Enfant Terrible New Leader In Farr 40 East Coast Championship

Reigning European Champion takes 1-2 scores in today’s two races, leads pack by 3 points

Annapolis, MD – Alberto Rossi and his crew on Enfant Terrible turned in an outstanding 1-2 performance today to take the lead in Day 2 of the 2012 Farr 40 East Coast Championship. If his lead holds for the remaining two days of the event, it would help solidify his lead in the four-event Farr 40 US Circuit leading into this year’s Rolex Farr 40 World Championship held in Chicago in September.

Rossi is no stranger to success: besides his prowess in Farr 40 Class racing, he and his team are also the reigning ORCi Offshore World Champions, having won the Class A title last year in Cres, Croatia in conditions that often replicated what the Chesapeake offered today.

“It was very very tricky sailing out there today, this Chesapeake is a tough place,” said Wolfgang Schaefer. He and his Struntje Light team should know: in the first race of the day in the shifty 6-9 knot southerly they had a commanding lead over the pack, but instead of covering chose to break with the pack off to the right on a shift just 200 meters from the top mark. The result was disastrous: the pack got their own left shift, and the lead was now taken by Kevin McNeil’s Nightshift.

But McNeil too chose to break away from the pack on the final run to the finish by gybing away, and in turn lost their lead to Rossi’s Italian team who clawed to the finish just ahead of Jim Richardson’s Barking Mad, who scored their best race yet in the series.

The second race was held in similar conditions, and once again the light shifty breeze meant no lead was safe. This time, however, John Demourkas's Groovederci led by tactician Cameron Appleton connected the dots beautifully to take their second bullet in the event. Only a non-discardable 10th in the first race stands between Groovederci and the lead held by the Italians, with yesterday’s leader Ramrod luring close in third place on a tie-break.

“The points are all so close, it’s still anyone’s regatta,” says Class Manager Geoff Stagg. “This is why we don’t allow discards, so that every race counts and it keeps the pressure on everyone to keep up their game.”

Tomorrow the pressure will be on race managers from the Storm Trysail Club as they will attempt to continue more racing in Day 3 of the competition, as the forecast is promising more light air and warm humid conditions. The first start is scheduled for 1200 EDT.

Results are posted online at www.farr40.org, and photos from Sara Proctor can be seen at her gallery at http://saraproctor.smugmug.com