July 29, 1995
The United States team held steady under pressure here today to hold onto the overall points lead of the
1995 Champagne Mumm Admiral's Cup despite strong challenges offshore from Scandinavia and Italy. 'This is
a weird place' said five-times J/24 world champion Ken Read, helmsman of the US middle boat Pigs in Space
of the fickle English Channel and its strong tidal currents. 'Never before I have been in a situation where
one minute could look so famous and the next look so stupid.'
Race three of the nine-race series was the 145-mile Channel Race, from Cowes along the English south coast
to the west, then back south of the Isle of Wight, along the coast to the east and back again to finish in
the Eastern Approaches to The Solent. The Scandinavian team of Mean Machine (Peter de Ridder), Fram XII
(HM King Harald of Norway) and Skandia (Gunnar Krantz skippering) posted a 1, 4, 1 result in the competition's
three classes to emerge handsome winners of the offshore test. Italy (Capricorno, Rinaldo de Bono; Brava Q8,
Pasquale Landolfi; and Mumm a Mia, Paolo Gaia) scored 2, 1, 4 to come second. Scandinavia's strong result
lifted them to third in the overall standings, dislodging South Africa and Germany and leaving behind Ireland,
with whom they had been sharing fifth.
The race began with a beat down The Solent, the 24 yachts crowding in toward the shoreline and creating several
minor incidents and calls for room to tack. Once clear of The Solent it was a long port-tack fetch along the coast
to the west, then turning back east with spinnakers set for almost 80 miles. Despite a forecast of falling winds
which caused many in the fleet to take on board extra anchor line in anticipation of having to kedge against the
Channel tides it was a fast race - so fast that some innovative race management came into play. With provision
already in the Sailing Instructions to alter the course by radio race officer Alan Green added 41 miles to the
original course and, without incident, signalled the change to the fleet. Early performers were the British team
with Robin Aisher's Group 4 Seahorse (Rubin, on loan from past RORC Rear Commodore Hans-Otto Schumann) correcting
to lead the big boat class and the Mumm 36 Group 4 recovering from a poor start to head up the small boats. Closest
racing of all was in the ILC40s with Brava Q8 and Pigs In Space swapping places at the front during the night,
Brava having the edge upwind, Pigs overhauling her on the runs and reaches and closing to within the two boats lenghts.
The real crunch came in the early hours of Saturday and the closing stages of the race. In the Big Boats Seahorse
found herself on the wrong side of a wind-line and, glued to the water, watched her rivals slip away. Although Jameson 1
was first to finish, Jens Christensen in Mean Machine had enjoyed such superb navigational and meteo input from
round-the-world navigator Marcel van Triest that the Scandinavian ILC46, designed by Judel/Vrolijk and built in Britain
for Turkish owner Ergin Imray, was still on her coat tails and finished only 14 minutes later. More importantly Mean
Machine was even closer to Capricorno, Germany's Pinta and America's Blue Yankee, all of which rate higher. She corrected
into first place to win by over two minutes from the Italian boat.
Having gone round the final turning mark with all eight boats in the class together and several overlapped Pigs In Space
led the ILC 40s. Moments later Brava Q8 sailed into the edge of a fog bank - visibility was sometimes down to 400 metres -
picked up some fresher breeze and accelerated away. She won by 2 minutes 51 seconds.
In the Mumm 36 class the Scandinavian entry Skandia bounced back after fitting a new mast to replace on damaged the day
before the start and finished clear ahead with Germany's Thomas-I-Punkt second, No Problem (USA) third. 'It's not a lot
of fun sailing in the smallest class in the fleet' reported Jim Brady, skipper and tactitian aboard No Problem, 'but
it's sure the most exciting racing.'
Results in detail
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