Jim Richardson and his Barking Mad team won the inaugural Rolex Farr 40 Match Race in Miami yesterday. Six international teams competed in the two-day, double round-robin series as a warm-up to the Rolex Farr One Design Invitational, an 11-race fleet racing series scheduled to take place today through Saturday.

“This is terrific,” said Richardson,”We didn’t find out we had won until we reached the dock and someone congratulated us. Overall it was a fun and challenging two days for all of us.” America’s Cup sailor Terry Hutchinson served as tactician onboard.

Early in the day, Nerone, owned by Massimo Mezzaroma and Antonio Sodo Migliori beat Barking Mad, but suffered two defeats, to finish second overall. “Our loss to Nerone was a close one, but it was a tough race.” added Richardson. “We didn’t realize that Nerone had lost to Le Renard, so we thought that we were tied with them.”

In third place was Mean Machine, owned by Peter de Ridder, and Erik Maris’s Twins2 finished fourth.

“We were leading them (Twins2), but we lost the first downwind leg when they got inside us and passed us,” said de Ridder who has Vovlo Ocean Race winner Stu Bannatyne onboard calling tactics. “This has been like sailing a whole fleet race regatta. We did 10 races in one and a half days and improved our boat handling.”

Le Renard, owned by 2000 Farr 40 world champion Steve Phillips, finished the series in fifth with 3 wins, 7 losses, followed by Shadow Rock, owned by Peter Stoneberg and Alex Geremia in sixth.

There is a good chance in the future that other Farr 40 events will include match racing in the format. “Because racing in the Farr 40 fleet is so tight, it’s a great advantage if you can be consistent and do things right,” said Richardson, who is the Farr 40 class president. “I think a lot of the crews looked at doing this regatta as an opportunity to practice for the North Americans in a very organised and controlled way. Everyone got markedly better over the past two days, as far as boat handling and start procedures.”

Overall Results

1. Jim Richardson, Barking Mad, Boston, Mass./Newport, R.I., 8-2

2. Massimo Mezzaroma & Antonio Sodo Migliori, Nerone, Rome, Italy, 7-3

3. Peter de Ridder, Mean Machine, Monaco, 5-5

4. Erik Maris, Twins2, Paris, France, 4-6

5. Steve Phillips, Le Renard, Annapolis, Md., 3-7

6. Peter Stoneberg & Alex Geremia, Shadow Rock, Orinda, Calif., 3-7