Sport: Champion of the Sound

To yachtsmen, a youngster old enough to sit still is old enough to learn to sail. On Long Island Sound, cruising ground of thousands of summer sailors, a boy or girl of ten is old enough to race his own boat in "midget" class (under 15 years) events. Last week the best of the midgets raced for the championship of the Sound, and the silver-crusted Scovill Cup which is emblematic of it.

All that a midget really needs in the Sound's top event for young sailors is a boat of the 19-ft. Lightning class, good sense about sailing fundamentals and, for emergencies, the ability to swim. The 13 competitors at New Rochelle's Huguenot Yacht Club last week had a bit more than that. They were the individual champs of 13 yacht clubs and several of them had raced for the Scovill Cup before.

Upwind First. Among the novices was 13-year-old Toni Monetti, a tiny (4 ft. 8 in., 80 Ibs.), fluffy-haired blonde who owns no boat and had never tried for the Scovill Cup before. She borrowed a friend's boat, the Bijope, and with her crew (two 14-year-old boys), she managed to sail her way into the five-boat championships.

At the signal gun for the first of the finals, her boat began heeling over in the wind. Shouting orders to her crew, Toni set the tiller carefully, shrewdly tacked upwind around the other boats and forged ahead. Toni's tactical philosophy: "The wind that comes off another boat's sail is no good. The trick is to come around and put the other boat in your back wind." By doing just that, and holding her lead, Toni brought her boat in first in two 2½-mile races and a conclusive 5-miler. For Toni's Manhassat Bay Yacht Club, it was the first Scovill Cup victory in 25 years of midget racing.

Champagne Later. Despite her skilled sailing, Toni was a bit surprised that she won. Her explanation to reporters, after a moment of solemn reflection: "I guess I had a good crew." But not until she was given a dunking in the Sound, a ritual for winners, did she feel like a champion.

Toni has been sailing ever since her father, Arnold E. Monetti, Manhassat Bay's commodore, bought an Atlantic class (30-ft.) sloop nine years ago. Nobody taught her to sail: "I just learned how by doing it." A ninth-grader, Toni hopes to become an artist because "you can't make a living out of sailing." But, like most of her fellow midgets, she fully intends to keep on racing, too. When she reaches 18, Toni will sail in women's class events; the women's champion of the Sound is feted each year with a trophy bowl filled with champagne.

Last week, in Toni's honor, the midgets drank Coca-Cola from her Scovill Cup.