TRIMARAN NATIONALS  --- WINDS OF CHANGE  by Mark

 

 

     The break-up between Farrier Marine and Corsair Marine was not the only change in

 

what is now known as the Corsair Trimaran Nationals held in Fort Walton Beach,

 

Florida, April 21-26.  Fifty-one racers and four cruisers ranging in size from 24 to 36 feet

 

arrived from as far as Cape Cod, Massachusetts.  Since its one design class in the past

 

two Key West Race Week Regattas, the 16 hot 28-Rs garnered the primary attention. 

 

Last year’s 1-2-3 winners finished in the same relative order.  However, this year they

 

were 3-4-5.  Two new comers, who dueled right down to the wire, supplanted them. 

 

“The 28-R class is so competitive, because good multihull sailors from different fleets

 

want to race one design,” explained Steve Marsh from Miami whose Dealer’s Choice

 

placed 2nd at last year’s nationals, but 4th this year.  Don Wigston, a transplanted New

 

Zealander who won last year’s Nationals in Whipper Snapper recounted how “the 2001

 

National’s winner placed 7th or 8th in Key West this year.”  “It will be tougher this time –

 

any of six boats could win,” warned Ron Roth from Virginia Beach, racing 8-Up-Wid-It

 

in his 5th Nationals with the hope of bettering his previous 3rd places finishes.

 

     The venue for this event is ideal.  Shallow water on Leeside Park’s protected, sandy

 

beach allowed safe anchorage, 30 feet from shore, for most of the boats with their center

 

boards retracted.  The racecourse around Choctawhatchee Bay with its troublesome sand

 

bars made for challenging sailing.  Conventional wisdom has racers playing the usually

 

northeasterly morning winds as they clock around to a southwesterly off shore gulf

 

breeze in the afternoon.  First day winds began around 12 knots and built to 18 knots. 

 

However, that evening severe thunderstorms combined with tornado warnings changed

 

matters.  Race starts on the second day were postponed until 1:00 p.m. and confined to

 

the bay instead of the scheduled longer distance races in the gulf.  Day three racing

 

offered a change to lighter 5-10 knot winds and smooth water.

 

     None of this fazed Bad Boys, skippered by Bob Harkrider of Augusta, Georgia or

 

Todd Hudgins of Chicago, the skipper of Condor.  These two, sailing in their first 28-R

 

class Nationals, dominated with one or the other finishing first in each of the six races. 

 

Like the classic battles between Ali and Fraizer, or Bird against Magic, Bad Boys eked

 

out a paper slim one-point victory 7.0 to 8.0 with last year’s winner, Whipper Snapper a

 

distant 3rd with 17.0 points. 

 

     Hudgins straight forward racing philosophy relies on communication, speed, and

 

attention to detail.  “The crew communicates a lot.  We talk a lot about everything.  We

 

talk about all the consequences that could happen on the race course, before, during and

 

after the race,” he confided.  “We are constantly paying attention to speed rather than

 

tactics.  There is no substitute for going as fast as possible all the time, because somebody

 

like Bob Harkrider is going to just walk away from you when you start thinking of

 

something else,” Hudgins continued.  “We pay attention to detail and to that which is in

 

our control.  If it’s out of our control, we don’t waste time on it.  “We don’t do much

 

different than anybody else.  If we succeed, it’s because we took one portion of it more

 

seriously than somebody else, maybe or we made fewer mistakes,” he stated.

 

     Harkrider, a 57-year-old CPA, was fresh from a first place finish at Key West.  He has

 

been sailing multihulls for the past four years and purchased Bad Boys just six months

 

ago!  “We seemed to have exceptionally good speed in whatever direction we went.  We

 

could climb out of holes,” the soft-spoken Georgian said.  What an understatement!  Of

 

the three bullets they had on the second day of racing, Bad Boys ran aground, but got to

 

the weather mark first.  In another they were penalized for being over early and still won.

 

 Harkrider did not attribute anything special for the victory.  They do have a head foil

 

instead of a hanked-on jib for better sail presentation. “We kept the boat trimmed and

 

used the rotator to basically have good shape into our main,” he said.  “Our sails were

 

just heads and shoulders above anybody else,” he continued with credits going to Doug

 

Fisher of Ullman Sails.  With a tinge of humility, Harkrider offered the key to Bad Boys

 

success was the crew.  “The boat was not sailed by the skipper, but sailed by the team,”

 

he confided. 

