Augie Diaz and Bruno Prada Win Star Worlds

Miami, FL (April 16, 2016) – With one final race today in the Star World Championship, Augie Diaz and Bruno Prada (USA) overcame a one point deficit behind Diego Negri and Sergio Lambertenghi (ITA) to win the 93rd edition. Diaz, who needed to either finish ahead of the Italians with at least one boat in between, or insure the Italians finished sixth or worse, accomplished both to secure the title.

Light winds on Biscayne Bay delayed the start of the last day of races, and after four attempts the Race Officer ordered a black flag and the start was good except for 14 teams which were awarded a BFD starting penalty.

Diaz and Negri, who had chased each other fighting for the control of the start line, would soon be deep in the fleet as Paul Cayard and Brian Fatih (USA) lead around the first windward mark.

The day was a shifty one, and by the second windward mark, Diaz had recovered from a 60th to a 7th. From there, it was all about tactics as Negri was close behind them, but Diaz was able to control the Italians to the finish, resulting in Negri finishing 7th and Diaz finishing 5th.

Luke Lawrence and Ian Coleman (USA) won the last race of the Worlds with Cayard close behind them.

“An incredible feeling,” said Diaz. “Not sure if I deserve it, but I take it. We did a great job the last race. Bruno did an outstanding job of coming back, time after time. In fact, in the middle of the last windward leg I thought that Diego was winning the Worlds. We had a big right shift, and had gone very far right, and he was right with us. If we won and he got second, then he would win the Worlds. I just feel very fortunate. I’s a group of elite sailors that I really don’t know if I belong to but I am very very happy and I have to thank God, I have to thank Bruno Prada, my father for helping me so much for my sailing career, and it’s a great feeling to be a World Champion.”

For Bruno Prada, this is his fourth World Championship title after having sailed with the Brazilian Robert Scheidt. He has been sailing with Diaz for seven years and he feels that a dream came true. “One of my big achievements was winning a Worlds with Augie Diaz,” noted Prada. “To win a Star World Championship you have to have a special week and definitely we had this special week. We started doing good races, getting confident and for a reason that I cannot explain, some energy, everything that we do worked well.”

Final Standings (Top 10 of 72; 6 races, 1 discard)
1. Augie Diaz / Bruno Prada, USA – 3 -4 -1 -3 -3 -[5] ; 14
2. Diego Negri / Sergio Lambertenghi, ITA – [7] -3 -4 -1 -1 -7 ; 16
3. Brian Ledbetter / Joshua Revkin, USA – 5 -[20] -2 -2 -7 -9 ; 25
4. Lars Schmidt Grael / Samuel Goncalves, BRA – 9 -[12] -5 -4 -8 -12 ; 38
5. Luke Lawrence / Ian Coleman, USA – 2 -6 -[29] -26 -4 -1 ; 39
6. Paul Cayard / Brian Fatih, USA – [73] -14 -7 -18 -2 -4 ; 45
7. Andrew Macdonald / Brad Nichol, USA – 11 -5 -8 -11 -14 -[73] ; 49
8. Peter Vessella / Phil Trinter, USA – 4 -25 -11 -5 -5 -[73] ; 50
9. George Szabo / Steve Mitchell, USA – 1 -9 -[19] -16 -15 -18 ; 59
10. Robert Stanjek / Frithjof Kleen, GER – [73] -1 -23 -22 -12 -3 ; 61

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.

Source: Star Worlds