THE RACING
LATITUDE/ROB
Third place finishers trimmer Mikael, tactician Soren and skipper Soren Pehrsson, representin' DEN.
Page 130 •
Latitude 38
• September, 2010
Perkins said played to his favor. Perkins and the dynamic sibling duo of Tom and Melissa Purdy have been sailing together in the IKC for the last six years, while Swift was new to the boat this year. While main trimmer Melissa — a Whitbread veteran — and bowguy Tom — an accomplished dinghy and big boat sailor — certainly punch above their weight, they don't pack the pounds like many of the brawny Knarr sailors. "Being on the Cityfront helped us a lot," Perkins said. "We're about 200 pounds lighter than everyone else, so we enjoy being able to come into the beach and play the shifts." Perkins and the Purdys finished second in the IKC in Copenhagen, Denmark last year, having come very close to winning it all, and Jon said the weight difference isn't really a downwind advantage. But it isn't always a disadvantage. "There are big differences between the wood and glass boats," Perkins said. "But even with our weight disadvantage, in a wood boat we do just fine in the breeze because they twist more." Perkins said his team got a good boat draw. It was the same, incidentally, as his older brother's. All the boats are provided by the local fleet, and each team sails four different boats over the course of the eight-race series. The differences between the boats are pretty big according to Chris Perkins; thus, they are ranked into four different categories, and each team gets a boat from each of the categories during the week. Chris Perkins took second overall behind his little brother after starting the day tied with Dane Soren Pehrsson, who finished third. The two teams didn't match race each other at the start, which worked in Chris Perkins' favor. After a throwout, Pehrsson dropped a fifth while Perkins dropped a ninth, meaning that if they both beat each other up on their way to the back of the fleet, Pehrsson would come out ahead. "We just went out there and tried to get a good start," Perkins said. "The Danes were in a boat that I don't think they were comfortable in, and we had a really
LATITUDE/ROB
IKC The International Knarr Championship came to the Bay August 8-14 and when the deciding final race was finished, the Bay's Jon Perkins came out on top. In finishing eight-points clear of his older brother Chris, Perkins won the event for the third time — his first on the Bay — to become the second-winningest skipper in the 42-year history of the regatta. Perkins and his crew of Melissa and Tom Purdy and Larry Swift led the regatta from day Jon Perkins one and never looked back. "Six years ago here, we were in a similar situation, but we were tied with my brother going into the last race and he ended up winning," Jon Perkins said. "We're really psyched to have pulled it off this year at home." Perkins said that a comeback in Race 7 was the biggest factor in their win. After getting buried at the start, they fought all the way back to 2nd. "If we hadn't done that, it would have been a completely different picture (on the final day)," he said. Out on the race course the 26-boat field saw a westerly breeze most of the week with 4 knots of flood. This made getting to the beach essential, something
SERGEI ZAVARIN/WWW.ULTIMATE-YACHTSHOTS.SMUGMUG.COM
LATITUDE/ROB
In this month's Racing Sheet, we take a look at the International Knarr Championship, then the Aldo Alessio Regatta. Following that, we recap a romper-stomper of a Ronstan Bridge to Bridge, which took place amidst the 18-ft Skiff International Regatta. We break up the racing write-ups with an interview with Dee Smith before taking a quick look at the San Francisco YC's Melges Race Week. We also check in with the Finn Silver Cup before reliving the Santana 22 Nationals and an America's Cupdate. Enjoy!
good boat." We put that question to Pehrsson. "No, it was a good boat," Pehrsson said. "Chris had a really good start, and we couldn't get away cleanly." Pehrsson told us that in Scandanavia, almost all the boats are fiberglass, and all have aluminum masts — something he said the U.S. fleet is considering allowing next year — which makes the boats much more evenly matched. Still, he said the level of the U.S. fleet has improved dramatically since they first started coming here. "Three years ago here, the top four boats were all Danish," he said, before smiling. "Of course neither of the Perkins sailed that year."
INTERNATIONAL KNARR CHAMPIONSHIP (St. FRANCIS YC 8/8-14, 8r, 1t) 1) Jon Perkins, USA, 11 points; 2) Chris Perkins, USA, 23; 3) Soren Pehrsson, DEN, 28; 4) Lars Gottfredson, DEN, 40; 5) Sean Svendsen, USA, 50.5. (26 boats) Complete results at: www.stfyc.org
Aldo Alessio Regatta The St. Francis YC's Aldo Alessio Re-
