Cocoa Beach, FL
5/10/2000, 10:00 AM
By Zack Leonard
Leg three began with a new twist. This morning the racers were greeted with a 6-12 knot Southwesterly blowing diagonally off the beach. The light, on-shore winds made for some difficult decisions. Smyth, starting at the favored Northern end of the line, paddled hard as his pusher took him far out into the surf to clear his air of the boats upwind of him. He was forced to reach high to keep his air clear, apparently thinking that the starboard tack reach leading off-shore would get him out into stronger breeze quicker. The second place Dutch team of Loos and Heemskerk were rolled at the start by a large group of boats with spinnakers flying, so they chose to gybe to port tack and parallel the beach to clear their air before heading off shore. They were rewarded with a strong gust off the shore that allowed them to double trapeze away from the beach at 12 knots. Within minutes of the start the Dutch Team had a 5 hundred yard lead and were sailing in stronger breeze, pulling away from the fleet towards the gantries of Cape Canaveral.
The course for leg 3 will take the fleet passed the famed space center and on to Daytona Beach. The distance is 69 miles - one of the shorter legs - but the wind should be astern most of the day, forcing the sailors to gybe downwind to the finish, sailing more distance.
The sailors are starting to get to know the new Inter 20s a little better after 2 legs and most agree that the boats are much more tender than most beach cats. Kenny Pierce and Steve Lohmayer like to switch positions and co-skipper their boat. They have been sailing the boat for 4 months now, Pierce said "these boats are a handful downwind, we couldn't even switch off yesterday, it was too hairy." One racer flipped while adjusting his hat yesterday. Brian Lambert says Livingston has to force feed him cliff bars, "you can't relax for a second or you're over".
One of the great challenges in learning the new boat has been downwind technique. With the spinnaker up you can sail high to generate more power and double trapeze, or a slightly lower angle with one person on the wire, or even lower still with both sailors sitting on the hull. In all three configurations the windward hull will fly, but depending on the wind velocity and the shape of the waves one technique will give a better VMG (velocity made good towards the goal). The most adaptable team will be rewarded.
After two days it may be a bit early to look at the scoreboard, but the Dutch team of Loos and Heemskerk is clearly here to compete for the win. Loos said "We're gonna play with [Smyth] today, we can beat him, we just have to go as fast as possible." Loos is a professional sailor who specializes in distance races, competing in Hobies all over the world. This is his third try at the Worrell. He's here between races in Dubai, Antibes, France and Texel, Holland. Loos and Heemskerk are fiery competitors with tempers to match. Yesterday, after losing the lead yards from the finish, Heemskerk smashed his fist on the hull of their cat as he surfed onto the beach, cursing in Dutch and throwing his goggles to the sand in disgust.
A logician, technician and extremely quick learner, Randy Smyth is the opposite of his Dutch counterparts. The most emotion you are likely to see from Smyth is a bemused roll of the eyes that usually serves as his comment on the illogical behavior of others. Smyth is a pro sailor and sailmaker, and he is very good at both. With almost 50 National, Continental and World Championships to his name, the two-time Olympic silver medallist is one of the most decorated sailors ever to live. Brian Lambert was laughing this morning as he described a moment in yesterday's leg. Lohmayer and Pierce had gained on Smyth by using a different downwind technique. Smyth quickly copied the winning technique and pulled ahead. Lambert laughed, "That's a pretty good day, when you teach Randy something."
We'll have another report from the finish at Daytona Beach. Stay tuned to see if the Dutch can hold the lead.
