Bouzaid working hard

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33587, 16 July 1974, Page 32

Bouzaid working hard

[(From C. S. COOPER. London correspondent of "The Press") TORQUAY. Torquay, headquarters for the One Ton Cup yachting, I has spent a week losing its ■ reputation for blue seas and sunshine. Curtains of rain have dragged along the Devon coast, and dispirited families are huddled under verandas watching their $l2 a day being washed down the drain. Out on leaden Tor Bav a sleek red and white yacht ploughed endlessly in and out of the murk, surging into view under a ballooning spinnaker and disappearing under tight jib and mainsail. While the rest of the acIcumulating One’Ton fleet wali lowed in drenched inactivity, New Zealand’s No. 1 skipper, I Chris Bouzaid, is — as usual — doing his homework. He arid his crew were first ’down to work after arriving with their chartered Petersoni designed, Hati IV, five days lago, and has been at sea continually. i Today the stint was eight hours — described by Bouzaid as “going around in circles,” during which every possible combination of sails was checked out against the boat speed they produced. Already Hati IV has zoomed home in two local races giving three of the British One Ton contenders a long look at the name on her transom.

There must have been an especially thoughtful look from the cockpit of Gumboots, the fancied British entrant, and an identical twin of Hati IV, as Bouzaid crossed the line well ahead of a mixed fleet of 60 boatsBouzaid is playing it lowkey, but the inference is that he is as much delighted with this boat as he was disappointed with Hann in the Sardinia series last year.

“With Hann we were never really competitive,” he said. “We were trying to make a racer out of a production cruiser. This time we have

a production racer and this boat can be really competitive.” Hati IV is a new boat chartered from a Greek owner who has not even seen her yet. The New Zealand crew selected her from the builders, Contessa Yachts, at Lymington and equipped her with the Bouzaid-made sails that thev brought from Auckland. As a Peterson-design, Hati IV is almost a sister to Gambare —■ that backyard, plywood deceiver that made Peterson’s name overnight by being the fastest thing at Sardinia. I Hati IV is fibreglass, longer land heavier than Gambare, land at around £26,000 with sail, is worth more than twoGambares.

>i But Bouzaid knows that ■’With seven Gambare-devel-(Opments in the field, including •'the original — now named r Sumbra IV and entered for r I Italy — seamanship of faulti(less quality will be vital. -| The fleet had built up to t,16 boats by Sunday night, rjbut neither of the two other ' New Zealand contenders. Off -iwego 5 (I. Gibbs) and Billycan (P. Holland) had arrived i: They still had 36 hours to ■ (clock in, and there were no -I indications that they were not i'on route. U A defaulter, however, will - 'be the American boat, Robin, ■designed and owned by the • redoubtable Ted Hood. The ,1 yacht is inextricably among lithe cargo of a freighter 11 stranded at Boston with a i dropped propeller.