originalsidebar2

 


Bacardi Cup
March 6 - 11, 2017
Miami, Florida

2017 Eastern Hemisphere Championship
June 1 - 4, 2017
Viareggio, Italy


2017 Western Hemisphere Championship
June 13 - 18, 2017
Cleveland, Ohio USA


Newest Star Number

8522


Star Class


Twitter


Facebook

Star Sailors League

 

 

1956 World Championship


1956 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP Naples
complete results

Report from the 1957 Star Class Log by Charles E. Lucke, Jr.

Note: This report has been scanned in by Ed Sprague. For a collection of Worlds' reports plus photographs contact Ed Sprague ejspraguejr@mac.com to order his book "The San Diego Bay Star Fleet".

When you come right down to it, no one has a record like that of Agostino Straulino, the 1956 World's Champion. He is the only man ever to have won the Gold Star three times; he is the only skipper credited with nine Silver Stars, and eight of these represent the last eight consecutive European Championships, all with huge entry lists; and he has won the Championship of Italy eleven times, including the last nine consecutively. His ten straight daily firsts in the 1955 Italian and European Championships rocked the Class.

He didn't do that in 1956, but he did win both series and then went on to win the World's. If you've had time to catch your breath, we'll continue. Nico Rode, Straulino's faithful crew for twenty years, certainly deserves his share of the credit for all this. And in all fairness to the other contestants it must be admitted that the 1956 Gold and Silver Star victories were exceedingly close ones. Merope won the World's by only two points over Lowell North's North Star, and took the European by one point from Duarte Bello, who has been knocking at the door of both these big series for years (he was runner-up to Straulino in the 1954 European, again by only one point.)
We have obtained permission from the Skipper Magazine and the kind consent of the author to reprint the report, which originally appeared in that publication last fall. It seems fitting that this section should be written by a former editor of the LOG, who was also a member of Beppe Croce's hard-working International Race Committee, having traveled to Italy from the U.S. for the express purpose.

American sailors almost brought the Star World's Championship back to the United States in the fabulous series sailed on the pellucid Bay of Naples in September 1956. On the last weather leg of the final race, however, Captain Agostino Straulino of the Italian Navy and his crew Nicolo Rode came miraculously from far in the rear to pass enough boats to take fourth place and clinch his third Gold Star.

Lowell North and Jim Hill of the San Diego, California, fleet, who would have won the series had the final race ended at the first round, had to settle for the runner-up spot after seemingly having the series in the bag.

More Stars raced in the series than in any previous championship. A total of sixty-four had officially entered but at the last minute three Italian and two Yugoslav entries were scratched. On the starting line were 59 boats, topping the previous 49 starting record at Gibson Island in Maryland in 1951. Each of the 13 nations represented had strong contingents and until the very finish of the finale it was a wide-open series.

The winners of the daily races were well distributed without a single double winner. Harry Nye of Chicago, twice a Star champion, took the opener; Straulino, the second race; Duarte Bello of Portugal, the third; Robert Ciappa of Italy, the fourth; and Alvaro de Cardenas, of Cuba, the finale. To indicate how rugged the competition was, defending Champion Charlie de Cardenas, the unbeatable winner in 1954 and 1955, placed fourteenth at Naples.

Photo: 1957 Log: North Star II, runner-up, 1956 World's Championship. Lowell is sitting on the boom- always tinkering.
Jim Hill, his crew, is at the helm.

Racing conditions were nearly ideal for Stars with little sea and light to moderate breezes from the southwest. The scenery was breathtaking. The course lay just off fabled Naples with Vesuvius on one side and the panoramic islands of Capri and Ischia as a background. Hordes of Italian and French girls in the briefest of brief well-filled Bikinis dashed along the course edges in motorboats, cheering their favorites.

The breeze was deceptive in its shifts and there was always a right and a wrong place to tack. It was rarely the same from one lap to the next. Nobody guessed it right all the time, but Straulino did the best job of it and certainly deserved to win the series.
Due to the unwieldy size of the fleet there was at least one protest every day. The language difficulties at the protest hearings turned those sessions into something akin to the Tower of Babel. For example, after the third race there was a protest by an Algerian against an Italian entry with the usual counter-protest. Their versions of the facts conflicted. The only witness was a German skipper who spoke only his native tongue. So the International Race Committee had a Dutch interpreter translate from German into Italian and thence into English, so that the case could be resolved.

