Old Laser sailors don't die, I was reminded walking around Hyannis Yacht Club last week, falling in step behind a professor with a tee shirt depicting a Laser sailing through a graveyard, but they do come back to the Laser Masters Worlds with great frequency. Just ask this year's elder statesman of the class, Peter Raymer (GBR) at a sprightly 76 narrowly beaten to the post in this sub competition by Robert Saltmarsh (USA) who will be 77 in December. Sometimes though, I was unsure that I was not at an academic gathering of some eclectic nature. On the pay phone, one competitor was giving a phone interview to the New York Times, not about sailing but about a prehistoric forest he and his team had just found in Pennsylvania, the oldest of its kind regionally. Walking past him was a professor of hydrodynamics from Cornell and another from Brown who wrote a textbook for horribly smart neurosurgeons that most of us shall never read. An author we are more familiar with, Dick Tillman is around and on the periphery. Ed Adams, Russ "sailor/stockbroker/Olympian/stockbroker again" Sylvestri, Dan Neri, Peter Vesella, Peter "Dolly" Seidenburg ,and from Nantucket, no not the 'man' but a fisherman named Neil. This gives you a small idea of the cross section of the 273 sailors attending this event.

The regatta format goes like this. You need to be 35yrs+ (Apprentices) to be here and the classes are broken down into 10 year increments up to 65 + which is the great grand masters. There are 3 full rig classes and 5 radial classes, no fun to be PRO Jeff Martin running all these starts on both inner and outer trapezoid course. The champagne conditions enjoyed by the Seniors departed with the first day of Masters racing as overcast and light winds settled in, conditions which were to last for most of the regatta. The Apprentice class was stacked with players who were not far from campaigns and the sailing reflected this. A three way battle developed straight away between Andreas John (GER) who has campaigned both Lasers and 49ers in the last three years, Brett Bayer (AUS) and Mark Littlejohn (GBR), with Snipe builder Andrew Pimental chasing. But Andreas held off Bayer, needing all his skill to hold him off right up to the last race. In the Apprentice Radials, Mark 'rooster tail' Cockerill had a convincing win never scoring less than a 3rd In the Masters, another epic battle was played out, this time between a very accomplished Ed Adams and Fellow Rhode Islander Mark Bear. The RI team had practiced their hearts out prior to this event and it was a testament to their efforts that they dominated this class. Ed, perhaps helped by being the lighter of the 2, took 3 bullets in the first 3 races though race 8 brought him a Black flag, which evened out Bears 32nd in race 2 and so going into the last race they were tied and with breeze building it was any one's guess. The heavier conditions of the last race suited the left coasters better, with San Franciscans Vessela and Usher in the top rack and well-known heavy air specialist Mark Bethwaite (AUS) in 2nd. Adams Took a 3rd and Bear with a 10th leaving a jubilant Ed to take the title.

Radials Master Adam French (AUS) not only beat Alden Shattuck (USA) but also took my personal award for gratuitous use of sun block and umbrella hat, which really had to be seen. Move over Crusty! Grand Masters was won by Englishman Keith Wilkins holding off Americans Bill Symes and Peter Seidenberg, whilst in the Great Grand Masters, a class full of sailors who were already Masters when the class was born (sorry guys, but its true), the man who wrote the book himself, Dick Tillman took an amazing 8 bullets and a second to win the class, whilst the multi talented Henry De Wolfe Jr., an avid windsurfer and part of the RI contingent was in 2nd. Dick also received a special award for attending all of the 10 Masters regattas. Having the Masters directly after the Seniors makes for an intense and incredible month for the organizers but the class has mastered this despite the toll it takes on both paid and unpaid staff (Check out the photo of PRO Jeff Martin on the second to last day), however it provides a spectacle of sailing that few classes or regattas can equal, watching the legends of yesterday, today and tomorrow all compete within the same event framework, in the same boat. Some of these guys have been competing against each other since their teens and despite the diversification of many of their careers, many still have their heart and souls in sailing having made it a livelihood, whether it be Steve Cockerill, of Rooster fame or Bill O'Hara, the Irish National coach or Zig Burzinski of Cats Paw Sailing.

I am anticipating wandering through a graveyard one day and seeing a Laser as a headstone.

For complete results, go to: www.laserworlds2002.com/masters/

Thornton

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