News Around the World
Big swells out on the ocean courses for the offshore classes at this year’s Charleston Race Week… All the time that Key West was garnering the headlines this great regatta was growing relentlessly with only a couple of dips along the way. This year 240-odd boats turned up to be rewarded with another superbly run regatta with starts banged off like clockwork. A fortnight earlier and on the other side of the pond Spi Ouest in La Trinité also saw numbers continuing to grow again. Two parallel regattas 4,000 miles apart… it’s not all doom and gloom. Put on a really great ‘event’ with reliably good race management and shore organisation then people will turn up
search and swing the bow downwind again. Right then, after the hope and encouragement fired by all the
crew, doing everything they could, straining to spot John Fisher, there would have been nine devastated and completely broken men and women left on the boat; eight sailors, plus Konrad Frost, the highly respected onboard reporter and cameraman. Before every ocean leg – and certainly before a Southern Ocean
leg – each sailor in this race takes time out from the team and their family and thinks about what lies ahead. The cold, the fatigue and the sheer brutality involved in pushing the boat day and night to its limits. Of what will happen, and what might happen. John Fisher would have done this, then quietly dealt with those thoughts and joined his mates onboard Sun Hung Kai Scallywag for the start of Leg 7 in Auckland, ready to push as hard as he possibly could, in an endeavour that he and all the team passionately believed in. It’s not the Volvo 65 that’s at fault, or the race itself, or the
skipper or crew, or the kit – it’s just that racing through the Southern Ocean is, at times, incredibly dangerous. And that is one of the reasons why we do it. Blue Robinson
USA Doing the Charleston, and doing it well In this year without a Key West Race Week in January, it’s perhaps no wonder the participation levels at Charleston Race Week were up 10 per cent from last year: many in the US have been hungry for a break from a particularly cold, nasty winter that has refused to let go. Even in mid-April many teams would have headed back from a warm South Carolina spring to snow back home. This is by far the largest of all US destination regattas, and can
still easily claim to be the largest keelboat regatta in the hemisphere. Three-quarters of the 239 entries are one-designs of various types that come from outside the region… the remainder were split among three handicap classes racing under ORC and two doing a one-race- per-day format of casual pursuit courses. The latter category this year seemed to pull in more entries and interest than any other classes, particularly among the locals, raising concerns about how serious they want to be against the out-of-town competition… Hon- estly, there were far too many non-cruising boats in this division. Those who do come from elsewhere are attracted to this pretty
town where the history of the Old South is well-preserved – unlike in many Southern cities, the Yankees did little damage to Charleston in the 1860s, even though it was here where it all started: cannon fire from the Rebels at Charleston Battery on the nearby Union stronghold at Fort Sumter is what ignited the US Civil War.
26 SEAHORSE Now the only battles in the harbour are those that take place for
three days of windward-leeward racing for the one-design fleets while the offshore classes play outside (a new feature for them was to sail a distance race at the end of each day back into the harbour finishing at the host marina). The 200 or so boats in the other classes were crammed into
four race circles that were positioned to avoid shoals and ship channels, not unlike the race management choreography seen in the Solent at Cowes Week. Also like Cowes, strong tidal currents and passing commercial traffic in the harbour keep race managers and competitors awake at all times. Nonetheless, like the charm of the town itself this close proximity
of the course areas, the short-duration dynamic courses with numer- ous races per day bring out the best of the best in every class; the daily awards at post-racing beach parties being another strong plus! Finally, the logistics to get to Charleston are easy, plus a large
marina venue, new roads, bridges and a growing tourism infrastruc- ture that has come from a booming local economy. One concern accompanying this boom was the redevelopment
of the boatyard where boats arriving on trailers were previously launched; so Charleston’s super-proactive event director Randy Draftz found space at a nearby ship terminal and hired a crane to speed things along, the large fleet of keel boats being quickly hoisted in for the short commute across to their awaiting slip at the venue. It was this same concern for details that actually cut racing short
this year: while the larger and more local boats were pulling their gear on to go sailing on Sunday, many others were breaking down to leave town. This dichotomy was the result of a decision by organisers in response to a severe storm that was due to hit Charleston in the afternoon. Draftz said the main reason for cancelling competition for the smaller boats was concern about the craning procedure if the weather turned bad. ‘We have 200 boats that have to come out after racing,’ he said. ‘You have to err on the side of caution. We knew the bad weather was coming, we just didn’t know exactly when.’ The 188 boats impacted by the decision had already enjoyed a
full slate of racing, with eight races in two days in most classes, so winners were acceptably well-vetted… The healthy crowd of pro sailors and coaches littered across these classes was also a reminder of continued demand for their talents, and the popularity and increased competition at Charleston was no doubt a relief for many in a year without Key West and when post-storm Caribbean events were a bit thin. One door closes… Dobbs Davis
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ZEROGRADINORD
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