THE 2002 MELGES 24 WORLDS START IN KEY WEST JANUARY 21, 2002

By Rich Roberts
For YachtRacing.com

The only Melges 24 world championship Vince Brun hasn't won was the one he missed La Rochelle, France in 2000. He was busy that week winning the Etchells Worlds in his hometown of San Diego.

He'll be back next week for the 2001 Worlds, which are being sailed as a marquee feature of Terra Nova Trading/Yachting Key West Race Week Jan. 21-25, Monday through Friday. Seventy-eight of the approximate 325 boats will be Melgi. Two are entered by Philippe Kahn-yep, the same guy who won Transpac's Barn Door with his Reichel/Pugh maxisled Pegasus last summer.

The class Worlds were scheduled for Ft. Lauderdale last November but canceled after Sept. 11 and later revived for Key West. This will be only the fourth Melges 24 Worlds, following Brun's wins in 1998 and '99 and the 2000 victory by the late Giorgio Zuccoli, who died of cancer last year.

Brun, North Sails' one-design manager who at 51 has won 10 world championships, including a Star, sized up his competition.

"Argyle Campbell [of Newport Beach] is a contender and is pretty consistent," Brun said with a nod to the reigning U.S. national champion and one of the leading amateur contenders. "Harry Melges and Brian Porter, obviously, and Morgan Reeser are serious contenders, plus some of the Europeans we don't even know."

Those would include European champion Cedric Pouligny and European ranking winner Laurent Pages from France, IMS 50 world champion Flavio Favini of Switzerland, world ranking leader Jamie Lea and UK national champion and Olympic silver medallist Keith Musto from the UK and leading international match racer Marcus Wiesser of Germany.

"And Philippe Kahn," Brun said. "This guy's been sailing more than anybody."

Kahn, a Santa Cruz-based software developer, has been sailing competitively only three years but is ranked as a serious threat by Brun for good reasons-one being the presence of Mark Reynolds, 2000's world sailor of the year, as tactician.

"I wouldn't be surprised if he does extremely well or wins this thing," Brun said.

Kahn's response: "Vince is way more confident in my abilities than I am. I'll be psyched if I could beat Vince only once in a single race."

While Kahn, 49, hasn't hesitated to hire the best sailors money can buy to help him sail his boats, he isn't the usual multimillionaire dilettante. He drives his own boats and spends a lot of time learning-most recently as a singlehander in a Finn.

"I actually have been sailing mostly Finns for the last few months, or should I say learning to sail them," Kahn said.

His coach is Mo Hart, a veteran Finn sailor who will be driving Kahn's second Melges 24 with Kahn's son Samuel-better known as "Shark"-as crew. At age 12, Shark will be the youngest sailor ever to compete in a Melges 24 Worlds. He was 11 when he became the youngest person ever to sail as crew in a Transpac.

Along with Reynolds, Kahn will sail with Sean (Doogie) Couvreux as bowman and Brian Hutchinson as trimmer. Besides Hart, Shark will be racing with San Diego's Brian Janney, who just won US Sailing's Champion of Champions title as crew for George Szabo, who will be driving Jeff Jones' boat from Detroit.

"Shark has been sailing his 29er as a helm since Transpac three times a week and he is really getting there," Kahn said. "He's going to start racing the 29er in the spring and was excited about racing in a world championship. We discussed it and we felt that with Team Pegasus it would
be awesome to run two boats.

"The Melges 24 class is the toughest class in the word . . . no limitations on who sails on the boat, and the best pros in the world sail their own boats: Vince, Dave Ullman, Morgan Reeser, Russ Silvestri. That's why I love this class. We get to compete boat for boat with the best in the world. Just beating one of these guys in a single race is a big achievement. To win a whole regatta, like the Worlds, is an impossible dream. My goal is to make top 20. That's the top third of the fleet."

One big name missing is Brun's sailmaking rival, Dave Ullman, a former Key West winner in the class who is in New Zealand with the Oracle America's Cup campaign.

"Ullman is trying to make a buck," Brun said. "I don't blame him."

While Kahn says he has been spending most of his time in a Finn recently, Brun says he hasn't been sailing a Melges 24 much since the nationals last spring. His crew will be Rick Merriman, Jeff Pape and Brian Terhaar.

"It'll be a lot of fun with 78 boats, and Key West has to be one of the best places in the U.S. to sail," Brun said.