News & Views for Southern Sailors - Southwinds Magazine

CAROLINA SAILINGForty is the New...ThingBy Dan DickisonOccasional Charlestonians Tim Fetsch (on the helm) and BenPoucher (crewing), comprise Icarus Racing, a game, if low-budgetentry, in the Atlantic Cup 2012. Photo courtesy Atlantic Cup 2012.May in the Carolina Low Country is something of ametronome for sailors. In these parts, this month ismarked by particular beats. There’s the northerlymigration of cruisers up the ICW at one end, and then theneedle swings to the beginning of warm-weather sailing atthe other. There’s the Charleston Ocean RacingAssociation’s Femme Fatale, and then there’s the MemorialDay regatta for the Sea Island One-Design fleet. And so theneedle swings, back and forth. On the even years, there’s theGulfstreamer Race from Daytona Beach, FL, to Charleston,and on the odd years, there’s the 777-mile Charleston-to-Bermuda Race. But this May, the metronome is changingtempo a bit. For sailors around Charleston, this will be themonth of the 40s—the Class 40s.Based on a concept dating to 2004, Class 40s are thesmaller, less costly siblings of Open 60 racing sailboats, andlike their larger relations, they are designed and builtexpressly for open-ocean, shorthanded competition. Theirhallmarks include large, powerful sail plans and broad, primarilyflat hulls with good form stability. To keep costsdown, class rules stipulate that exotic materials such as carbonfiber are only allowed in the spars. In addition, the keelsmust be fixed, not canting, and the metals used in the boatcannot be exotic (no titanium, etc.). Further, the sail inventoriesare strictly controlled. And the overall conceptappears to be succeeding. To date, nearly 100 Class 40 boatshave been built, with the majority of them active in Europe.But the concept is gradually taking root in the United States.Some time in early May, Class 40 boats will beginappearing in Charleston Harbor, because this is the finishport for leg IV of the Global Ocean Race, an arduous, fivelegcontest around the planet. When it started lastSeptember in Mallorca, Spain, there were seven entries, butit has evolved to become a four-boat contest due to the attritionthat is characteristic of such globe-girdling events. Thefour teams will spend a couple of weeks here, and thenresume racing when the Global Ocean Race restarts inCharleston on Sunday, May 20.While the crews of those four boats go about preppingfor the final leg of their event, another crop of Class 40s willalready have been popping up in marinas and boatyardsaround the Holy City. These other Class 40s make up thefleet of the Atlantic Cup 2012, an event scheduled to start inCharleston Harbor on Friday, May 11.The Atlantic Cup 2012—in just its second year of existence—isa three-stage affair that features two double-handeddistance legs—from Charleston to New York, and then40 May 2012 SOUTHWINDS www.southwindsmagazine.com