swan cup

In mid-September, we had the plea¬ sure ofsailingwith Los Angeles attorney Damon Guizot on his beautiful Swan 53 Katrina in the 12th biennial Swan Cup in Sardinia, Italy. The six-race, nothrowout series was sailed in the scenic waters offPorto Cervo and hosted by the exclusive and recentlyrefurbishedYacht Club Costa Smeralda. It turned out to be the largest gathering of Swans ever witnessed, with 112 ofthese Nautor-built beauties in attendance (97 racers; 15 cruisers). Thirty-one different types of Swans competed, representing 21 differ¬ entcountries, including 11 entries from the United States.

An estimated 2,000 people partici¬ pated in the international regatta/boatshow/glamfest. Enrico Chieffi, Nautor Group's marketing director, character¬ ized the Swan Cup as Nautor's Swan's single most important event. "It not only brings the largest gathering of Swans from around the world to one place for a competitive regatta, but it also stands Nautor apart from other builders by re¬ inforcing the relationship with our own¬ ers."

It was a highly interesting and fun week, certainly one of the best experi¬ ences we’ve had around the sportofsail¬ ing. Here are some brief impressions of the Swan Cup and Sardinia, edited heavily to fit in our allotted pages:

1) Sardinia is a long, long way away — nine time zones, almost 7,000 miles, and over a day of flying. Our group — which included afterguard members Robin Sodaro, Tom Leweck and Alan Blount, and the Bay Area foredeck tag-

Beauty, history, great food — Sardinia has got to be one ofthe bestplaces to sail in the world.

team of Joe McCoy and Kevin Riley — took a redeye from California to Paris, then down to Rome, where we spent the night before flying over to the island of Sardinia the nextmorning. Naturally, we went for a long walk that evening, tak¬ ing in sights like the Trevi Foundation, the Spanish Steps, the Forum, the Coli¬ seum and perhaps abar or two. Itwhets our appetite to go back, as one easily needs a week or two to really see Rome.

Finally, a one-hour flight took us into Oblia, a shipping port on the northwest corner ofSardinia. After a 45minute cab ride, we arrived in Porto Cervo. 2) Porto Cervo was de¬ veloped by the Aga Kahn and his wealthy pals beginning about 30-40years ago as their personal playground. It is modern, efficient, expensive, beautiful, and did we mention expensive? Think private jets, huge powerboats, second

houses, and Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. In fact, the local shops shamelessly sell al¬ mostnothing exceptdiamonds, furs, watches, designerclothes and other unattainable baubles. The restaurants serve fabulous, overpriced Italian food (we cooked in our apartments several times near the end ofthe week). Drinks are expensive, too — with the exception of the Clipper Bar, where the working 'Chippewa', anAmerican 68-footer, dances with waves in the windy first race.

class (read: sailihg crews and hired hands offmega-yachts) meet to sipbeers and watch the passing parade. The people are all rich, gorgeous, friendly, and smoke too much.

Porto Cervo's redeeming qualities in¬ clude beautiful natural scenery (picture the Virgin Islands with Cabo-like rocks and vegetation), some nearby historic ruins and, particularly this September, an abundance ofyacht races. The Rolex Maxi Worlds were held the week before the Swan invasion, and the Sardinia Cup, an annual IMS/Farr 40 regatta, was held the week after. 3) The reason for all the regattas is thatthisis afantastic place to sail. The

islands off the Costa Smeralda ('emer¬ ald coast') are a beautiful and dramatic cruisingground, and also make for some challenging race courses. There are lots of rocks to keep things interesting, as the Wallyboat Askherout discovered a week earlier in the Maxi Worlds — they hit one while blasting downwind and sank in under 15 minutes!

Sardinia seems to be a 'feast or fam¬ ine' sailingvenue — either too muchwind

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ortoo little. We experienced both ends of the spectrum during the Swan Cup. It blew like stink in our practice sessions andduringthe firstrace, whenthebreeze briefly touched 40 knots. Surprisingly, to us at least, the wind wreaked havoc on the sturdy Swans, causing several dismastings, a few broken booms and rudders, and a stack ofripped sails that snaked outthe doorand around the cor¬ ner at the local North Sails loft.

There was also a scaiysituationthat day when a German 55-footer lost a foredeckhand overboard, gotcompletely screwed up taking their kite down, and then couldn't find him. A helicopterwas scrambled, butitproved unnecessaryas a British 56-footer —going 14 knots under asymmetrical kite at the time — spotted the hapless swimmer purely by chance. They turned their boat around in the space of 150 yards, and plucked the thoroughly exhausted — but lucky — person out of the water after^a 45minute ordeal.

