Porto Cervo, 18th September 1999

Highlights

Race started in light air and abandoned as fleet struggles to round windward mark.
Restart in perfect sailing conditions.
First windward/leeward eventually sailed in ten to fifteen knot, north-westerly wind.
Second race being sailed.
Innovision wipes out Brava Q8's overall lead and goes ahead.
Winterthur Yah Man improves overall position in middle boat division.
Drake loses a point to second placed Malinda Clarion in small boat division.

The Inside Story - Weather Trouble

The sky held all the signs of trouble, and this time, everyone knew exactly what to expect. Before long, thunder was rippling round the horizon, the sheet lightning crashing to earth. The clouds rolled down from the mountains, and two miles to the east, Porto Cervo disappeared behind the curtain as the sea and sky merged. The race committee had wisely postponed. The fleet had flaked and strapped their mainsails to the booms, donned foul weather gear - or huddled below. But the squall hadn't the violence or the intensity of Thursday's, and the fleet was safely in open water. Half an hour later, the rain had stopped and the sky was clearing. A start line was set, and the fourth race of the Rolex IMS Offshore World Championship was quickly under way in a light north-easterly breeze.

Merit Cup popped out from the crowd at the pin end, Brava Q8 just to windward of the bunch, and Okyalos from the committee boat. Innovision 7 was deeply buried, and with the wind slightly stronger up the course and the lead boats stretching from the fleet, the crew of Brava Q8 could be forgiven for rubbing their hands. Unfortunately, the weather hadn't finished with them yet. The first beat became the first run, the breeze faded and Innovision 7 rolled right back into it.

Merit Cup was around the windward mark first, and Rainer Wilhelm's Astro 2K followed her. It looked like the thirty foot Moby Lines would be third. But the wind-driven current grabbed her as the wind faded, sucking her away from a mark she was almost past, and back into the pack. Minutes later there were eleven boats stalled within eleven lengths of the mark - including the biggest and the smallest, eighty and thirty feet long. If this had been the Solent, we might have seen the anchors broken out. Setting a windseeker, Brava Q8 slipped round, but she was the last. With only three boats round the windward mark, and the rest of the fleet unable to stem the current, the race committee accepted the inevitable - fired three guns, flew flag November and abandoned the race. For another hour, that looked like it would be all we got.

Then, as if by magic, the breeze arrived. And just before four o'clock, in perfect sailing conditions of bright sunshine and ten knots - race four was properly underway. Once it had arrived, the breeze increased rapidly, and shifted substantially left during the leg. That produced another storming first beat for Niek Lamm's Exposure. But it left Brava Q8, who were to the right of the beat, struggling. The run had become a reach and in rapidly building seas and wind, there were several wipe-outs. This was followed by confusion at the leeward mark, which seems to stem from the course change for the second windward leg, and a sailing instruction requirement to pass through a gate rather than just round the leeward mark.

Exposure returned to round the gate boat, believing her leeward mark rounding to be in error. Things settled down after that, but Brava was unable to make much of an impact on Innovision's lead. And when the finish times had been corrected, she was back in seventh. In one stroke, Innovision had wiped out the loss she took in the offshore, and restored herself at the top of the board. At the time of sending, a second race was underway.
Written by Mark Chisnell, for The Strategic Organisation