Boat of year honors remain up for grabs

By Times staff writer

© St. Petersburg Times, published March 14, 2001

It's anyone's title as the West Florida Performance Handicap Racing Fleet (PHRF) boat of the year series sails toward the final two events.

Adding to the suspense and mathematical possibilities is the option for the competing boats to throw out their two worst finishes when the final points are tallied in mid-April.

Leading the spinnaker fleet by a comfortable seven points is Joe Blouin's 1D-35 Storyville, which is racing on the local circuit for the first time in the 2000-2001 season.

Blouin's Tampa-based team opened the boat of the year series at Bradenton in September with consistent third-place finishes and has maintained that consistency through the four regattas and six races that followed. They won the Egmont Key distance race in November and finished first in the Anchor Trophy.

Despite those steady performances over a variety of courses and through a testy season of varying wind conditions, Storyville drops into a tie for third place overall -- two points out of first -- when the two worst scores are discarded.

Ken Friedman's J/27 Instant Karma won three events at Bradenton last fall but didn't sail in the Egmont race and took the 24 points assessed for boats not competing.

A seventh-place finish in the no-wind Fall Bay Race in early December didn't look good on the points spread sheet until the option of dropping those two scores was applied to the calculations. Friedman leads the spinnaker class based on those throw-outs.

But it leaves his Instant Karma team little wiggle room during the final two events -- this weekend's Michelob Cup and the three-race Suncoast Raceweek. A poor result in any of those four final events likely will push Instant Karma down the series points standings.

Jay Tyson's J/29 Nancy's J benefits from the throw-out scores, discarding 11 points from the Egmont race and an eighth-place finish in the Anchor Trophy. Tyson stands tied with Blouin for third.

Ray Mannix's team aboard his J/27 Semper Fi trails Instant Karma by one point for the overall lead.

Blouin won the 1999-2000 boat of the year honors aboard the Tripp 40 Evangeline, with Semper Fi finishing a distant second. A total of 22 spinnaker class boats registered to compete for the yearlong series honors.

In the five-boat non-spinnaker class, it's too close to call. Fortunately for the racers, the scoring isn't handled on Florida punch card voting machines.

Ken Wilus' Ranger Fun 23 Cakewalk leads the fleet with 13 points but drops to second, a point behind Bill Tibbits' Hooks Kelly 35 Grand Illusion after discarding the two worst scores for each of the boats.

Last year's boat of the year non-spinnaker champ, Richard Neal, trails Wilus by three points but holds a mathematical advantage over Grand Illusion based on having lower throwout scores.

MEMORIAL SERVICE: A service for Sally Crawford Morgan will be held Thursday at North Shore Park in downtown St. Petersburg.

Former St.Petersburg Yacht Club commodore Bruce Watters will lead the service, which begins at 2 p.m.

Mrs. Morgan, founder of Charles Morgan Associates and wife of yacht designer and builder Charley Morgan, died Feb. 15 after a long bout with cancer.

AROUND THE WORLD: The 110-foot maxi-catamaran Club Med sailed into Marseille, France, on March 3 to complete the fastest trip around the world in a sailboat -- 62 days, 6 hours, 56 minutes and 33 seconds.

That circumnavigation, as part of The Race of the Millennium, lowered the existing world record by eight days, and Club Med established a number of speed records along the way.

The French-based boat, co-skippered by Grant Dalton and Frenchman Franck Proffit, covered 655.2 miles during one 24-hour period. That translates to an average speed of 27.3 knots. For the entire race, 27,400 miles, Club Med averaged more than 18 knots. A sistership to Club Med, Innovative Explorer, finished two days and 15 hours after Club Med to take second place. Cam Lewis' Team Adventure, with Florida's Randy Smyth aboard, crossed the Equator on March 12 and was headed north up the Atlantic with less than 3,000 miles to the finish.

REGATTAS: David Loring of James Island Yacht Club in South Carolina took top honors in the Clearwater Yacht Club's Sunfish Midwinters, March 2-4, with a seven-point edge over Malcolm Smith of Bermuda.

Joe Blouin of Tampa was the top local finisher in the 68-boat fleet, placing 10th. The three-day regatta was concluded one day early due to thunderstorms and strong winds. The hectic area racing schedule continues this weekend with the Ensign Class Midwinter Championships. The event, Friday and Saturday, will be on St. Joseph Sound north of the Dunedin Causeway. For more information, contact Dede Plessner, (727)785-7730 or Dedo@gte.net.

Davis Island Yacht Club will play host to the Fireball and Front Runner Midwinters on Saturday and Sunday in Tampa.

Clearwater Yacht Club will play host to the Snipe Midwinters. The event begins Sunday and continues through Tuesday. The Need For Speed multihull races are scheduled for March 24-25 at Davis Island Yacht Club. For more information, call Chris Webster, (813) 231-3142.

AUTHOR TOURS: Noted cruising guide author Claiborne Young will speak at several sailing clubs in the region next week.

Young will meet with Florida Offshore Multihull Association members Monday in Indian Rocks Beach. For more information, call Ron Butler, (727) 530-8554. Young will speak March 21 at Boca Ciega Yacht Club in Gulfport. Call (727) 344-5443 or (727) 866-7981 for more details.

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