First Day Report for North American Championship

November 15, 2005 by Bermuda Sailing Association | 0 comments

Report from Andy Horton and Brad Nichol:

It was a tough day on the water due to the tremendous competition in nearly perfect conditions. We sailed two races in 10-12 knots out of the southeast, sunny skies and warm water. As the city of Miami has pointed out on a banner at the US Sailing Center, “the best venue for dinghy sailing in the world!”

In the first race we were pretty convinced that the left side would have more pressure and a bit of left shift at the top. We were the second boat from the pin with plenty of room to work but some wankers were not set up well and reached down on top of us taking our wind and finally forcing us to tack. Once we were forced into the pack, life got difficult with many boats tacking on us and taking our wind. We rounded the first mark in the middle of the fleet and jibed early, making good gains on the lead pack.

Up the second weather leg we played the middle of the course working hard to hit every shift. We gained a lot of distance on the lead pack but not enough to get in contact with them. Down the run we did our best to make gains but were only able to fight our way to 25th place. World Champion Hamish Pepper won the race after leading at every mark.

In between races we reassessed our tackticks and our boat set up and made some good changes. On the first attempt at a start of the second race we felt much faster. We decided to start more in the middle and work the shifts. We had a great start and executed our plan, rounding the first mark in first. The wind built as we sailed downwind and the lead pack made it to the leeward gate at once.

Upwind, Mark Reynolds went hard left, Hamish Pepper went hard right and we went up the middle. At the top of the course, Pepper had made huge gains and was able to cross us and round the mark in first. Down the run we decided to hold with the pack of boats closest to us. Pepper, jibed out early, sailing downwind all alone in the lead. We continued to work the left and were the first in the pack to jibe out. We made great gains on Pepper but in the end Hamish Pepper was able to hold us off.

With a 25th, 2nd, we are in 10th place with a lot of racing remaining. Tomorrow will be interesting with a cold front coming through Miami that will bring more wind for the end of the week.

1 NZL 8187 Hamish Pepper Carl Williams 2
2 FRA 8107 Xavier Rohart Pascal Rambeau 8
3 CAN 8168 Ross Macdonald Mike Wolfs 10
4 BRA 8127 Robert Scheidt Bruno Prada 13
5 POL 8252 Mateusz Kusznierewicz Dominik Zycki 15
6 GER 8213 Marc Pickel Ingo Borkowski 16
7 USA 8250 Andrew Macdonald Brian Fatih 23
8 USA 8239 Mark Reynolds Skip Dieball 23.0001
9 USA 8268 John Dane III Austin Sperry 24
10 USA 8156 Andy Horton Brad Nichol 27
11 POR 8145 Afonso Domingos Bernardo Santos 27.0001
12 NZL 8061 Rohan Lord Peter Fox 29
13 DEN 8147 Benny Andersen Mogens Just 29.0001
14 SUI 8138 Flavio Marazzi Michael Herrmann 31
15 USA 8273 George Szabo Mark Strube 32
16 USA 8195 John A Maccausland Robert Schofield 33
17 AUS 7836 Iain Murray Andrew Palfrey 35
18 ARG 7700 Alejo Rigoni Gustavo Gonzalez 36
19 USA 8222 Rick Merriman Eric Monroe 37
20 AUT 8226 Hans Spitzauer Christian Nehammer 41
21 BRA 8034 Alan Adler Ricardo Ermel 45
22 GER 7971 Robert Stanjek Frithjof Kleen 46
23 BER 8044 Peter Bromby Bill Mc Niven 47
24 ITA 8014 ALBERTO BAROVIER Umberto Coppola 53
25 NOR 8183 Eivind Melleby Petter Morland Pedersen 55
26 USA 8136 Henry Filter Will Wagner 57
27 USA 8045 Augie Diaz Phil Trinter 61
28 GER 7991 Matthias Miller Manuel Voigt 61.0001
29 SUI 8009 Christoph Gautschi Alexander Gouda 65
30 ARG 7907 Fabian Mac Gowan Federico Engelhard 66
31 ARG 7213 Julio Labandeira Luis Hornos 67
32 USA 8264 Peter McChesney Todd Hiller 67.0001
33 USA 8072 Douglas D Smith Mike Moore 70
34 USA 8153 Eric Doyle Steve Calder 72
35 USA 8245 Joe Zambella Peter Costa 77
36 CAN 8143 Brian Cramer Tyler Bjorn 77.0001
37 GER 7863 Klaus Meyer Dirk Struve 79
38 AUS 8234 Andrew Landenberger Simon Reffold 82
39 LAT 8135 Eizens Cepurnieks Alexander Muzicenko 83
40 ITA 8183 Antonio Tamburini Renzo Ricci 83.0001
41 GER 7887 Philipp Rotermund Florian Fendt 86
42 ITA 8290 Silvio Santoni Sergio Lambertenghi 87
43 USA 8043 Jock Kohlhas Arthur Anosov 89
44 NED 8263 Erik Broekhof Erik Veldhuizen 91
45 BAH 8265 Steven Kelly William Holowesko 91.0001
46 CAN 8236 Hans Fogh David Caesar 91.0002
47 USA 8095 Gunti Weissenberger Chris Brown 93
48 AUS 8269 James Spithill Magnus Liljedahl 95
49 SUI 8232 Henrik Dannesboe Igor Kaptourovitch 96
50 USA 8227 Jon Vandermolen T C Belco 97
51 CHI 8181 Rodrigo Zuazola Marcelo Ferreira 98
52 USA 8215 Bill Allen Brad Lichter 101
53 ARG 8169 Alberto Zanetti Juan Pablo Engelhard 103
54 USA 8278 Peter Vessella J Darin Jensen 105
55 IRL 8158 Maxwell Treacy R Anthony Shanks 106
56 USA 8080 Fotis Boliakis Guy Avellon 108
57 CAN 7626 Mark Passmore Larry Scott 111
58 USA 8235 Larry Whipple Doug Brophy 111
59 FIN 8094 Staffan Lindberg Erkki Heinonen 114
60 USA 8036 Jack Rickard Tom Ferrier 116
61 USA 7866 John Manderson Matt Semler 118
62 ITA 8277 Renato Irrera Corrado Cristaldini 120
63 USA 7425 Barbara Beigel-Vosbury Shane Zwingelberg 120
64 USA 8279 Claude Bonanni Richard Burgess 125
65 USA 8063 Bert Collins Brent Ostbye 127
66 GER 7450 Stefan Lehnert Peter Menning 127
67 USA 8077 Thomas Londrigan Jr Matt Pederson 129
68 USA 8065 G Brooks Sperry Tim Ray 131
69 ARG 7976 Martin Pendola Ariel Simonet 132
70 GER 8016 Hubert Rauch Ingo Schappeler 133
71 USA 8000 Harry W Walker Chris Rogers 134
72 USA 8083 John Chiarella Robert Carlson 135
73 USA 7916 Timothy J Delaney Michael Delaney 138
74 USA 7659 Rick Peters Christel Gruenewald 138
75 USA 8084 Robert Teitge Fielden Fleming 138
76 USA 7999 Tiani Hausen Ellie Holloway 147
77 USA 7956 Tony Herrmann Rebecca Ruhm 151
78 USA 8132 Thierry De La Villehuchet Witold Gessing 160
78 SWE 8256 Fredrik Loof Anders Ekstrom 160