Thankfully, thewind calmed down for the next four races. In fact, it became almost nonexistenta few times, and one ofthe two-race days was abbreviated to just one race, turning the regatta into a six-race series (instead ofseven).

4) Some people take the Swan Cup very seriously, and the racing was sur¬ prisingly competitive. The owners

aren't shy about spending money on their boats and crew, with even Momand-Pop level programs sporting snappy new crew uniforms (Chippewa, pictured to the left, won the 'bestdressed' award). Most of the boats have won regattas at home, or at Antigua Sailing Week or pre¬ vious Swan regattas — you wouldn't come all the way here if your program wasn't - ; fairly dialed in. Rush7 beat McFly' in

Many of the boats — including five Swan 45s, a couple of Swan 70s, and the gigantic Swan 112 No Logic — were virtually brand new. Almost every boat sported fresh carbon sails, and paid rockstars populated the afterguard of all the bigger boats — amongthem Paul Cayard, LarryLeonard, Ed Baird, and Steve Benjamin, to name a few ofthe Americans.

Baird, in fact, steered Tom Stark's Swan 45 Rush to victory in a Bvlgarisponsored pre-regatta 'celebrity' match race against British Laser/Finn ace Ben breeze hit the high 20s. Baird and Stark, on his ninth boat named Rush, took home expensive Bvlgariwatches for their efforts.

The next day, when the actual Swan Cup began, three of the five Swan 45s broke their rudders in the high winds, forcing them out for the week. A big and embarrassing flap between the owners and the Swan organi¬ zation ensued, caus¬ ing a fourth 45 to withdraw from the series, as well — leav¬ ing the well-sailed Rush to eventually win Class B without competition from her sisterships. 5) Beautiful

wmmmmmimmmmmm people were every‘he celebrity race. where, and some se- rious money was

spent. There was even some royalty on hand, as Nautor’s Swan Chairman Leonardo Ferragamo (ofthe upscale Ital¬ ian fashion empire) brought along Juan Carlos, the King of Spain, on his Swan 82 Solleone. Unfortunately, supermodel Claudia Schiffer, who attended the 2000 Swan Cup, was a no-show this year.

Shoreside activities centered around a 'regatta village' in and around the YC Costa Smeralda. The five races and four parties were sponsored by Bvlgari, Deutsche Bank, Volvo, Accenture, and

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Swan Lake— Tom Leweckdrives 'Katrina'inthe mostlylight-air44-mile 'oceanrace', whileRobin Sodaro trims the kite.

Ainslie on sistership McFly. Designed to showcase the hot new Swan 45s, which look and apparently behave like a big¬ ger Farr 40 with teak decks, the event was canceled after one race when the ClubSwan — no global recession among this group! .Volvo threw the mother ofall parties after the fourth race, putting up their own even more elaborate tent vil¬ lage across the harborin the old port and treating the crowd to a lavish evening of food, drink and live music. 6) If you ever get to Porto Cervo, be

sure to get over to Bonifacio, which has got to be one ofthe coolest places in the world. On the layday, a few of our crew rented mopeds and zipped around the Sardinian countryside on what turned out to be a rainy, stormy day. The (infi¬ nitely smarter) majority took the onehour trip on a Moby Lines ferry over to the southern tip ofCorsica, a French is¬ landjustnorth ofSardinia. We spent the dayhappilywanderingaround Bonifacio, an ancient walled town and fort built precariouslyovertoweringcliffs, perhaps best known as the boyhood home of Na¬ poleon. There is much more history and charm here, not to mention a totally dif¬ ferent culture (including the de rigeur arrogant French waiter at lunch) and more barren topography than on Sardinia. 7) Swans are the Mercedes-Benzes

of sailing — big, heavy, luxurious, and certainlythe best-builtproductionboats in the world. Some 1,800 Swans have been built over the last 37 years, and most are still in use. The boats attract a cult-like following, and manyofthe own¬ ers are repeat customers. Nautor fosters this so-called 'Spirit ofSwan' with a club for owners called ClubSwan, which has its own burgee, club tie, quarterlyglossy .magazine and, we suspect, a secret handshake and other rituals. However, after living the 'lifestyle' for over a week,

When in Rome — The Coliseum, stilllit upafter midnight, was a stirring sight.

we have to admit that the passion the owners and the Nautor Group share for their Swans seems genuine and well-de¬ served. 8) Anotherunique feature ofall Swan Cups since 1988 is their in-house rat¬ ing rule, akaNautor's Swan Rule (NSR).

