Wilson siblings top M32 North Americans

Don Wilson’s Convexity team won the 2019 M32 North American Championship, beating seven other teams on November 16-17 in Miami, FL. Winning four of 12 races, Wilson finished with a 7.5 point margin over his sister Jennifer Wilson.

“It is a very high level,” said Wilson, who also won the M32 World Championship in September in Riva del Garda, Italy. “You always have to be paranoid that people will try to beat you and you have to keep working really hard to make sure that doesn’t happen.

For this event, Wilson’s World Championship-winning tactician Taylor Canfield was unable to take part and was replaced by Olympian and America’s Cup sailor Andrew Campbell, but otherwise the crew was the same as raced in Riva del Garda in September including Kinley Fowler on mainsail, Ted Hackney on trim, and Josh McCaffery.

“It is really down to just every little movement on the helm and every little bit of sail trim – just very small differences,” notes Don Wilson. “The way you sail the boat has a huge impact on boat speed.”

Runner-up Jennifer Wilson finished the opening day in third place overall and was second in day two’s opening race but in the following race was involved in a collision that caused enough damage to put both Convergence and Dan Cheresh’s Extreme2 out of the running for the rest of the day. Ultimately, her team was awarded average points for her remaining races leaving her second overall.

The event was also a successful trial for the new carbon fibre mast for the M32. All eight boats were fitted with the new spar prior to this weekend’s racing and it proved a worthy replacement.

M32 Class Schedule
November 16-17 – North American Championship Miami
Jan 10-12 – Miami Winter Series 1
Feb 7-9 – Miami Winter Series 2
Mar 20-22 – Miami Winter Series 3
Jun 5-7 – Midtown Cup Newport
Jul 17-19 – Midtown Cup Newport
Aug 14-16 – M32 Regatta Newport/Chicago
Sept 18-20 – North American Championship Chicago
Nov 16-22 – M32 World Championship Miami