Star Worlds: Diaz and Prada Maintain Lead at Midpoint

Miami, FL (April 12, 2016) – The third day of the Star World Championship tested the consistency of the fleet, with only two teams now posting all top ten scores. Leading entering today, Augie Diaz/ Bruno Prada (USA) raised the stakes by winning today’s race, with only Diego Negri/ Sergio Lambertenghi (ITA) now within reach.

The Race Committee waited for the wind to establish and 12:35 pm the first Warning Signal was shot with a Course 3 (five legs) at 2 miles a leg, 5 knots of wind speed and a pretty flat water with a beautiful blue sky.

They had to go through three attempts before having a clear start: The first was postponed to adjust the starting line to avoid a general recall. The second one, The RC was forced to order a general recall when the majority of the fleet was over at the pin before the gun. And finally the third one was completely clear.

Diaz got the first mark in second place behind Brian Ledbetter who was leading the fleet. Diego Negri also was very close at the third place.

On the downwind leg, engaged in a one-on-one battle for the best position, Diaz gained the advantage of a good speed being the first boat to round the downwind mark.

Negri, who was coming behind Diaz also took the opportunity of this battle and got second place maintaining almost all the race when at the end Ledbetter stole his position and Negri finished at 4th place behind Robert Cullen who made a great recovery along the race.

Tomorrow the teams will have a Lay Day. With six races planned, this marks the midpoint of the championship, though the results are certain to shuffle when the discard occurs after race five.

Day Three Standings (Top 10 of 72; 3 races)
1. Augie Diaz / Bruno Prada , USA – 3 -4 -1 ; 8
2. Diego Negri / Sergio Lambertenghi , ITA – 7 -3 -4 ; 14
3. Andrew Macdonald / Brad Nichol , USA – 11 -5 -8 ; 24
4. Lars Schmidt Grael / Samuel Goncalves , BRA – 9 -12 -5 ; 26
5. Brian Ledbetter / Joshua Revkin , USA – 5 -20 -2 ; 27
6. George Szabo / Steve Mitchell , USA – 1 -9 -19 ; 29
7. Luke Lawrence / Ian Coleman , USA – 2 -6 -29 ; 37
8. Peter Vessella / Phil Trinter , USA – 4 -25 -11 ; 40
9. Eric Doyle / Payson Infelise , USA – 8 -8 -25 ; 41
10. Tom Londrigan Jr / TC Belco , USA – 25 -7 -10 ; 42

Event Website – Results – Facebook

Seventy-two teams are competing from 13 nations: Argentina, Austria, Brazil, Canada, Croatia, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Switzerland, Sweden, Ukraine and United States.

Six races are scheduled, with a boat’s series score to be the total of her race scores with her worst score discarded when five or more races are completed. Racing is scheduled on April 10-16.