John Kilroy’s Samba Pa Ti wins Melges 20 Worlds

Riva Del Garda, Italy (August 30, 2014) – After one final race, John Kilroy at the helm of Samba Pa Ti , tactician Paul Goodison and crew Jeff Reynolds proved they were more than deserving of the 2014 Audi Melges 20 World Champion title. Four days of racing and no worse than a fourteenth in a fleet of fifty-seven entries, the Samba team excelled in almost every condition and under a wide variety of pressure.

“All we wanted to do for the start of the race today was to control Mascalzone as they were the only ones that could possibly win the event other than us. So, we did a little match racing on the start,” commented a very happy Kilroy. “Things just went our way. Everything just went right for us. We’ve trained a lot and we have a great team.”

Kilroy attributes much of this week’s success to the training he has been doing in his home town of San Francisco, California with his son, 11-year old Liam Kilroy who helms Wildman . “The training we did against and with Wildman made me a much better small boat driver. We did a lot of match racing, practiced straight-line speed work and crew kinetics so, hats off to Wildman as they really made us a better team.”

In second overall is Achille Onorato helming Mascalzone Latino, Jr. with tactician Malcolm Page and Stefano Campialini as crew. Rounding out the top three is Guido Miani on Monaco Racing Fleet with tactician Gabriele Benussi and crew member Massimo Gherarducci who is the only other team other than Samba Pa Ti to hold three race wins in Riva.

In the all-amateur Corinthian division (all ISAF Group 1 on board), Marco Gambarella’s Chimera edged out American John Brown’s Blind Squirrel for the overall title. From Canada, Paul Currie’s Wild Deuces finished third. Overall, the teams finished 24th, 33rd, and 38th respectively. Seven of the 57 teams vied for the Corinthian title.

In 2015, the next World Championship will take place in San Francisco, California hosted by the San Francisco Yacht Club on September 30-October 3.

Final Results (Top 10 of 57; 10 races, 1 discard)
1.) John Kilroy/Paul Goodison, Samba Pa Ti ; 13-4-4-2-1-2-[14]-12-1-1 = 40
2.) Achille Onorate/Malcolm Page, Mascalzone Latino, Jr. ; [18]-9-3-4-8-9-6-1-4-12 = 56
3.) Guido Miani/Gabriele Benussi, Monaco Racing Fleet ; 27-5-17-1-3-1-1-[30]-3-2 = 60
4.) Naofumi Kamei/Manu Weiller, Mamma Aiuto! ; 17-21-[30]-13-11-5-13-8-2-7 = 97
5.) Russ Lucas/Harry Melges III, Shimmer ; 5-6-16-12-17-15-[22]-3-11-35 = 107
6.) Dario Levi/Niccolo Bianchi, Fremito D’Arja ; 6-17-8-3-4-6-21-15-30-[45] = 110
7.) Paul Reilly/Andy Burdick, Red Sky Sailing Team ; 12-22-[27]-9-5-8-8-14-24-21 = 123
8.) John Taylor/Bill Hardesty, Ninkasi ; 8-8-[36]-35-10-10-4-20-5-25 = 125
9.) Wes Whitmyer/Max Fraser, Slingshot ; [45]-24-9-14-12-13-16-18-7-16 = 129
10.) Alessandro Rombelli/Daniele Cassinari, STIG ; 11-1-2-23-9-[43]-10-41-14-20 = 131

Day Four Highlight Video

Event website – Results