Western Hemisphere Championship

A small fleet of Stars has turned up here in Mississippi for the Western Hemisphere Championship also known as the Spring Championship. There is one Spring Championship in Europe and one in North America each year.

This year there are 18 boats here in Pass Christian. My crew, Austin Sperry, lives here so I am staying with him and his wife Sally.

The Pass Christian Yacht Club has been in existence since 1849 and there has been sailing here on the Gulf Coast for 300 years. The only time I have raced on the Gulf Coast prior to this was the 1985 Spring Championship in New Orleans, at the Southern Yacht Club. There is a long standing tradition of racing Stars here on the Gulf Coast.

The schedule for this week is for two races per day, for four days, starting today. There will be one discard in the series.

The forecast for the week is fairly breezy every day with thunderstorms and lots of rain today. So much for the nice sunshine we enjoyed yesterday.

Today the fleet had a practice race which Austin and I managed to win. They say it is bad luck to win the practice race but I wanted to check again to see if that is still true. We also have #13 as our bow number this week so maybe all of that working together is good luck.

In any case, we are lucky to be down here and racing!

If you are waiting for an America’s Cup update, apparently the New York Supreme court issues decisions on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Today is Tuesday so standby.

Paul Cayard

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Western Hemisphere Championship Race Day 1

While most of the sailing world was on its toes waiting for the NY court to issue its decision regarding the America’s Cup feud, Hoss and I were out racing the Star on the Gulf Coast.

Thunderstorms forced a one hour postponement this morning and then the wind died after we finished the first race so we got just one in today.

But that one was a good one for Austin (Hoss) Sperry and I as we led wire to wire in the first race of this series.

The wind was light and there were 30 degree shifts both sides of 215 (southwest) while the wind velocity went from 7 knots to 3 knots and back up to 7 knots. It wasn’t any easy race for anyone so we were just lucky to hold the lead through it all.

John MacCausland and Phil Trinter sailed nicely to finish 2nd and my long time friend Larry Whipple with Mike Wolfs crewing finished 3rd.

For complete scores go to www.pcyc-gya.org

Tomorrows forecast is for sunshine and a light southeasterly after torrential rains between midnight and 0500.

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The Bitter End Yacht Club’s Line up

The Bitter End Yacht Club has announced the line up for skippers at the 2009 Pro Am Regatta, October 31 to November 7, which includes Ed Baird, Paul Cayard, Morgan Larson, Zach Railey, Ken Read, and Anna Tunnicliffe.

The 23rd Annual Pro Am format provides the keen sailor an opportunity to crew for Olympic Medalists, America’s Cup winners, and World Champions in a unique (and tropical) racing environment. Interested racers should check out the early booking bonus through May 1.

For more information, visit the freshly launched Pro Am web site: www.proamregatta.com

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Bacardi Cup – Race 6

Another perfect day, 78 degrees, 10 knots of wind from the southeast. We did have a big cloud come over the course today and kill the wind for a while on the second windward leg but, I don’t think it shuffled the results too much.

We were convinced about the right side of the course today so we started up by the right handside of the line and tacked shortly after the start. That was wrong. We were deep all day! At this moment I am not even sure where we finished but it may have been 30th. It doesn’t really matter because thankfully all those “mediocre” finishes we had all week look pretty good right now as we will count an 11th and can discard today’s finish.

Peter Bromby and Magnus Liljedahl won the race and the Bacardi Cup. They sailed really well all week. Mark Medleblatt/Bruno Prada also sailed well today and finished second overall. John VanderMollen who had been second most of the week had an even worse race than us today, so we may have passed him. The Irish were over early at the start. They were just to windward of us so we were a bit lucky there but again, it wouldn’t have mattered. Rick Merriman and Phil Trinter (USA) sailed a solid second half of the series to finish 3rd with Flavio Marazzi (SUI) just one point behind them in 4th. I think we were 5th but I have not seen the scores. If so, I am pretty happy with that considering my rust.

It was a lot of fun sailing the Star again and sailing with Austin. I think it is doing me some good too. Even though today was our worst score I feel so much more comfortable in the boat than I did a week ago.

We will race again in two weeks in Mississippi for the Western Hemisphere Championship.