First Three Races
The first race, in moderate air over the windward-leeward route, saw Nye take a dangerous start under the lee of the committee boat to establish an early lead. Upwind he was out-tacked by North, Georges Pisani of France, Antonio Consentino of Italy, Fiuza of Portugal and Straulino, as they rounded in that order with Nye sixth. On the first run Nye passed all of these skippers and come out with a nice lead which he held right to the finishing gun. The three-way battle for second was decided on the second round with North doing the best to weather but poorly downwind. He took third behind Alvaro de Cardenas while Cosentino nosed out Straulino.

Since there was a shifty five-mile breeze, a twice-around triangle was set for the second race. The shifts were tricky, but the native sailors played them right as Consentino led Straulino at the weather mark and Philippe Chancerel of France took third over North and Bill Lyon of New Jersey. Downwind, North slipped back and Lyon advanced to fourth. On the much fresher wind the second time up, Straulino took Consentino while Fiuza passed Lyon and Chancerel. Positions did not change on the reaches to the finish. Nye was back in fourteenth spot. That night the scoreboard read: Merope I and Merope III, 114 each; North Star II 110; Gale 109; Anin, Gam and Kurush IV each 104.

A windward and leeward course for the third race in a fourteen-mile breeze saw Harry Adler of Brazil out sail Bello to windward, with North Star third and run Anin fourth. Bello and Adler exchanged positions on the run with North holding his third, Ciappa fourth and Foster Clarke of Nassau fifth. On the second beat there was no change among the leaders but Lyon rounded ahead of Clarke, de Cardenas and Nye. At the finish it was Duarte Bello first, a habit he has acquired in World's Championship races almost regularly once a year; Lowell North second, to lead the score at this stage and win the Vanderveer Trophy; then Adler, Nye and Ciappa.

Last Two Races
After rest day, the fourth race was sailed over the triangular route in an eight-mile sou'wester. There was a bad jam at the leeward end of the long starting line with too many boats early and no place to go. Three were recalled. To windward, Ciappa led de Cardenas, Adler, Bello and Straulino. On the reaches Adler dropped behind Bello and Straulino, the leaders meanwhile retaining first and second. Three Americans, Nye, Lyon and North, picked up many places to get back into the race. On the second round Ciappa held his lead all the way to the finish ahead of de Cardenas, Straulino, Bello and Clarke, with Lyon sixth and Adler dropping to seventh, just ahead of Nye. When the usual protests were settled and the scores totaled, American hopes were high with three of the first four places. The standings with one race to go were: Straulino 223, North 219, Nye 217, Lyon, de Cardenas, and Cosentino 212, Ciappa 211, Bello 210.

Upwind in the finale on a triangle, which was twice postponed waiting for the wind to settle, Ciappa led Alvaro de Cardenas with North third and defending champion Charlie de Cardenas fourth. Straulino was back in tenth. If North could hold it, he was in. On the reaches Alvaro worked out over Ciappa while North held his third over Dad de Cardenas. Nye was sixth, while Bello, Chancerel and Fiuza still had the edge on Straulino. By the final beat the wind shifted, freshened, and then near the weather mark softened. Alvaro held his lead upwind and North worked out to second place over Ciappa. But Straulino, by playing it just exactly right upwind, bottled up to fourth, passing the elder de Cardenas, Nye, Bello and Fiuza to become the first three-time World's Champion in the forty-five year history of the Stars. The winner's average daily place was 4.2 out of 59 boats.

The 1957 series cannot be held in Italy under Star rules. The points piled up over the past three years by Alvaro and Jorge de Cardenas under the (old) system, still valid for 1957; take the event back to Havana in November of this year.



footer.shtml
ISCYRA Central Office
2812 Canon Street
San Diego, California 92106 USA
Phone: +1 619 222 0252
Fax: +1 619 222 0528
SKYPE: star.class.office
office@starclass.org

Star Class

Results - Calendar - Classified Ads - History
Districts & Fleets - Rules - About - Online Store