Portuguese team takes honors in Bacardi Cup

March 11, 2008 09:01 by Susan Cocking, Miami Herald | 0 comments

If the Olympic sailing competition was held today, you could make the argument that Portugal would get the gold medal, Great Britain the silver and the United States bronze in the Star class.

If the Olympic sailing competition was held today, you could make the argument that Portugal would get the gold medal, Great Britain the silver and the United States bronze in the Star class.

Those were the results in the 112-boat fleet of the 81st Bacardi Cup, which concluded Friday on Biscayne Bay featuring just about everybody who has qualified or hopes to qualify in Stars for this summer’s Olympics.

Portugal’s Afonso Domingos and crew Bernardo Santos, the 2004 Bacardi champions, eked out a narrow victory over Great Britain’s Iain Percy and Andrew Simpson. Though both teams scored 20 points, the tie-breaker went to the Portuguese because they had the two best finishes in the five-race series that began Sunday.

Americans John Dane and son-in-law Austin Sperry, both of Gulfport, Miss., finished third, trailing the leaders by 10 points with a final score of 30.

For the winners, the race was a good tuneup for next month’s world championships on the same waters. But Domingos said the Olympics will be much different from the Bacardi.

‘’The Olympics is 16 boats,’’ he said. "It’s different qualities, like a sprint. This race is like [running] 3,000 meters.‘’

Santos said they finished 12th in Sunday’s opener because of heavy grass draped on their keel.

’’I’ve sailed here eight years. This was the first time I’ve had to clean so much,‘’ Santos said.

``After that, we prepared the boat much better.’‘

Under regatta rules, they were allowed to discard that finish, making their lowest score a nine for the series.

Percy, who won gold in the Finn class in the 2000 Games, was not happy with the Bacardi outcome. He and Simpson sailed a new boat after lending their old boat to the novice Irish team of Peter O’Leary and Stephen Milne, who scored a surprise ninth-place finish.

’’We’re slow,‘’ Percy said. ``We haven’t got the speed to win the Olympics at the moment. We’ve got to make some changes to get there.‘’

The Italian team of Diego Negri and Luigi Viale finished eighth, but it appeared they had earned enough points from previous qualifying regattas to represent their country in China this summer.

South Miami’s Augie Diaz and crew Phil Trinter of Charlottesville, Va., finished 10th, and Diaz won the masters’ trophy for skippers age 50 and over.

Brazil’s Gastao Brun won grand masters’ honors for skippers 60 and over, American John Chiarella (70 and over) was named exalted grand master.

An awards ceremony was held Friday afternoon at Miami’s Coral Reef Yacht Club.

BACARDI CUP FINAL RESULTS

1. Afonso Domingos/Bernardo Santos, Portugal, ¹²-9-7-2-2, 20;
2. Iain Percy/Andrew Simpson, Great Britain, 3-¹⁴-3-5-9, 20;
3. John Dane/Austin Sperry, USA, 20-³⁹-2-3-5, 30;
4. Mateusz Kusznierewicz/Dominik Zycki, Poland, 11-8-⁴⁵-6-7, 32;
5. Hans Spitzauer/Christian Nehammer, Austria, 5-⁵⁵-10-4-14, 33;
6. Robert Scheidt/Bruno Prada, Brazil, 4-12-21-1-¹¹⁹, 38;
7. Alberto Barovier/Nando Colaninno, Italy, ²³-4-9-18-10, 41;
8. Diego Negri/Luigi Viale, Italy, ¹⁶-7-12-14-8, 41;
9. Peter O’Leary/Stephen Milne, Ireland, 14-15-1-³⁹-12, 42;
10. Augie Diaz/Phil Trinter, USA, 9-3-²⁹-10-20, 42.