Tomorrow Austin and I will drive the boat and truck to Gulfport, Mississippi.

Thanks for following us this week.

Top 10 Boats

Place
Skipper
Crew
1 2 3 4 5 6
Total
1
Bromby Peter 
Liljedahl Magnus 
 6.0 [AVG] 2.0 2.0 1.0 24.0 1.0
12
2
Mendelblatt Mark 
PRADA BRUNO 
 3.0 23.0 1.0 10.0 3.0 2.0
19
3
Merriman Rick 
Sharp Brian 
 6.0 44.0 7.0 6.0 12.0 8.0
39
4
Marazzi Flavio 
Pedersen Petter 
65.0 [OCS] 12.0 13.0 3.0 5.0 7.0
40
5
Cayard Paul 
Sperry Austin 
11.0 10.0 8.0 5.0 11.0 24.0
45
6
Vandermolen Jon 
Ewenson Geoff 
2.0 16.0 6.0 2.0 20.0 30.0
46
7
Wright Peter 
Quist Nathan 
13.0 3.0 19.0 13.0 13.0 10.0
52
8
Macdonald Andy 
Fatih Brian 
65.0 [DNF] 13.0 3.0 11.0 8.0 18.0
53
9
Pickel Marc 
Mitchell Steve 
5.0 26.0 45.0 8.0 2.0 14.0
55
10
O’Leary Peter 
Goodbody Tim 
4.0 29.0 17.0 4.0 4.0 65.0 [OCS]
58
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Bacardi Cup – Race 5

Another perfect day: 80 degrees, 12-14 knots of wind, sunshine, short chop on Biscayne Bay. 70 Stars on the starting line. It doesn’t get better than this.

Unfortunately, our score could have. We had a decent start but got out to the left of the first windward leg and the right was better once again. 27th at the first mark. Ouch! But that is when we start to kick it into gear. Hoss (Austin) said, “Come on Boss. Wake up Dude! We have got to get this cart in gear.” That is code for; “Hey buddy, we can still catch up a bit.” Every day but one has been the big comeback for us and today was no different. 4 legs and 16 boats passed to finish 11th.

The race was won by Andrew Campbell of San Diego who is a new “kid” in the class. Andrew went to the Georgetown University and sailed lasers in the last Olympic Games for the USA. The scary thing is that I sailed on the same America’s Cup team as his father Bill Campbell in the 1983 Cup! And I had been sailing Star already for 6 years by then. I know, I know….the is just amazing considering I am just 37.

Mark Pickle of Germany led at every rounding of the race only to get ground down by Andrew and on the last leg.

Mark Mendleblatt had a good race to finish third and move himself up into 2nd over all. Peter O’Leary of IRL also had a good race finishing 4th which moves them into 4th. John VanderMollen who was second after yesterday’s race finished 20th and Peter Bromby and Magnus Liljedahl finished 24th! And yes, this was the windiest day of the regatta. So the regatta is not over. We could technically still win!

Not only did we not have a stellar race, but the discard starting being applied today and we have been very consistent through out the series which does not get rewarded in a regatta that allows you to discard your worst race. So every boat ahead of us is discarding a big number; Bromby 24, Mendleblatt 23, VanderMollen 20, O’Leary 29, Meriman 44, Marazzi 65 and we are discarding just 11 points. The good news is that we have sailed pretty well every day and for a four year absence I am very happy. Also, if things go badly tomorrow we wont sink too far as the worst we will score tomorrow is 11 points.

Tomorrow’s start is moved up to 11:00 and the forecast is similar to today. We made some changes to our rig this morning to account for the more wind and I think we went pretty well considering we are very light compared to everyone else.

So we are all set for tomorrow and we can go for it a bit knowing that we have 5 decent scores already.

What the heck, it is time to go for it!

Check the scores at: www.bacardicup.com

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The Crew’s View – Austin Sperry

It’s been almost seven months since I was in a Star boat. Given the last 3+ years of full time campaigning I was really crispy, tired and burned out….and wondered if I would ever hop back in the boat.

Then I got the call. “Hoss, it’s Boss. We’re going sailing,” said Paul (Cayard).

