Whitbread

Many Americans this month have been viewing, for the first time, the cream of the sport that consumes most of the world -- soccer. Now it appears that sailors in the northeast will get a close look at its sailing equivalent in 1998. No, the America's Cup is not coming here. It's the Whitbread Round the World Race, which makes the America's Cup look like the oceanic carnival it really is.U.S. entries are rare in the Whitbread, which speeds 32,000 miles in six legs. The racers stopped in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., this year, the first time it touched the U.S. in 21 years.

The Accidental By Ali Smith Amber appears on the doorstep of the Smart family's rented summer cottage in Norfolk, England, barefoot and unexpected. Eve Smart, a third-rate author suffering writer's block, believes that she is a friend of her husband's. Michael is a womanizing university professor, but he doesn't usually drag his quarry home. He thinks that she must be a friend of Eve's. Everyone is politely confused and Amber is invited to dinner. She is a consummate liar and manipulator who manages to seduce everyone in the family in some significant way. This artful effort won Britain's Whitbread Book Award and was a finalist for the Man Booker Prize.

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.

For illbruck Challenge, 4 1/2 years of planning and 8 1/2 months of sailing round the world ultimately produced a tactical advantage second to none in the Volvo Ocean Race. American skipper John Kostecki led his German-backed boat to overall victory yesterday as the 32,700-nautical-mile odyssey ended late yesterday afternoon in Kiel, Germany. Though finishing second in the ninth and final leg behind Norway's djuice dragons, illbruck became the first German boat to win in the 29-year history of the round-the-world event, formerly known as The Whitbread.

Chances are good that when the Volvo Ocean Race fleet sets sail on Sunday, you will still be unfamiliar with Dubarry, djuice, ASSA ABLOY and many of the other corporations that have paid a fortune to become sponsors. That won't come as a surprise to the companies, or be necessarily a disappointment. The Volvo race is unlike traditional sports sponsorships in which a business pays millions of dollars to draw attention to its products. Most of the action in the round-the-world race takes place on the high seas, far from spectators and the media.

"Chessie Racing: The Story of Maryland's Entry in the 1997-98 Whitbread Round the World Race," by George J. Collins and Kathy Alexander. Johns Hopkins University Press. 240 pages. $34.95. This is a book for several audiences -- the serious sailor, the vicarious adventurer, and the proud Maryland landlubber. Chessie Racing's entry into the 1997-98 Whitbread Round the World Race engaged an interest far beyond the normal appeal of ocean racing, even in a water-bred community like ours. This was achieved, in major part, through the first partnership between an ocean racing syndicate and a nonprofit organization, the Living Classrooms Foundation.

LONDON - Deutsche Bank AG's buyout fund agreed to buy Whitbread PLC's 3,000 pubs for 1.6 billion pounds ($2.3 billion) and plans to turn their steady income into ready cash by selling bonds backed by future food and drink sales. Morgan Grenfell Private Equity will become Britain's fourth-largest bar landlord with the purchase, joining Nomura Securities Co. and Westdeutsche Landesbank Girozentrale as pub owners. The three buyout companies control a fifth of Britain's 60,000 pubs. "Venture capitalists are buying pubs because they provide strong, reliable cash flow," said Mark Reed, an analyst at Teather & Greenwood with a "hold" rating on Whitbread's stock.

While most of us are literally chilling out these days, a handful of Chesapeake Bay sailors are pushing themselves and their boats to the limits. They are the professionals who follow the sun. They are engaged in a series of major race campaigns, which will dominate this and next year's racing calendars. First off the mark, on New Year's Eve, was what is simply called The Race, a rules-free, record-chasing circumnavigation for a new generation of super-catamarans. Six of the cats, all 100 feet long or more, left Barcelona, Spain, on Sunday, and for the next 65 days or so of nonstop sailing, their only goal will be to sail round the world faster than any boats have sailed.

Somewhere in the South Pacific, Chessie Racing is today back in the running. The boat that carried Maryland's hopes around the world in the 1997-98 Whitbread is again going about her basic business - speeding across the oceans. She has been bought by Sweden's Assa Abloy syndicate as a practice boat for next year's Volvo (formerly the Whitbread) Round the World Race. Her new crew left Hong Kong this week on a 5,500-mile training voyage to Sydney before racing her in the Telstra Sydney-to-Hobart Yacht Race at the end of next month.

AUCKLAND, New Zealand -- Paul Cayard is doing a pretty good imitation of a tightly coiled spring, a guy ready at any moment to jump out of his skin. Tomorrow, weather permitting, Cayard's $32 million AmericaOne campaign goes head-to-head against Italy's $80 million Prada Challenge in the opening match of the best-of-nine America's Cup challenger finals. At stake is the right to challenge the defender, Team New Zealand, in the America's Cup regatta in mid-February. The volcanic pressure has been building day by day here.

WASHINGTON -- Picture the sight: spectacularly expensive American yachts glittering in the waters off Fidel Castro's Havana, the Cubans looking on as some of the major players in the exclusive U.S. sailing community put the Communist island behind them in a race to Baltimore. The idea for a race from Cuba to the city's Inner Harbor during the waterfront festival in April has enthusiastic support from officials in Baltimore and Havana. The race, which would not feature a boat from Cuba, is under review by the U.S. government, which must rule on any exchanges because of a trade embargo between the two countries.