Gulf Stream

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - Logic would have it that a boat from the Chesapeake Bay would naturally win an international race to Baltimore. But most sailors know, the Whitbread is anything but logical.True, Chessie Racing, the first-ever Maryland boat in the 25-year history of this grueling round-the-world competition, has trained in bay waters - unlike racers on most of the other eight teams. But that alone is not enough to win a contest against 110 of the world's best sailors."Tactically, this is a very complicated race," says navigator Juan Vila, a two-time veteran of the Whitbread, which has never before stopped in the Chesapeake.

Chessie Racing, the Maryland entry in the Whitbread Round the World Race, was making good time in the rough-and-tumble Gulf Stream yesterday afternoon and settling in for the long haul across the Atlantic Ocean to France."

After almost nine months of competition, the Whitbread Round the World Race is coming to an end, and over the past few days the e-mails from the nine boats racing across the Atlantic Ocean to France on the penultimate leg show relief, disappointment and absolute foolishness."

Chessie Racing, the Maryland entry in the Whitbread Round the World Race, led the fleet a few miles after leaving Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on Sunday. Last evening, the 65-foot racing boat with the mythical sea monster emblazoned on its bow sailed into the Inner Harbor next to last."

After eight months of sailing, their fates now rest in the Atlantic.The sailors in the Whitbread Round the World have spent more than 100 days at sea to date, but it is the next two weeks that will largely determine who will win and who will lose this grueling global race.The nine teams depart Annapolis tomorrow for a 3,390-nautical-mile trek to La Rochelle, France. When the cannon fires at 1: 45 p.m., more than half of the fleet still will be in contention for a trophy."We're at the business end," said Grant Dalton, skipper of third-place Merit Cup. "The die is going to be totally cast at La Rochelle."

The fleet in the Whitbread Round the World Race will fight its way up Chesapeake Bay today and is expected to finish at Fort McHenry in late afternoon or early evening.But which boat would finish first was still very much in doubt yesterday as the fleet of nine passed around Cape Hatteras, N.C., and left the Gulf Stream to set up their entrance to the bay.At today's second position report at 3 a.m. (GMT), BrunelSunergy of the Netherlands held a 25-mile lead over Swedish Match of Sweden. But what had been a 40-plus mile lead earlier in the 870-mile leg that started in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Sunday, was still being trimmed by the yachts in second through seventh place.

Forty-eight hours after starting Leg 8 of the Whitbread Round the World Race, the nine boats racing to La Rochelle, France, yesterday were reaching easterly at 12 to 14 knots and piecing together the puzzle of navigating the Gulf Stream.The fleet has been trading positions at each position report. At today's first report at midnight (GMT), Monaco's Merit Cup had a 2.5-mile lead over second-place Silk Cut of Britain. Maryland entry Chessie Racing, which had led Monday, was in ninth place, 14.2 miles behind Merit Cup.Since leaving the Chesapeake Bay, the fleet has spread in three groups, north to south, but only .3 mile separates Silk Cut and Swedish Match, which moved into third place, 2.8 miles behind Merit Cup, after riding in last place earlier yesterday.

The Whitbread race brought a little of everything to the Chesapeake Bay yesterday, from an out-of-the-blue victory for a losing boat to a heart-breaking defeat for the home team. It brought broken bones and seasick sailors. It brought weird wind holes and shallows that made an America's Cup legend run aground. And, of course, it brought a round-the-world race to this city for the first time.Crashing through the olive waters of the bay, the nine boats in this 31,600-nautical-mile race finished within one hour, 40 minutes of each other yesterday at Fort McHenry.

LA ROCHELLE, France -- Chessie Racing was in an abyss, hundreds of miles behind the rest of the fleet off the Grand Banks in the Atlantic, when bowman Rick Deppe decided to call home."

The last of the transoceanic legs in the Whitbread Round the World Race is among the shortest, but it also is tactically challenging -- 3,390 nautical miles of the North Atlantic, where gales and calms, fog and possibly even ice in the sea are to be found between North America and Europe.On Sunday afternoon the Whitbread fleet will start Leg 8 just north of the Bay Bridge, work south through the Chesapeake Bay, turn north around Cape Charles and head offshore into the Gulf Stream.The Gulf Stream, a swift, warm-water current, flows north-northeast along the east coast of North America and deflects more easterly as it approaches the Grand Banks off Newfoundland.

Whitney Susan Tews, the daughter of Gay Tews Bridges & Digby Carswell Bridges of Ocean Ridge, Florida & Herbert A. Tews of Santa Barbara, California was married November 8 to John Justin Rosenthal, son of Margaret Parker Rosenthal & William J. Rosenthal of Baltimore, MD. The Reverend Thomas Murphy performed the ceremony at Christ Church, Georgetown in Washington, D.C. The reception was held at the Cosmos Club. Mrs. Rosenthal is a recruitment coordinator at Patton Boggs LLP, Washington, D.C., formerly of Hinsdale, Illinois & Gulf Stream, FL she attended Gulf Stream School & St. Andrew's School in Boca Raton, FL. She graduated from Vanderbilt University.

