar territory for the Italians. Previously, their lowest finish was 4th place and their race average was 2.1 points. The winner of the shake-up race was Flash Gordon 6, who took the lead early on in Race 7 with a beautiful start. Close behind them was John Demourkas’s Groovederci, with their best finish of the regatta.

If the surprising scores in Race 7 aren’t proof enough, it should be stated that the Farr 40 Class is a very competitive one. What might appear as a big difference in scores is sometimes only a matter of seconds out on the race course.

“It’s a little known fact that the Farr 40s actually all have magnets in them,” joked Zoltan Katinszky, whose boat White Knight was the top-scoring Corinthian boat of the day. “It’s a very tight fleet. You can go from having a huge lead to being a part of a three-boat photo finish in any given race.”

In Race 8, Alex Roeper’s Plenty led the class around the course, with Struntje light and Enfant Terrible following. It was Insanity, the current overall Corinthian leaders, who had the largest recovery of the race, overtaking four boats between the first upwind mark and the gate to finish in 4th. Flash Gordon’s struggle to take down a spinnaker left them in 7th place.

Going into Race 9, the scores were close and the competition at an all-time high. “We were neck and neck with Enfant Terrible, and we had already gained back six of the eight points needed to catch them overall,” noted Roepers. “When we came into the gate mark, we went left. They went right, and really found a great shift.” That shift took Enfant all the way to 2ndplace, while Roepers and the Plenty crew finished in 5th.

At the end of Day Three, Enfant Terrible leads the class at 25 points with Plenty behind them at 30 points. Struntje light, Flash Gordon and Nightshift round out the rest of the top five spots. Tomorrow is the last day of racing, with two races scheduled to complete the 11-race series. With no throw outs available, every race will count. The first warning signal scheduled for 11:30am.

Preliminary Results – Day 3 (11 boats; 9 races)
1. Enfant Terrible, Alberto Rossi , ITA – 2 -2 -3 -1 -1 -4 -8 -2 -2 ; 25
2. Plenty, Alex Roepers , USA – 1 -6 -7 -3 -3 -1 -3 -1 -5 ; 30
3. Struntje light, Wolfgang Schaefer , GER – 10 -1 -2 -2 -5 -3 -4 -3 -7 ; 37
4. Flash Gordon 6, Helmut Jahn , USA – 8 -3 -1 -6 -2 -8 -1 -7 -3 ; 39
5. Nightshift, Kevin McNeil , USA – 3 -7 -5 -7 -8 -7 -6 -4 -1 ; 48
6. Groovederci, John Demourkas , USA – 4 -9 -4 -5 -4 -5 -2 -8 -11 ; 52
7. Insanity, Rick Goebel , USA – 7 -4 -8 -8 -10 -2 -11 -5 -8 ; 63
8. Blade 2 , Michael Shlens , USA – 9 -8 -9 -4 -7 -6 -7 -6 -10 ; 66
9. Temptress, Ray Godwin , USA – 6 -5 -6 -9 -6 -10 -10 -11 -6 ; 69
10. White Knight, Zoltan Katinszky , USA – 11 -10 -10 -10 -9 -11 -5 -9 -4 ; 79
11. Foil, Gordon Leon , USA – 5 -11 -11 -11 -11 -9 -9 -10 -9 ; 86

Complete results – Event details – Class website

Photo by Sara Proctor

2015 International Circuit
March 4-7: F40 Midwinter Champ – San Diego, CA
May 27-30: F40 Event # 2 – Cabrillo Beach, CA
July 22-25: California Cup – Marina del Rey, CA
August 19-22: Rolex North Americans – Santa Barbara, CA
September 24-27: Rolex World Championship – Long Beach, CA

Click here for full 2015 calendar.