This Handicapper Draws No Fire

The powers of sailing, in their wisdom, realized many years ago that there were many different kinds of boats, and they were not created equal.

So they devised various handicap systems to equalize competition so the better sailors would not be penalized because they sailed slower boats.

The boats would all start even, but the first to finish would not necessarily be the winner. Nobody would know who got the trophies until the clockings went into the calculators.

Long Beach Race Week, which started Thursday and runs through Sunday, is such an event (except for one class), using the International Offshore Rule of handicap ratings. It fell to Tom Dessel, chairman of the eighth annual event for the Long Beach Yacht Club, to assign the classes according to handicaps--a task nobody envied.

Some skippers simply do not like to race against others because they believe they give up too much time.

For example, Pat Farrah’s Santa Cruz 70 Blondie is the only ultralight entered, so instead of being in a separate class, it became the scratch boat in Class A. It must give Ron Kuntz’s Nelson/Marek 44 Travieso 108.5 seconds per mile, so in, say, a maximum 26.9-mile race, Blondie could finish 48 minutes ahead of Travieso--and lose.

Dessel explained Wednesday that he was still awaiting the arrival of updated United States Yacht Racing Union rating certificates for four of the boats. Then, at the skipper’s meeting before the first race Thursday morning, he passed out the class assignments--and ducked.

But instead of an explosion, he heard only silence. The skippers quietly accepted their assignments and went off to sail. Their acquiescence said to Dessel, “Well done.”

“I was surprised as hell,” Dessel said.

The final entry list had 43 boats, assigned to classes A through E, with nine J-35s sailing in their own level class, without handicaps. Those included Bill Rosenberg’s Raging Rosy from Channel Islands Yacht Club, winner of Class A in last week’s Sobstad Race Week.

Organizers had hoped to have an ultralight class, but Blondie was the only one to show up. The others apparently were buttoning down for the Transpac starting July 2.

Iain Murray won the Grundig Cup match racing series in Cannes, France, Wednesday, defeating Paul Cayard, 2-1, in the finals. Cayard was Tom Blackaller’s tactician on USA in the America’s Cup.

Murray picked a profitable time to sail out of his slump. The Kookaburra skipper was shut out, 4-0, by Dennis Conner in the America’s Cup final and followed that by finishing dead last in the Congressional Cup at Long Beach a month later. But he claimed the Grundig and $100,000 in prize money by dominating a dynamic fleet.

The Grundig is the fourth of eight events in the World Match Racing Conference series and the first to award purses. It had an all-America’s Cup semifinal, with Murray and three Americans. Murray and Cayard eliminated Eagle’s Rod Davis and Stars & Stripes navigator Peter Isler in the semifinal.

Cayard collected $25,000, with the third-place Davis and fourth-place Isler picking up $12,500 each--for the Americans, their first official paydays ever in racing.

In all, 12 skippers sailed French-built Selection 37s, which are built of kevlar, the same material used in high-performance racing sails and bulletproof vests.

It was a light-air series until the last day, when the Mediterranean winds whipped up to 20 knots, and there were frequent protests.

Murray flew a red flag against Cayard in the last race Wednesday--shades of Fremantle--but dropped it when he won. Peter Gilmour steered through the starting sequences, then handed the helm to Murray, which also was their routine in the America’s Cup.

With Murray’s victory, the first four World Cup events have had different winners. He follows Wales’ Eddie Owen in the Congressional, Davis in the Squadron Challenge at New Zealand and Chris Dickson in the Royal Lymington in England. They qualify for the first World Cup of Match Race Sailing at Long Beach in August 1988.

The next event will be the King Edward VII Gold Cup at Bermuda July 8-11.

Sailing Notes

OLYMPICS--Area sailors were prominent in the pre-Olympic trials for five classes at Newport, R.I. last week. A year before the real trials, Allison Jolly of Long Beach and crew Lynne Jewell won the new women’s 470 class, followed by Lisa Nice-Pat Raymond of Seattle and J.J. Isler-Amy Wardell of San Diego. In men’s 470, John Shadden of Long Beach and crew Charlie McKee were runners-up to Morgan Reeser-Jay Renehan of Miami, followed by Tom Kinney-Zach Orlov, King’s Point, N.Y. Shadden was fifth in the ’84 trials. In Tornado, Pete Melvin of Long Beach, with Patrick Muglia, was second to Gary Knapp-Chris Steinfeld of New York, followed by Norman Chu-Markku Kuuismin of Galveston, Tex. Olympic silver medalist Randy Smyth did not compete. Flying Dutchman front-runners J.B. Braun and Bill Kenney of Marblehead, Mass. finished ahead of Ron Baerwitz-Tom Pollock of Marina Del Rey and Paul Forrester-Andrew Goldman of Austin, Tex. Bert Rice of Pensacola, Fla., won the sailboard competition over Mike Gebhardt of Fort Walton Beach, Fla., and ’84 Olympic silver medalist Scott Steele of Annapolis, Md. Winds were light to moderate. Finns were sailed in better winds at Marblehead, where Canada’s Lawrence Lemieux topped Brian Ledbetter of San Diego and Scott MacLeod of Rowayton, Conn.

ADMIRAL’S CUP--San Francisco’s Sidewinder, skippered by John Bertrand, leads the Brenton Reef Series at Newport, R.I., which concludes Saturday. The event is the U.S. trials for the Admiral’s Cup, which is an international team championship beginning in England July 30. The top three finishers qualify. Insatiable, with Randy Short, was running second, followed by Tuff Enuff Texas Style, with former America II skipper John Kolius. Bertrand was Kolius’ tactician for the America’s Cup, as well as the Olympic Finn class silver medalist in ’84. His afterguard also includes Olympic Soling gold medalist Robbie Haines.

SPEED SAILING--June 10 is the entry deadline for the U.S. Speedsailing Grand Prix at Long Beach June 20, said Georgs Kolesnikovs, general race chairman. The event is open to multihulls and monohulls, amateurs and professionals, and will be divided into classes according to boat size, not design. No handicaps will be used. The early favorite is Rudy Choy’s cat Aikane X-5, which won the Ensenada race and will be sailed by Randy Smyth.

CATAMARANS--The second Pacific 1000, sailed in Pro 20 cats, is scheduled July 21 to Aug. 1. The 12-day event measures 1,000 miles, with overnight stops at beaches from San Diego to Santa Barbara. Smyth won last year’s event, with Jim Hill as crew, but isn’t planning to compete this time because he’ll be defending his European Formula 40 series championship. Smyth’s usual crew, Jay Glaser, will crew for England’s Reg White in the Tornado worlds at Kiel.

NOTEWORTHY--A news conference was scheduled in Milan today, probably to announce the entry of a merged Italia-Azzurra syndicate entry in the 12-meter world championships at Sardinia June 25-July 11. With the French Kiss dropout, that would restore the fleet to eight boats.