This mysterious handicappingrule gives allowances for cruising features (and actually encourages living aboard in re¬ turn for a better rating) and penalizes

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'Katrina'(28553)comesoffthealways-crowded starting line. There were just,two starts — A and B went off together, as did C and D.

'go-fast' items, supposedly allowing all types and vintages of Swans to race fairly. From looking at the results, we couldn't help wondering ifthe rule sub¬ tly favors newer designs, which would naturally encourage sales — or ifit'sjust that newboats generally attract the hot¬ test sailors. 9) Americans are good Swan sailors,

if the results prove anything. Rush and Marty Jacobson's Swan 44 Crescendo won two of the four classes, and Frank Savage's Swan 56 Lolita was second in fleet to the overall winner, French internet entrepreneur Thierry de Pas— semar's month old Swan 70 Fast.het. Rounding out the top ten overall were Rush (3rd), Chippewa (8th) and Cre-

Tiny SmartCars, a collaboration between Mer¬ cedes-BenzandSwatch, are big in Italy.

scendo (10th).

The other seven American programs didn't fare quite as well. Katrina, which Damonhadneverracedbefore, managed to come in 11th out of26 boats in Class C. Our 19-man crew, which included Damon's 83-year-old father Apollo, did win one minor trophy for being the best Swan 53, beating two sisterships. More importantly, we didn't kill anyone in the high winds — and created some friend¬ ships and memorieswhichwill lasta life¬ time. 10) Lastly, we were delighted to learn thatin the off-yearsbetween Swan's flag¬ ship event in Sardinia, there are two other big Swanfests. The first is the

Swan European Regatta, hosted by the Royal Yacht Squadron at Cowes, Isle of Wight, on June 27-July 3, 2003.

The Swan American Regatta follows a month later, scheduled forJuly 27-August 2, 2003, in Newport, RI. New York YC will host the latterout oftheir elegant Harbour Court setting. Check out www.-

nautorgroup.com for details.

Decisions, decisions. — latitude/rkm

CLASS A — 1) Fast.net, Swan 70, Thierry de Passemar, FRA, 20 points; 2) Sotto Voce One, Swan 60, Leslie Green, AUS, 24; 3) Favonius, Swan 80, Roel Pieper, NED, 31; 4) Chippewa, Swan 68, Clay Deutsch, USA, 35; 5) Constanter, Swan 62-RS, T. Willem Mesdag, USA, 39. (21 boats)

CLASS B — 1) Rush, Swan 45, Tom Stark, USA, 17 points; 2) Blue, Swan 56, D. BuschJohannsen, GER, 19; 3) Lolita, Swan 56, Frank Savage, USA, 19; 4) Noonmark VI, Swan 56, Sir Geoffrey Mulchay, GBR, 24; 5) Aqua Equinox, Swan 56, Filip Balcaen, NED, 30. (25 boats)

CLASS C — 1) Eurosia, Swan 46, Loris Vaccari, ITA, 24 points; 2) Loki, Swan 48, Stephen Ainsworth, AUS, 25; 3) Solenia 2, Swan 48, Roberto Ferrero, ITA, 26; 4) Lumikki, Swan 53, Jukka Maki Kullas, FIN, 28; 5) Aera, Swan 46, Nick Likiardopolu, GRE, 35. (26 boats)

CLASS D — 1) Crescendo, Swan 44, Marty Jacobson, USA, 9 points; 2) Jacobite, Swan 48, Stephen James, GBR, 15; 3) Mylow, Swan 47, Filippo Molinari, ITA, 23; 4) Philippides 2, Swan 41, Balding/Fielding, GBR, 33; 5) Tortuga, Swan 47, Guenter Sell, GER, 39. (25 boats)

OVERALL — 1) Fast.Net; 2) Lolita; 3) Rush; 4) Noonmark VI; 5) Sotto Voce One; 6) Blue; 7) Favonius; 8) Chippewa; 9) Crescendo; 10) Aqua Equinox. (97 boats)

Full results — www.swancup.com.

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OPEN BOAT WEEKEND NOVEMBER 9-10

Catalina 400

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