2003Alter Cup from Clearwater, FL
The
Last Race was finished in the Dark
The RC did get in the 12 needed races to divide the fleet into Gold and Silver, but at the cost of going into the night time. Winds ranged from 15-20 and seas were 3-5. But, the forcast for the next three days is 20-25 and 5-7 foot seas. So, that was the reason for the Overtime. They simply needed to be sure they had a regatta sailed -- kudos to the RC, even though I (Rick White) was freezing to death for the last two races of the eveningl.
However,
there were numerous protests and filings for redtress that will last well
into late night tonight. So, This is it -- we still do not know who is
leading, nor who will make the cut for the Gold and Silver.
Stay tuned here. As soon as we know something, so will you!
First
Day of Alter Cup – Lots of Races, But Who's Winning? Dunno!
The winds on the first day were exceptional for the area that is really known for its sea breezes. Thanks to an approaching cold front the winds headed south and blew strongly and then were reinforced by the normal sea breeze and had winds of around 12-18 knots. This made for some great sailing and for those not too familiar with the boat, some great problems. There were some problems with dousing the spinnaker, and a few capsizes.
The way the scoring is set up, there is no real way to know who is winning this doggone thing. The RC got in six races today – one team sailed only one race.., another sailed five. So, there is no way we can tell you who has the lead.., unless we could tell the future. Ah! Yes! Another acronym – ESP!
However,
as suspected the team of Matt Struble and WF Oliver have all bullets in
three races. No one else has any results that come even close to that.
It looks like total domination by this team so far. But one never knows.
There is a cutoff on Thursday evening that separates the Gold Fleet (top 10 contenders) from the Silver Fleet (bottom 10 contenders) – sort of like the NCAA Championship and the National Invitational Tournament in college basketball. They will divide the fleet based on either 12 races or 16 races. It cannot be any other numbers due to the Matrix set up for scoring the 20 team/10 boat format now exclusively used by the multihulls in US Sailing.
The last two days will be racing only Gold Fleet against Gold Fleet and Silver Fleet against Silver Fleet. That means the winner of the Gold Fleet can shout, "We're Number One" while the winner of the Silver Fleet can Shout, "We're Number Eleven!" This is not meant to be demeaning because all of these sailors are champions. After all, this is a champion of champions event. But, the winner of the Gold Fleet will then be the Overall Champ and the winner of the Prestigious Alter Cup.
Teams are arriving for the US Sailing Multihull Championship being held in Clearwater by the combined efforts of Clearwater Sailing Center and the Clearwater Yacht Club.
The boats are Bimare's F-18HT catamaran designs from Italy.
This page will be a work in progress as we will be posting stories and results as they happen.
Tomorrow (Sunday) there will be practice races and each team will get to sail the boats two times (there are 20 teams and only 10 boats). This will also be a shakedown for the boats themselves since they were just assembled today.
There are some strong competitors and the regatta looks to be a very tight event. So, stay tuned for more.
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