Light air in the final two days of racing at the Acura Southern Ocean Racing Conference left VIM III and Peter Holmberg stuck in the middle of the pack in the IMS class. Although VIM had climbed to second place behind the dominant IDLER driven by Ken Read in the middle of the regatta, scores of 9,8, and 7 in the last three races left VIM in 5th place.
At SORC, IMS handicapped boats around fifty feet and boats around forty feet were combined in one class. Holmberg felt this may have been a disadvantage for the 40 footers. He said the bigger boats appear to have a distinct edge over the smaller ones under the current IMS rating system, as even when they have poor race, they handicap out ahead of most of the smaller ones. The competition between the BRAVA of Italy and VIM started at Key West continued at SORC with BRAVA just ahead of VIM behind IDLER (50 footer), RUBIN XV (47), and BREEZE (49).
Peter Holmberg, with Ken Read as tactican will be defending his 1998 championship at the Congressional Cup grade one match race starting on Tuesday March 9th.