Regatta Report
Attracting A Galaxy of Star Sailors
By Angus Phillips, Washington Post – Sunday, October 19, 1995
Last time Paul Cayard, Rod Davis, John Kostecki and Vince Brun were together was in San Diego last spring, racing for the America’s Cup. What brought them now to this humble back water off the Chesapeake? Well, they’re sailing stars, here to sail Stars. There’s no place they’d rather be. “It’s my favorite sailing,” said Cayard, the curly-haired Californian who steered for the world’s most famous yachtsman, Dennis Conner, in the Cup last May. “All the other is mostly work. This is for fun.”
Serious, Olympic-style fun. Cayard was one of more than 60 skippers vying for the North American Championship all last week at tiny West River Sailing Club, a screened-porch summer place with a snack bar, sloping lawn and a dazzling down river view. Cayard and 270- pound crewman George Iverson crammed the cockpit of their little, 22-foot Star and battled all week to control its towering mainsail. Why would a fellow, whose phone rarely stops ringing with job offers on the fastest new big yachts around the world, travel cross-country to compete for free in an 84-year-old dingy design? “Look around,” he said, “The best sailors in the world are here.”
Indeed, the hospitality tent at West River was jammed with world champions and Olympic medalists alongside their beefy 6 ½- foot crewman, who look more like body guards than sailors. They came from 11 nations to test themselves in the oldest racing design in global competition. When all the world loves something new, what sustains the ancient Star? “It’s like some things in life – unexplainable and better left that way,” said Cayard. “Obviously it has something special, some magic, and the fact that it’s been around 80 years just adds to that.” And somehow Stars, designed by one Francis Sweisguth and first raced in the Memorial Day Regatta of the Harlem Yacht Club in 1991, still draw the best sailors on earth, some for a lifetime.
Among Cayard’s rivals was Durward Knowles, 78, who has sailed Stars in the Olympics eight times – a Guinness World Record for any sport – winning a gold medal for his native Bahamas in 1964 and a bronze in 1956, as well as a Star World Championship in 1947. Of the three, Knowles rates the world title best. “When you win the World’s in Stars,” he said, “it’s accepted – you’ve won the best there is.” Dennis Conner still considers his greatest triumph winning the Star World’s in 1977, with five first-place finishes. Says reigning world champion, Mark Reynolds of San Diego, who also won gold at the 1992 Olympics: “The World’s is more important than the Olympics or anything.”
Stars, one of two keelboat classes slated for the 1996 Olympics at Savannah, have been in the Games since the 1920’s but were dropped briefly in favor of a more modern design, the Tempest, in 1976. “After 1976,” said Bill Buchan of Seattle, three-time world champion and 1985 Olympic gold medalist, “we wrote to the International Yacht Racing Union and said, ‘Stars don’t need the Olympics, but the Olympics need Stars.’” The class was reinstated in 1980. Buchan used to build Stars in his garage and sold them for about $4,000. These days, like every other serious Star racer, he buys from one of three European builders. The cost has skyrocketed to $40,000, which sounds outrageous for a 1,500-pound dinghy. But the boats are so astonishingly well-built, said Buchan, they’re worth every penny. “They look like they came from a Mercedes factory,” he said. Until the late 1960’s, Stars were bade of wood with wooden masts. The shift to fiberglass hulls and aluminum spars made them dramatically more durable, but the antiquated, angular hull shape wasn’t changed.
The Star’s principal attraction to the world’s great sailors is it’s huge sail area, simple sail plan and spindly, infinitely adjustable mast. Stars are a handful in a breeze with all that power, and nimble in light winds. With the whippy, adjustable mast, “you can create almost any mainsail shape you want,” said Brun, the 1986 World Star Champion who trimmed the mainsail on Conner’s Stars & Stripes in the 1995 America’s Cup. “It’s a fascinating boat,” he said. “You have an incredible amount of control. You can change everything while you’re sailing and the smallest adjustments made a big difference.”
Buchan, three-time World Champion, agrees. “They’re very well balanced. You get a Star tuned up and then make tiny adjustments – a quarter-inch of trim on the jib, a half-inch on the main – and you can feel the difference and find the groove.” Buchan also favors the way little Stars look, bashing into big waves and sending up sheets of glittering spray while a giant ape of a crewman hangs over the side, backside drooping in the water. “They’re so cool to look at,” said Buchan, who at 60 beats youngsters half his age. “I’m proud to sail a boat that looks that cool.”
Buchan may have passed his sailing prime, but Cayard, Brun, Reynolds, Kostecki (tactician on Young America in the 1995 America’s Cup) and a half a dozen other top contenders here for the North Americans have not. They will vie for the lone U.S. Olympic spot for Star boats in team trials in Savannah in April. With all that talent, “it’s going to be a real fight,” said Kostecki, “and whoever comes out will have a very good chance at winning a medal.” But, regardless of the outcome, said Kostecki, who won a Silver Medal in the Soling class in the 1988 Games, “I love sailing against the best, and that’s why I sail a Star. When I was in a Soling, everybody was always talking about Stars. They say once you’ve been in a Star, you never get out.”
Regatta Results
1995 NORTH AMERICAN CHAMPIONSHIP - GALESVILLE, MD
Place No. Skipper Crew Fleet Daily Places Pts.
