Race Committee

The schedule for the opening day of the Cadillac Columbus Cup regatta called for 12 races yesterday. By the end of the day four races had been sailed, and the rest of the schedule had been abandoned.The first flight of races was started on schedule on the Chesapeake Bay off the mouth of the Patapsco River in what New Zealand skipper Russell Coutts called great sailing conditions," with New Zealand matched against Team Baltimore.But before New Zealand and Team Baltimore could finish their match, the wind went flat, and the race committee abandoned the race.

Like a child with cowlicks, yesterday's winds were all over the place in the waters off Annapolis, testing the patience and skill of competitors in the Sperry Top-Sider National Offshore One Design regatta. After a morning mist cleared, westerly winds began slowly building, raising the hopes of sailors aboard the 270 boats in the three-day competition who suffered through Friday's calm that prevented any racing. But breezes never quite matched the promise of the forecast. Decent wind often depended on which of the four courses sailors were on. For example, on the course farthest down the bay, the wind never puffed above 5 knots and racing didn't begin until 4 p.m. The course closest to the mouth of the Severn River had enough breeze to sustain three races.

Heads up, all you race committee wannabes and others who would like to refresh your race-management skills before you have to do it the hard way on the water.This year's annual Chesapeake Bay Yacht Racing Association Race Management Seminar will take place Saturday at Annapolis Yacht Club.This valuable and highly instructive daylong session offers plenty of solid meat for RC types of just about every level of experience.Having attended it myself last year, I can't recommend it highly enough for anyone who will be spending time on race management this season.

ATHENS - Sailors truly needed a weatherman to know which way the wind was blowing yesterday in Olympic competition. The notorious Meltemi arrived, blowing at a steady 18 knots and gusting to 25. It ricocheted around the watery bowl known as the Saronic Gulf, turbocharging some boats and swamping about 30 others. The Meltemi, which means "air with no route," is expected to continue today. "It was a very hard day today," said Croatia's Carlo Kuret, in third place in the Finn class. "The wind shifts were very unpredictable.

If you've always wanted to know more about how a race committee produces a successful race and think you might like to try it, mark your calendar for the Chesapeake Bay Yacht Racing Association's annual Race Management Seminar on Feb. at Annapolis Yacht Club.After brief welcoming remarks at 9 a.m. in the AYC's lower-deck Skipjack Lounge, the attendees will divide into two groups.Group A, for new race committee members and those who have not participated in the Rowse Race Management Simulation previously, stay in the Skipjack Lounge to spend the next couple of hours going through Gordon Rowse's highly acclaimed and successful simulation exercises.

ANNAPOLIS -- At noon yesterday off Sandy Point State Park, the D Class in the Chesapeake Challenge offshore powerboat races throttled up toward the starting line behind the pace boat, but then strange things began to happen.Before reaching the starting line, the class split and only three of 11 entrants managed to cross the starting line proper. The others ran to the inside of the course and raced for the first turn.Edgar Rose, head of the American Power Boat Association, which sanctions these races, said at the time that probably all the boats that had missed the starting line would be penalized the elapsed time it took them to finally cross the line.

Like a child with cowlicks, yesterday's winds were all over the place in the waters off Annapolis, testing the patience and skill of competitors in the Sperry Top-Sider National Offshore One Design regatta. After a morning mist cleared, westerly winds began slowly building, raising the hopes of sailors aboard the 270 boats in the three-day competition who suffered through Friday's calm that prevented any racing. But breezes never quite matched the promise of the forecast. Decent wind often depended on which of the four courses sailors were on. For example, on the course farthest down the bay, the wind never puffed above 5 knots and racing didn't begin until 4 p.m. The course closest to the mouth of the Severn River had enough breeze to sustain three races.

As the first few boats in the PHRF A class crossed the finish line in rapidly building wind in yesterday's third and final race of the fourth annual Northern Bay Race Week, a violent squall forced the race committee and most of the fleet of nearly 80 boats to abandon competition.The series was cut to the two races that had been completed Friday and Saturday.A lesser squall earlier in the day forced committee chairman Larry Martin to postpone starting the race, which finally began shortly after noon in unsettled, broadly shifting winds.

Read is main stay of J/24 raceFour-time J/24 World Champion Ken Read of Newport, R.I., won the 1993 J/24 North American Championship in Hampton, Va., last week.The seven-race, no-throwout series was plagued by light and shifty air, making consistency difficult for competitors in the 46-boat fleet.Read's finishes -- a first, two seconds, a third and three fourths -- were the highest consistently."It took several years off this individual's life, anyway," Read said. "It was a very difficult, long series with no throwout so the rule was just don't make a mistake.

The racing fleets spent long mornings last weekend bobbing around, sweltering and waiting for wind, at the Annapolis Level Regatta, but when steady light southerlies finally filled in each afternoon, the regatta provided good competition in a unique format.The regatta was co-managed by the Severn River Yacht Club -- which manned the race committee for Fleet 1 and was the host for the Saturday evening party -- and the Eastport Yacht Club, doing the race committee for Fleets 2 and 3 and conducting the awards presentations on Sunday.