My first thought was “Gee, I hope I am out of this cast (post knee surgery) in time to make the Bacardi Cup!” To make a long story longer, I rehabbed my knee five days a week. Once I was cleared to sail by Dr. James Andrews, I made the call to Paul telling him that ‘the Eagle was ready for take off!’. Truthfully, I thought I was cleared too early by the doctor, but last time I checked I didn’t have an MD at the end of my name.

My Dad and Paul drove together from San Francisco (man they have some good stories!!) towing Paul’s Star. They stopped in Mississippi for three days where they tried out far too many waffle houses and we did some training out of the Pass Christian Yacht Club. Then the three of us road tripped together for the last 800 miles to Miami.

At one point my old man was driving and forgot to pull into the toll booth lane (apparently he thought we had a sun pass on the Florida turnpike – note that none of us live in Florida). So the cameras started to flash and proceeded to record every license plate from the Star trailer to the front and back of the big Dodge Ram. We decided that at the next toll booth we would fess up and it turned out that this was a good move especially when the traffic is full on!

We have been here for one week now and I am having the time of my life. The weather is fantastic, the wind is perfect and the water is warm. I really like sailing with Paul. The guy is amazing on the tiller. Unfortunately, I am very rusty having been out of the game for seven months, but thus far we have improved every race so the trend looks promising.

We have completed four races and have two remaining, we are in 3rd place overall with about 65 boats competing for the Bacardi Cup.

Yesterday we had a great day. We finished the race 5th. We had an unbelievable start at the pin with Peter Bromby/Magnus Lilijhdal and traded tacks up most of the beat. I have to take my hat off to Peter and Magnus they are sailing a great regatta.

Truthfully, after being away with my knee surgery/therapy I didn’t know if I wanted to come back and go again but being here with Paul and the boys makes me reconsider…..besides these are my good friends so what else would I do?

One more race to go then back to Mississippi for the Spring Championships sailed out of PCYC.

Austin

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Bacardi Cup – Race 4

It is still sunny and 80 degrees. The wind blew a bit harder today 8-12 knots from the Southeast.

There was a general recall and then a black flag start. When the black flag is up, if you go over the start line early you are disqualified. This has the effect of backing people off the line. You can get a real good start if you are confident of your line sight in a black flag start. We had a good line sight but ended up not using it. We started at the pin end of the line with a bias of 10 degrees. Peter Bromby was just to windward of us. He tacked to port to cross the fleet, we followed. About 5 minutes into the race, Bromby/Liljedahl and ourselves had a 100 meter lead on the third place boat.

Ok, so we had an awesome start. That is about where it ended for us. We were noticeably slower than Bromby upwind and in fact we made some errors with our tacktics so we rounded the 1st mark 4th. We then proceeded to go slow downwind and rounded the leeward gate about 10th. Bromby was first followed by the Irish team, then John Vandermullen who is now in second place in the regatta.

We made an adjustment to our rig downwind and went better up the second windward leg going from 10th to third. Then down the run we went slow for some reason, also a tactical mistake and we finished 5th. Kind of frustrating to end on a backwards move. The last few days we have been doing the passing on the last leg.

Anyway, big picture is that we have bettered finishing position each day and are now in 3rd place over all.

John Vandermullen is very fast, especially downwind. He is using a new boat called a “P-Star” built by Mark Pickle of Germany. This boat seems to be real fast. John must be sailing well too but he did go by us downwind like we were in a Snipe.

Peter Bromby and Magnus Liljedahl pretty much have the regatta sewn up as they have a 2,2,1 score line and for the first race they will get the average of race 2-5 for their score.

Two races to go and we have to keep improving. Today was really the day that I could feel the rust of not being in the class for 4 years. When you start, sail for 30 second and then tack and cross the fleet by 100 meters, you should never see anyone. The fact that we got swallowed up by the pack is testament to the rust. As it should be! If that did not happen, the Star class would not be the class that it is. Winning in this class has always meant excellence.

Tomorrow’s forecast is about the same as today; 8-12 knots from the southeast with more sun.