1 7454 Ross Macdonald Pat Dion EB 7 4 14 1 25 5 31
2 7695 Frank Butzmann Kai Falkenthal BF 5 13 2 15 4 8 37
3 7724 John Kostecki Tom Olsen SDB 1 16 4 7 20 7 35
4 7630 Ben Mitchell Bill Stump LB 8 1 dnf 8 5 11 43
5 7775 Mark Reynolds Magnus Liljedahl SDB 9 17 6 22 10 3 45
6 7830 Paul Cayard George Iverson SDB 16 20 1 10 pms 1 48
7 7728 Jack Slattery Ron Sandstrom BH 11 3 15 18 1 18 48
8 7696 Alexander HagenJens Thomas Glu 24 2 19 30 2 4 51
9 7521 Bill Buchan Jr Bill Bennett PS 3 8 9 24 28 10 54
10 7732 Vince Brun Paul Larkin SDB 31 7 28 5 13 15 68
11 7784 Peter Bromby Lee White ISOL pms 11 13 33 7 6 70
12 7791 Peter Vessella Joe Chambers NB 39 10 24 20 9 9 71
13 7817 Rod Davis Don Cowie ISOL 6 pms 16 28 3 20 73
14 7729 Mark Mansfield David Burrows ISOL 34 12 5 21 21 14 73
15 7548 Kevin Miaer David Young SBC 28 31 12 17 6 12 75
16 7542 George Szabo IIIRick Peters SDB 10 30 27 4 19 19 79
17 7468 Andrew Ivey Kevin Murphy Sun 2 21 31 19 11 18 81
18 7603 William Graves Vic McQuaid SDB 22 33 21 2 14 22 81
19 7838 Larry Whipple Garth Olsen PS 4 6 37 6 44 35 88
20 7655 Rob Maine III Garry Applebaum WH dnf 9 17 16 33 17 91
21 7758 Rich Gronblom Ville Kurki Dru 18 28 25 23 24 13 103
22 7754 Mats Johansson Mattias Frode Vin 27 15 11 pms 35 16 104
23 7602 Joe Londrigan Phil Trinter SDB dnf 34 3 pms 12 2 110
24 7832 Eric Doyle Brian Terhaar SDB dnf 19 7 pms 17 11 113
25 7773 J.A. MacCauslandChad Thomas CR 17 24 33 43 8 31 113
26 7463 John Finch Ruari Duffield LOC 21 28 10 41 27 33 120
27 7492 Philip Graves Barry Van Leeuwen EB 36 14 38 12 42 25 125
28 7765 Bill Allen Eric Beckwith WH 12 18 35 34 pms 32 129
29 7783 Bill O'Hara Owen Dennis ISOL 25 41 32 34 16 24 131
30 7555 Barton Beek Joel Kew NH 50 5 22 40 37 29 133
31 7609 Arthur Anosov Joe Hayden FSc 29 32 29 26 38 23 139
32 7460 Steve Kling Ed Seamans WS 13 27 34 45 30 38 141
33 7629 Ken Woods Kurt Larson BH 15 22 30 38 49 41 146
34 7621 Glyn Charles George Skudos SO dnf ret 8 3 51 30 151
35 7307 John Sherwood Robert Shapiro CB 36 39 40 39 15 36 154
36 7634 Jeff Schaefer John Goode GLW 19 26 41 31 39 39 154
37 7604 Cuyler Morris Jeff Bresnahan NB 35 23 23 49 29 dnf 159
38 7659 Durward KnowlesChris Rogers N 30 39 dnf 9 47 37 162
39 7741 John VanderhoffTim McAteer NCB 33 40 39 29 dnf 40 162
40 7369 James Freeman Edward Gardner ISOL 32 pms 18 14 40 dnf 163
41 7710 Mark Holowesko Myles Prachani N 40 42 36 35 31 26 168
42 7585 Jock Kohlhas Jack Braddon NB 20 45 48 11 48 46 170
43 7628 Kevin McNeil Arnis Baltins AN dnf 43 26 36 43 27 175
44 7664 Chuck LewsadderScott Zimmer NH 46 dnf 45 25 18 43 177
45 6775 Guy Gurney Brad Cavanagh CLIS 42 36 42 27 50 34 181
46 7318 Jon Bartlett Shane Zwingleberg AN dnf 25 39 13 52 dnf 188
47 6313 Joe Roberts Bob Clarke WS 41 44 43 48 22 42 192
48 7786 Jerry TruppelliChris Ryan AN 38 47 49 47 36 45 213
49 7184 John Chiarella Terry Fletcher Sun 43 46 47 37 41 47 214
50 7718 Joseph Pro Scott Leppert WJ 45 35 46 46 dnf 44 216
51 6997 Bert Collins Geoff Kiles AN 41 43 51 51 23 dnf 217
52 7271 Robert WestcottJohn McMarcus SL 47 37 50 dnf 26 dnf 219
53 7734 Rick Burgess Chris Bowne GrL 37 50 pms 44 32 dnf 222
54 7497 John Braddon Tracy Braddon WS 14 53 54 52 53 dnc 226
55 7090 Al Summerville Porter Davis WS 48 49 53 50 34 49 229
56 7175 George Kalfa Lawrence G. Cole HB 25 51 52 dnc 45 dnc 230
57 7009 Davis Buckley James C. Kubik WS 49 52 44 42 46 dnf 233
