Star Class

By Lynn Fitzpatrick, WorldRegattas.com
Aug 8, 2009, 10:04

Szabo/Peters won the Star Worlds with an average score of six points for the five races in their scoreline. The American team started to the left of a group of contenders for this year’s title and played the shifts in the breeze that swung right as it faded. They bore away on the run in sixth place. After they sorted out their sheets and the whisker pole they could look around for their competition. They weren’t trailing right behind. They weren’t even in sight. Szabo/Peters merely had to stay clean for the rest of the race. Instead, they bettered their score and pulled into third place by the second windward mark.

Report by Paul Cayard:
Last Thursday, Danny, Allie and I departed San Francisco on board the TP 52 Flash formerly Atalanti and raced to Catalina Island off Long Beach. It was a windy first 20 hours running under fractional gennaker down the California coast. With the wind peaking at 30 knots and boat speed in excess [...]

These were the opening words of the LOG account of the 1949 World’s Championship, in which Lowell North’s North Star crossed the finish line first four times and second once, but was disqualified from one race. This astounding performance at the age of nineteen provoked the quoted question from a startled Star world, and Lowell [...]