Defiant|s Second-Day Lead Under Protest

It was another good day for Terry McLaughlin’s Canadian team aboard Defiant, but the evening could prove tough in the protest room.

Defiant won the first and third of three races on this second day of the Rolex Farr 40 World Championships in Nassau. The team’s two victories are threatened, however, by two protests involving incidents at the start. In race three, the Race Committee has protested Flash Gordon, Helmut Jahn’s Chicago entry, for fouling on the anchor line of its committee boat. A resulting chain of protests worked backward to Defiant, the alleged source of the problem. In race one, Crocodile Rock, owned by Alex Geremia and Scott Harris of Santa Barbara, Calif., protested Defiant for barging at the start. “The fleet is very aggressive,” said Crocodile Rock’s tactician Robbie Haines, an Olympic Gold medallist from San Diego, Calif.“Consistency and staying out of trouble is the key here.” With finish positions of 12-10-2 today, Crocodile Rock rose from ninth to third overall in the ideal 20-25 knot breezes.

Also making huge gains today was Le Renard, skippered by Steve Phillips of Arnold, Md., when it posted finishes of 2-7-10 to move up from eighth to second place overall. “As much as everyone wanted to win today, you just have to say that a second is fine,” said tactician Mark Reynolds of San Diego, Calif., explaining that Le Renard was winning today’s first race up until the last quarter of the last downwind leg. It was then that Defiant caught them. “I’ve learned from experience that in this class you just need to be in the to p ten every race.” Under that premise, Reynolds, a Rolex Yachtsman of the Year and three-time Olympic medallist, is satisfied with Le Renard’s two worse finishes for the day. “In both those races, we were much deeper at times and much better at other times.”

Yesterday’s second race was won by Breeze, the Italian entry skippered by Vincenzo Onorato, who came straight to this championship after being eliminated from the America’s Cup Challenger Races in New Zealand. Breeze currently is in 13th.

Sailing through Saturday on the waters off Atlantis, Paradise Island are 25 teams representing eight nations.

Top Ten Overall (After 5 Races)