Adecco Maxi OD - Fastnet Overall

Rf Yachting wins Fastnet - Skandia wins the Championship

PLYMOUTH-Storming home just after midnight, Ross Field's RF Yachting (NZL) was the clear winner of the Fastnet Race which culminated the Adecco World Championship for the Maxi-One-Design class. Field beat his nearest rival, Ludde Ingvall with Skandia (EUR), by 18 minutes, but it was Ingvall who took the 600,000 Swiss Francs first prize for the championship with Field having to be content with half that sum for second overall.

It was a fast Fastnet Race and the Maxi-One-Designs displayed just how fast it could be by decimating the monohull course record, set by Marvin Green's 80 foot Nirvana by 7 hours 32 minutes and 2 seconds. The new, ultimate monohull record, set by Ross Field's RF Yachting, is 2 days 5 hours 8 minutes and 51 seconds. All six of the Maxi-One-Designs which completed the course broke the old record.

The double points counting Fastnet Race began on Saturday evening from Cowes in near calm conditions and was almost certainly won and lost in the way in which the boats went out of the Solent and into the English Channel. Ross Field said, 'We deliberately chose to stay to the left hand side going out of the Solent, and we were proved to be correct. We were easily ahead by the Needles.'

Ingvall agreed, 'The winning and losing was at the start. We had a good start,' he said, 'but it might have paid to be bad.' By that he meant that speed off the line was not as important as the position nearest to the Royal Yacht Squadron and the Isle of Wight shore where the current was to begin running to the west and become strongest.

It was a tricky time when the wind dropped to nothing and the ebb tide took over. Without steerage way, Guido Maisto grounded Seac Banche (ITA) on the Shingles Bank and had to be towed clear, enforcing his retirement from the race. 'We had the anchor ready in case of something like that happening,' said Ingvall. It was there that Field's strategy of holding as far left as possible paid handsome dividends.

'We were first out into the Channel and the weather information that we received from France told us to go south,' he said. 'We were the most south boat when the wind came and we got it first,' and he added with a broad smile, 'and from then on the rich got richer.' In no time, RF Yachting was 20 miles ahead of the next boat and the outcome of the Fastnet was almost assured.

It was during the first night at sea that the boats had some really hard sailing, running before the easterly wind of 40 knots. It was fast, wet, and furious and had it's moments for some. A steering failure for Geoff Meek's Rainbow Magic (RSA) during a 50 knot prolonged gust necessitated a spinnaker take-down and ground was lost to the rest of the fleet, which his crew were never able to fully recover.

The Swiss in Ernesto Bertarelli's Alinghimax were hard on the heels of the European entry, Skandia and gave the eventual world champion the hardest of races. 'We have never been pushed so hard for so long in an offshore race as we were by the Swiss,' admitted Ingvall in praise of the effort of his pursuers. 'They gave it their all to try to beat us.

The fast ride out to the gaunt granite rock with the lighthouse atop, five miles off the Irish coast continued on the way home after a short, five mile leg to round the Pantaneius buoy. Spinnakers were down for most of it but with reaching headsails it was still a fast ride. Some fifty miles short of rounding the Bishop Rock, at the western end of the Scilly Isles, the wind had backed enough for spinnakers to appear again and the pace increased.

Skandia's crew had thought that RF Yachting was a long way clear, but when they saw them only seven miles in front at the Fastnet, they redoubled their efforts. 'We were out to catch them,' said helmsman Jeff Scott. Two years earlier, Scott had been with Field as Ingvall chased hard from half a mile astern all the way from Fastnet to the Bishop Rock and didn't gain a metre. It was largely the same this time, as it was for the Swiss with Alinghimax.

Hans Bouscholte with Synphony (BEL) was also in the hunt as was Jimmy Pahun with Le Defi Bourgues Telecom - Transiciel (FRA), the latter looking to clinch third place overall in the Adecco World Championship. They finished in that order with Geoff Meek's Rainbow Magic closing them all the time, but never able to get back into contention.

The fifth place gave the French third place overall on a tiebreak. They had the same overall points as Rainbow Magic, but beating the South Africans in that final race decided which of them should take the 100,000 Swiss Francs for third place in the Adecco World Championship.

'The Championship was a fantastic event,' said Pierre Fehmann, the President of the Maxi-One-Design Class Association, 'The level of skippers and crews was extremely high. We are perhaps lucky to have had good winds for all the events and to have had only one technical problem - the failure of Team Henri-Lloyd's mast in Kieler Woche - but that was quickly and efficiently cleared.' He added, 'I am very happy to announce that the programme for 2000 Adecco World Championship will be much the same.'

Fastnet Race - Finishing order:

1. NZL RF Yachting Ross Field
2. EUR Skandia Ludde Ingvall
3. SUI Alinghimax Ernesto Bertarelli
4. BEL Synphony Hans Bouscholte
5. FRA Le Defi Bourgues Telecom - Transiciel Jimmy Pahun
6. RSA Rainbow Magic Geoff Meek
DNF ITA Seac Banche Guido Maisto
DNS SWE Team Henri-Lloyd Gunnar Krantz

Adecco World Championship - Final placings:

1. EUR 74 points
2. NZL 65
3. FRA 43
4. RSA 43
5. BEL 36.5
6. SUI 36
7. SWE 25
8. ITA 9

For more information visit : www.adecco-championship.com/uk