Italians favored in Melges 24 World Championship

Liz Filter and her huge volunteer committee from the Eastport Yacht Club has been working for nearly two years to prepare for Annapolis to host the 2009 Melges 24 World Championship.

Last night, moments before the opening ceremony underneath a huge tent at Susan B. Campbell Park, Filter surveyed the scene in downtown Annapolis and breathed a well-deserved sigh of relief. There were 52 of the high-performance sailboats berthed at City Dock, hundreds of sailors from 10 different countries enjoying a catered cocktail party and the mayor of Annapolis was on hand to formally kick off the week-long regatta.

"Look at this. The sun is setting on a beautiful fall afternoon, Ego Alley is filled with boats and battle flags, tourists are chatting with sailors from all over the world … this is the vision my team had when we began planning for this," said Filter, a long-time Eastport Yacht Club member and regatta chair.

UKA UKA Racing, the Italian syndicate skippered by Lorenzo Bressani, will be favored when the Sheehy Lexus of Annapolis Melges 24 World Championship kicks off today on the Chesapeake Bay. UKA UKA Racing captured last year's world championship off Porto Cuervo, Italy and showed this past weekend that it has what it takes to repeat.

Seattle native Jonathan McKee called tactics as Bressani steered UKA UKA Racing to a solid line of 3-2-9 and a low score of 14 points in the Melges 24 Pre-Worlds Regatta. That second-place finish proved crucial as the Italians won a tiebreaker with Blu Moon, the Switzerland entry skippered by Flavio Favini.

"The pre-worlds are basically practice and do not mean much. Tomorrow is a new day and that is when the results will count," said Federico Nichetti, campaign manager for UKA UKA Racing. "The conditions off Annapolis are really tricky, but we are relaxed and confident because we have spent several weeks sailing here during the summer to prepare for this regatta."

Fantastica, another Italian team skippered by Nicola Celon, placed third in the pre-worlds. Monsoon, sailed by an all-amateur crew skippered by Bruce Ayres of Newport Harbor, Cal., placed fourth.

Annapolis professional Chris Larson showed that his West Marine Rigging/New England Ropes team will be a contender by finishing fifth in the pre-worlds. Larson recovered from an 18th in the opening race by posting a fifth and a fourth to get within one point of Ayres.

"The Italian teams are sailing very well. They have good boats and are pretty fast," Larson said. "Hopefully, we can be on par with them performance-wise. I thought this weekend the boat seemed to be going pretty well and I think we have more speed we can get out of her."

Larson sailed the pre-worlds without tactician Richard Clarke, a Canadian professional with Volvo Ocean Race and America's Cup experience. More pertinent to this event is the fact Clarke called tactics for Samuel "Shark" Kahn when he won the Melges 24 World Championship in 2003.

Principal race officer Jeff Borland hopes to hold 12 races over six days with a throw-out coming into play after six races are completed. All the top contenders will be hoping to avoid suffering a bad result during the first few days of the regatta.

"It's a long regatta and - as always - consistency will be the key," Larson said. "You want to get through the first half of the week without having to use your throw-out."

Quantum Racing, led by Annapolis-based professionals Terry Hutchinson (helmsman) and Scott Nixon (tactician), is another local favorite. Other United States teams expected to contend include Event's Clothing/Atlantis (Bill Hardesty and Vince Brun, San Diego) and Full Throttle (Brian Porter and Harry Melges, Lake Geneva, Wis.

A pair of local skippers figure to battle Ayres for victory in the Corinthian class, which has 14 entries. Stevensville resident and Eastport Yacht Club member Henry Filter and his Wild Child team showed well in the pre-worlds, placing eighth overall and second among the amateur boats. Severn Sailing Association member Othmar von Blumencron and the Gannett crew was 12th overall and third in Corinthian class.

"It's tough for us to contend with the full-on professional teams. Those guys sail the boat 200 days a year and are at such a high level as a result," Filter said. "That being said, if things go our way there is no reason why we can't be in contention. We have a strong team that has been practicing really hard and we have high hopes."