Place Skipper Crew 1 2 3 4 5 6 Total
1 Bromby Peter  Liljedahl Magnus  6.0 [AVG] 2.0 2.0 1.0 24.0 1.0 12
2 Mendelblatt Mark  PRADA BRUNO  3.0 23.0 1.0 10.0 3.0 2.0 19
3 Merriman Rick  Sharp Brian  6.0 44.0 7.0 6.0 12.0 8.0 39
4 Marazzi Flavio  Pedersen Petter  65.0 [OCS] 12.0 13.0 3.0 5.0 7.0 40
5 Cayard Paul  Sperry Austin  11.0 10.0 8.0 5.0 11.0 24.0 45
6 Vandermolen Jon  Ewenson Geoff  2.0 16.0 6.0 2.0 20.0 30.0 46
7 Wright Peter  Quist Nathan  13.0 3.0 19.0 13.0 13.0 10.0 52
8 Macdonald Andy  Fatih Brian  65.0 [DNF] 13.0 3.0 11.0 8.0 18.0 53
9 Pickel Marc  Mitchell Steve  5.0 26.0 45.0 8.0 2.0 14.0 55
10 O’Leary Peter  Goodbody Tim  4.0 29.0 17.0 4.0 4.0 65.0 [OCS] 58
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Bacardi Cup – Race 3

Short story. We got 8th moved up to 4th overall. More Later.

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Bacardi Cup – Race 3

The weather hasn’t changed…still perfect. 80 degrees, sunny, light winds.

We finished 8th today and are now lying 4th overall. Peter Bromby and Magnus Liljedahl are leading with two second places in races 2 and 3 and average points for race 1 which gives them another 2nd in that race. Most people are very inconsistent and the scores are getting high. When you look at the results at www.bacardicup.com you have to remember that there will be a discard after 5 races are completed.

The wind was very light today, 5-8 knots. The runs were a bit painful. We had a great start today and were launched half way up the first leg. We slowed up a bit toward the top and rounded 4th. We then proceeded to go backwards for the next two legs to round the second top mark 20th. We played it perfectly down the final run to finish 8th.

Mark Mendleblatt of USA won the race with crew Bruno Prada of Brazil and is in third place overall.

Tomorrow’s forecast is more of the same, light winds and sunshine. I hate to say it for all of you who are freezing but we had to go and buy some more sun lube today.

For complete results go to: www.bacardicup.com

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Bacardi Cup – Race 2

Another beautiful day on Biscayne Bay. Sunny and 80 degrees with a light Southeasterly breeze. Plenty of sunburns for everyone.

We had a decent result finishing 10th. It was huge recovery after a not-so-flash start and a 30th place at the first mark.

After one general recall, the race committee hoisted the black flag for the second start. When the black flag is up, if you are over the line within one minute of the starting signal, you are disqualified from the race. So it is prudent to be conservative. Maybe we were a bit too conservative and therefore we were at the back of the pack coming off the line. A few boats were caught out at the start.

The course today was a simple, four leg, windward-leeward course – 8 miles in total. The conditions were 7-10 knots from 110 degrees. Fairly flat sea. The standard rules of Biscayne Bay don?t seem to be applying so far this week. The right side of the course has be unusually good. That keeps the course more open and there is more shuffling of positions.

The race was won by Italian Lucio Boggi, with Peter Bromby of Bermuda finishing second and Peter Wright of Chicago in third. Many of the top boats yesterday had bad results today. It is tough out there.

The upshot of the redress claims in yesterday’s first race was that the jury gave redress to those who complained. Almost everyone lost something in the confusion; but only four boats filed for redress. I just figured the race was going to be thrown out, but I was wrong. About four people complained, one of them being Peter Bromby of Bermuda who had a great race today finishing second. So the four boats who filed for redress will receive the average of their scores for that first race, making it a bit difficult to calculate the scores as their scores will be a moving average every day.

Austin and I are pretty pleased with our speed in this light air. We are very light in our crew weight, about 15 kilos under the Class Rule. Here at the Bacardi Cup, the class weight rule doesn’t apply so there are some teams here that outweigh us by 125 pounds. Hopefully, it won’t blow too hard.

I think tomorrow’s forecast is still for fairly light breeze.

For complete results go to: www.bacardicup.com

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