Two days after it left Annapolis on Leg 7 of the Volvo Ocean Race, illbruck Challenge set 24-hour world speed records for a monohull boat - twice. The German entry, the overall points leader in the global race, covered 473 miles in the North Atlantic, averaging 19.7 knots (22.7 mph). The Gulf Stream provided a 5-knot boost in speed. Then, in the 24-hour period that ended four hours later, illbruck logged 484 miles, averaging 20.2 knots (23.2 mph). The distances, logged by satellite, must be ratified by the International Sailing Federation.

With one eye on the competition and the other watching the Gulf Stream, the skippers of the eight boats competing in the sixth leg of the Volvo Ocean Race are lining up for the final day's sailing into Baltimore. The end of the 875-mile leg from Miami can't come soon enough for the crews, which have spent much of the time changing sails to try to match fluky wind conditions. The race has three distinct groupings of boats: News Corp, illbruck Challenge, Amer Sports One and ASSA ABLOY in the lead group; Tyco, SEB and djuice dragons in the second; and the all-woman entry, Amer Sports Too, alone and far behind.

It may not be unprecedented. But it is most unusual. A 35-year-old boat taking overall honors from a fleet of 175 newer, faster racing yachts says two things: the handicap system is working, and the skipper is either lucky or good. Easton's Eric Crawford was both when he won one of the East Coast's most prestigious ocean races - the 42nd biennial Newport-to-Bermuda - on a boat he bought from his father-in-law as a family cruiser in 1987. He returned to his home berth at the Tred Avon Yacht Club Saturday after taking a leisurely five days to sail Restless back from the island that he reached 93 hours, 15 minutes from the starting gun in Newport, R.I. This was Crawford's fourth Newport-Bermuda, the third on his own 41-foot Pearson Rhodes, a classic beauty that his father-in-law, Harold Bower, retired pathologist at Easton Memorial Hospital, had sailed for a decade.

KEY WEST, Fla. -- The East Coast's longest ocean race of the year -- destination Baltimore -- gets under way here today with two Maryland sailors competing for line honors. George Collins, a Baltimore millionaire who owns so many boats he says "I don't count them," will be at the wheel of his 70-foot Santa Cruz, Chessie Racing. Chessie is handicapped second in the 1,000-mile sprint from the Florida Keys, past Cape Hatteras and up the Chesapeake Bay. Ranked first is California venture capitalist Bob McNeil's 73-foot speedster, Zephyrus, co-skippered by John Bertrand, a professional sailor and race consultant from Annapolis.

LA ROCHELLE, France -- Chessie Racing was in an abyss, hundreds of miles behind the rest of the fleet off the Grand Banks in the Atlantic, when bowman Rick Deppe decided to call home."

After almost nine months of competition, the Whitbread Round the World Race is coming to an end, and over the past few days the e-mails from the nine boats racing across the Atlantic Ocean to France on the penultimate leg show relief, disappointment and absolute foolishness."

Chessie Racing, the Maryland entry in the Whitbread Round the World Race, was making good time in the rough-and-tumble Gulf Stream yesterday afternoon and settling in for the long haul across the Atlantic Ocean to France."

Forty-eight hours after starting Leg 8 of the Whitbread Round the World Race, the nine boats racing to La Rochelle, France, yesterday were reaching easterly at 12 to 14 knots and piecing together the puzzle of navigating the Gulf Stream.The fleet has been trading positions at each position report. At today's first report at midnight (GMT), Monaco's Merit Cup had a 2.5-mile lead over second-place Silk Cut of Britain. Maryland entry Chessie Racing, which had led Monday, was in ninth place, 14.2 miles behind Merit Cup.Since leaving the Chesapeake Bay, the fleet has spread in three groups, north to south, but only .3 mile separates Silk Cut and Swedish Match, which moved into third place, 2.8 miles behind Merit Cup, after riding in last place earlier yesterday.

After eight months of sailing, their fates now rest in the Atlantic.The sailors in the Whitbread Round the World have spent more than 100 days at sea to date, but it is the next two weeks that will largely determine who will win and who will lose this grueling global race.The nine teams depart Annapolis tomorrow for a 3,390-nautical-mile trek to La Rochelle, France. When the cannon fires at 1: 45 p.m., more than half of the fleet still will be in contention for a trophy."We're at the business end," said Grant Dalton, skipper of third-place Merit Cup. "The die is going to be totally cast at La Rochelle."