The Farr 40 Worlds pulled together its best fleet in half a decade for this week’s action in San Fran, and after 3 races, Alex Roepers’ three bullets is obviously crushing it. Roepers’ Plenty benefits from taking nearly most of the now-defunct Barking Mad crew – including Hutch, Trubie, and Skip B – the wide variety of skill levels in the rest of the fleet make the 2014 title a bit of a foregone conclusion for the 4-time (we think) F40 World Champ tactico Hutch. Meanwhile, Hutch’s perennial helm and boss Jim Richardson (whose divorce scattered the multi-boat Barking Mad program to the wind) quietly stepped in to charter Lang Walker’s Kokomo after a business distraction pulled Walker away – he lies in eighth with an all Oz crew after a day of light to moderate San Fran autumn breeze.
For those of you who like to talk about how amateurs are just as good as pros, have a close look at the results; not a single non-pro team is ahead of any of the pro teams (and F40 rules mean just 4 pros are allowed aboard), but if trends continue apace, next year should see the first Worlds in a decade with more amateur than professional teams.
As usual, despite Rolex feeding the Class with six-figure sponsorship dollars every year, the best coverage ain’t coming from them; instead, there’s a sweet high-res photo stream here and a really nice Livestream video feed from Mauro and Janna at Zerogradinord who’ve been brought over by the Enfant Terrible team.
