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Press Release
 

Bluewater Bay Sailing Club, Niceville, Florida
Event Chairman - Bill Jolley; PRO - Paul Ulibarri
Boats - 10 new Nacra 6.0

Randy Smyth Wins 1998/99 Alter Cup

By Ken Signorello

.Results

The 1998/99 US SAILING Multihull Championship concluded with "the most exciting finish they'd ever seen". They being the race committee, according to Carol Jolley. After 16 races the competitors were split into a silver and gold fleet to each sail two races to determine the champion in each fleet. The Gold fleet had five in contention at the start of the last race, nine of ten were two time national champions, the "who's who of multihull racing", according to Steve Leo, US SAILING Alter Cup committee chairman. This format guaranteed that those in contention for the championship would be sailing against each other in the final races. As it was, after an 8 mile race, the top three finishers finished with 5 seconds of each other.

Fate and sportsmanship played a role in the outcome when the boat to be sailed by Randy Smyth in the last gold fleet race hit the beach with one of its hull split from a collision in the previous silver fleet race. This would have certainly made it nearly impossible for Smyth's team to win, when Woody Cope, in ninth place at that point, gave Smyth his boat to sail. Smyth went on to win the event. The last race was a gold fleet race which gave the silver fleet a chance to become very vocal spectators, cheering their favorites on, making for a very exciting and successful event.

Steve Leo Alter Cup Committee Chairman explained the formula for his event's success: Timing - Steve had found that with the National Championship in the fall there was just too much competition with all the one design championships. So the eliminations are run in the summer with the corresponding championships in the following spring. In addition this timing makes it possible for the new boats used in the race to be sold later that season. Team Selection - In addition to a geographic representation of the ten US SAILING areas, ten teams are national champions from various multihull one design classes.

This year ten new Nacra 6.0s were purchased from Performance Catamarans by Key Sailing, a public sailing facility that rents and sells boats. The boats in turn were chartered to the event. Funding comes from the Hoyte/Jolley Foundation, sponsorship from Rolex, all through US SAILING which also provides additional support.

Area

Skipper

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

T/O

Total

Petition

Randy Smyth

1

3

7

2

1

8

8

22

Tornado

Robbie Daniel

1

1

2

3

2

1

3

10

22

Area D

Brian Lambert

3

5

2.5

1

3

5

6

23.5

Hobie

Dave Sparkuhl

2

2

3

1

5

4

1

6

26

Petition

Bob Curry

1

6

1

1

8

3

8

28

Nacra

Nigel Pitt

6

4

2

3

4

6

30

Petition

Zach Leonard

8

7

8

3

2

2

5

9

38

Defender

Pete Melvin

6

4

5

1

5

7

39

Hobie

Woodie Cope

10

5

2

6

9

4

2

10

41

G

Wayne Mooneyham

3

4

5

5.4

6

10

51.4

J

Steve Myrter

4

6

7

4

7

4

8

63

H

Ken Marshack

4

9

6

5

3

6

9

64

Prindle

Stu Bernd

7

2

8

9

10

7

10

68

Area A

Andrew Efstathiou

5

7

9

6

4

6

9

76

Area F

Doug Graf

10

7

7

7

2

9

10

81

Area B

Barry Burgess

8

9

10

10

6

10

10

83

Area K

Mike Hill

5

10

5

8

9

9

10

86

Area C

Rich McVeigh

8

9

8

7

7

10

87

Area E

Jamie Diamond

9

3

8

6

8

11

11

92

Isotope

Bernie Smith

9

10

10

8

9

10

10

92