If patience is a virtue, than the 190-boat Giraglia fleet had it in spades early this morning as the boats seemingly crept towards La Giraglia rock and the turn towards the finish in Genoa, 90 miles away.
After Wednesday's start of the 243-nautical mile race in St Tropez, the breeze slowly built and once the fleet rounded La Fourmigue to head for La Giraglia a northeasterly of 8 - 10 knots settled in, and backed enough to let the boats enjoy a close reach on the rhumbline to the rock. Through Wednesday night the fleet made slow but steady progress, but just before sunrise, the wind died out.
Near the front of the fleet, Bella Mente navigator Robert Hopkins emailed, "As of 0500, we have been becalmed for an hour. Container has coasted to a stop to our north and Alegre appears to be less than a .5 mile behind us. We still have 21.9 mi to go to the rock. At this rate, assuming our current boat speed of 0.2 knots, it will take 100 hours or a little more than 4 days to get there. Hope the wind fills in before then." An hour later he added, "At 0600, we're ghosting along under our windseeker. Boatspeed 4.3 kts, windspeed 3.7 kts. The sea is like a mirror."
(ICSACollege Sailor of the Year Charlie Buckingham (Newport Beach, Calif.) and Alexandra Taylor (Hobe Sound, Fla.) - Photo GTSphotos.com)
NEWPORT, R.I. (June 17, 2009) – The Intercollegiate Sailing Association of North America (ICSA) has announced the members of its 2008/2009 ICSA All-America Sailing Team, along with the Quantum Female College Sailor of the Year, the College Sailor of the Year, Sportsman of the Year and the winner of the Leonard M. Fowle Memorial Trophy for the all-around best college team. The ICSA All-American honors are awarded to competitors who demonstrated outstanding performance in competition during the college sailing year (fall and spring seasons) just concluded. A panel of representatives from each of the seven ICSA conferences reviews each sailor’s individual results and sailors are named to the team as All-Americans, Women’s All-Americans and/or All-American Crews. Their names will be added to the permanent ICSA Hall of Fame display located in the RobertCrownSailingCenter at the U.S. Naval Academy (Annapolis, Md.).
Success was all in the hands of the tacticians aboard the 190 yachts that set out from St Tropez today. After a one-hour postponement, the race committee started the fleet in the lightest of zephyrs. The 4-6 knot northeasterly, though light and shifty, was just enough to get the Maxi and Swan 45 fleet off on their 243-nautical mile journey to Genoa via La Giraglia off the north end of Corsica.
For the following two starts, including IRC/ORC A with over 100 boats, the breeze was fickle, dropping even more and making it a struggle for some boats to clear the traffic of the start line. Further out in the bay de Canebiers, the wind picked up slightly; from here the fleet headed to a turning mark at La Fourmigue twenty nautical miles down the coast, and from there turned upwind for the next landfall of the Giraglia Rock, 130nm miles away. Luna Rossa initially led the 25-boat Maxi and Swan 45 fleet upwind shortly after the start, with Bella Mente, Container, and Ran close behind.
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