 

     Harkrider singularly praised Peter Wormwood, a 55 year old, 9 times Stiletto

 

champion from Sarasota.  “Peter did a wonderful job of keeping the sails trimmed, so all I

 

had to do was steer,” the skipper recounted.  “Peter was constantly adjusting the main

 

sheet and also the halyard tension to make sure we were getting good presentation of sail

 

to the wind,” he continued.  Wormwood had only raced with Harkrider once before, but

 

felt kinship to the Bad Boys’ skipper on what Wormwood described as, “a very laid back

 

boat.  We sail pretty loose.”  As chief tactician, Wormwood acknowledged the wind

 

shifts were hard to understand.  “According to weather reports, the wind was supposed to

 

go right all through the regatta, but we kept finding better wind on the left side of the

 

course,” he confided.  Wormwood thought their starts were brilliant.  “We went for clear

 

air, because with these boats even if you’re not quite in the right place on the starting

 

line, you get a few moments of clean air and a little jet and you can squirt out to get back

 

anything you’ve lost, although we never really were on the wrong end of the line,” he

 

explained.  “Mostly, we were making sure we had clean air at the start, particularly to

 

leeward, so we could foot off and let the boat rock.  Once we did that...it went,”

 

Wormwood continued.  “We seemed to be faster down wind.  Something that we were

 

doing that I didn’t see a lot of other boats doing down wind was we were actively barber-

 

hauling our jib out and trimming it.”  “By holding the clew out and down, we not only

 

got more sail area down wind, but we were controlling the air on the back of the

 

mainsail,” the Sarasotan explained.  “We were recognizing the jib as being a staysail, but

 

I didn’t see that on other boats,” he added.

 

     Having recorded a top speed of 20 knots, it was clear to the other racers that Bad Boys

 

was the class’s fastest boat.  Regardless, a pivotal mistake on the first day’s second

 

race might have cost Harkrider the championship.  Leading in the race, he missed a down

 

wind mark.  Todd Hudgins on Condor saw the error and the advantage it presented. 

 

Harkrider took decisive action, came back to round the mark and finished 3rd.  Hudgins

 

complimented his adversary, “That’s the description of a solid sailor.  He cut his losses. 

 

He’s like, alright we screwed-up, we’re going to lose a couple of places, but we have to

 

take care of this problem.” 

 

     Bad boys carried two spinnakers – a normal chute and a smaller one for heavier air. 

 

“Both chutes are pretty flat with even the smaller one definitely geared towards

 

reaching,” remarked Wormwood.  If there is a chink in Bad Boys’ armor, it might be the

 

lack of a screecher.  “We feel it is kind of a waste,” Harkrider confided.  Wormwood, a

 

little less sanguine, commented, “I’m not sure that was a good decision, we just lucked

 

out in this regatta and didn’t need one.”  Most boats carried screechers, although they

 

remained strapped to the decks.  Don Wigston did use his in an effort to hold off the hard

 

charging Harkrider.  “If we would have planned ahead of time to get our screecher up, I

 

think we could have won that race.  By the time we got it out, it was too late,” conceded

 

the chagrined Wigston.  “In windward-leewards like Key West you don’t need a

 

screecher, but in any kind of point-to-point racing there are legs where a screecher will

 

pay,” he offered. 

 

     In the overall standings, three of the top five boats were 28-Rs.  First place honor (as

 

in previous years) went to the irrepressible Randy Smyth in his 25-C, Yo.  An equally

 

fast 25-C Gamera, skippered by Matt Scharl of Chicago, provided a strong performance

 

finishing 2nd overall.  Even though Gamera was about one knot slower than Yo, the

 

Chicagoans did win one race which may prove Smyth is not totally invincible.

 

     Ron Roth best summed up the weeklong event and three days of racing when he

 

commented, “How many sports can (the average person) compete with somebody like

 

Randy Smyth, who basically is the Tiger Woods of (multihull) sailing.