If there is such a thing as nautical gridlock, Annapolis may provide Exhibit A this weekend. The National Offshore One Design regatta, three days of racing that begins today, has so far attracted a field of 283 boats, just two short of the record for an event of this type. Organizers say the combination of a highly competitive field that includes a number of world-class sailors, the prediction of consistent winds and the possibility of 50,000 spectators overhead Sunday during the Bay Bridge Walk, will likely push Annapolis past Chicago, which set the record three years ago. The deadline for registering was last night.

ST. MARY'S CITY -- From his position aboard the Maryland Dove, a replica of a 17th-century sailing vessel, Rob Bartsch got a first glimpse of the sailboats as they made their way up the St. Mary's River yesterday to finish the 30th annual Governor's Cup Yacht Race, one of the last overnight races on the Chesapeake Bay. Using binoculars, Bartsch called out boat numbers to fellow race committee members. "Three, one, three, one, four," he cried as a craft from Annapolis named the Daily Grind slipped past the wooden bow of the Dove.

Chessie Racing, the Maryland entry in the 1997-98 Whitbread Round the World race, blew away its competition yesterday in the 21st annual Hospice Cup regatta sailed on Chesapeake Bay off Annapolis. The sleek white boat with the sea monster curling along its hull, a last-minute entry, was caught in the pack of nine entrants at the start of its PHRF A0 class race but quickly surged ahead on the first leg of the two-mile-long windward/leeward course set near Thomas Point Lighthouse. By the end of the first, downwind leg, Chessie was so far in front of the rest of its class, the only competition was for second place, eventually taken by Capricieuse II, skippered by Terry Unter.

The party's over. It's time for the eight Volvo Ocean racers that have spent the past 11 days in Baltimore and Annapolis to return to sea for the next leg of their chase around the globe. Leg 7 of the 32,700-nautical-mile voyage to La Rochelle, France, will start at 1 p.m. today just north of the Bay Bridge, with overall leader illbruck Challenge a solid favorite. Skipper John Kostecki stands to win the leg and probably the entire race, barring unforeseen disasters. His crew is "really fired up" after its fourth-place finish in the sprint from Miami to Baltimore, Kostecki said at a pre-race news conference Thursday, and is ready to push for a top-three finish in this leg. Illbruck has amassed 41 points with three first-place finishes, a second and two fourths.

April is supposed to be one of the great months for sailing on the Chesapeake Bay. But don't try to tell that to the crews of the eight Volvo ocean racers that wallowed in glassy waters and fluky winds on their way to Baltimore on Leg 6 of the globe-girdling voyage. Race organizers had hoped for a happy-hour finish on Wednesday with crowds of spectators lining the Inner Harbor sea walls to celebrate the arrival of the 64-foot yachts. But it was about 2:10 a.m. yesterday when News Corp finally crossed the finish line off Fort McHenry.

The Santa Maria Cup women's match racing championship got under way yesterday in shifty, 10- to 12-knot winds that challenged both the race committee and 12 top-flight crews."

The Santa Maria Cup women's match racing championship got under way yesterday in shifty, 10- to 12-knot winds that challenged both the race committee and 12 top-flight crews."

ANNAPOLIS -- It was a long day on the water for both fleets of racers and two hard-working race committees when a stalled frontal system turned the first day of Annapolis Race Week into a slow and frustrating mess.Sailors' post-race discussions and bragging sessions focused more on a game of "can you top this" based on how many times each crew was forced to raise a spinnaker on what should have been a windward leg, and how often and how long they resorted to anchoring in dismally light air and a foul current, than on the brilliance of their tactics and boat handling.

SAO SEBASTIAO, Brazil -- A five-man international jury yesterday disqualified the American yacht Toshiba, a prerace favorite in the Whitbread Round the World Race, from Leg 5 of the nine-leg 31,600-mile circumnavigation for "gross violation" of the rules.Toshiba, skippered by Briton Paul Standbridge, was found guilty of starting its engine to clear weeds from its propeller and breaking its drive-shaft seals without reporting the incident to the race committee.The disqualification from a leg was the first in the 25-year history of the Whitbread race.

SAO SEBASTIAO, Brazil -- Chessie Racing was expected to arrive in second or third place in Leg 5 of the Whitbread Round the World Race today, crossing the finish line here with a controversy trailing in her wake.But before the crew answers questions hanging over a crucial resupply operation in the middle of the 6,670-nautical-mile leg across the Southern Ocean and round Cape Horn, they must finish their battle for second place with Dutch boat BrunelSunergy.With just under 200 miles to go, Chessie last night was trailing BrunelSunergy by just 17 miles, a gap narrow enough to offer the chance of a second-place finish for the Maryland entry if it can find the right winds as the two boats try to out-tack each other to the finish.