Sailing

Skill will determine regatta

ST. PETERSBURG -- Instant gratification. That's what Mike Carroll likes about one-design racing.

"There is no waiting around to find out if you made a mistake," said the 52-year-old sailor from Clearwater. "If you miss a wind shift, duck a boat or pick the wrong spinnaker, you know right away. The boats are evenly matched so it is the skill of the sailors that makes the difference."

Carroll, coming off a recent win at Key West Race Week, one of the nation's premier yachting events, will race this weekend at the National Offshore One-Design Regatta series in St. Petersburg.

The NOOD, sponsored by Sailing World Magazine, will draw more than 150 teams from around Florida, as well as competitors from Canada, England and Ireland.

The sailboats, from 20 to 34 feet, will be broken down into 16 classes with strict specifications and guidelines, hence the name "one design."

The St. Petersburg NOOD kicks off a nine-city series and comes on the heels of Key West Race Week, which has become one of North America's most respected sailing events.

"Key West Race Week draws some of the world's top competitors," said Carroll, whose Henderson 30 New Wave won five of eight races in the Performance Handicap Rating Formula Sport Boat Division. "We even had some of the America's Cup (challenger series) skippers racing in the Farr 40s."

The St. Petersburg NOOD coincides with the start of the America's Cup final in New Zealand. But while the NOOD boats are about half the size of the their America's Cup counterparts, they should provide the same deck-to-deck excitement as the big boats.

Last year, Floridians, including Carroll in the Henderson 30 class and Sarasota's Doug Fisher in the Melges 24 class, swept five of the 13 classes. These are just two of the 23 teams expected to compete from the Tampa Bay area.

Regatta organizers have added three classes this year. The J/24 and the Melges 24 classes are expected to have the most entries and be among the most competitive.

Local J/24 skippers include Jim Lindsay of St. Petersburg and Thomas Turton and Brian Twomey of Tampa.

Bill Edgar and Howard Smith of Tampa will be fighting it out with 20 other boats in the Melges 24.

In the big boats, the 24-foot, J/105 class, Geoff Burge of St. Petersburg and Robert Glaser of Tampa each will be looking for a win.

The NOOD Tour, in its 16th year, was designed to create a level playing field, with big boats (20 feet and up) racing boat to boat without handicap adjustments, similar to the system used in Olympic competition.

One-design regattas such as the NOOD are popular with sailors because the emphasis is on skills, not design, which has become the trademark of the America's Cup.

After St. Petersburg, the regattas continue on to San Diego, Annapolis, Detroit, Chicago, Marblehead, Mass., San Francisco, Larchmont, N.Y., and finish in Galveston Bay in September.

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