Good Times at Melges 24 Worlds

Miami, FL (November 29, 2016) – Seventy-four teams took to the ocean course for the opener of the Melges 24 World Championship. With swells and surfing part of the marketing program, the morning forecast delivered both good news and bad news.

“It is going to be a day of steady, South-Easterly breeze, blowing around 18-20 knots,” reported Anderson Reggio, PRO for the Worlds. “This will hopefully allow us to complete three races since the days to follow are expected to decrease and to get trickier.”

With tricky in the cards, Conor Clarke Irish entry Embarr wasn’t going to waste the good stuff, posting a 2-1-1 to take the early lead.

“When you are down sailing for a Championship of such an importance, in general you are so concentrated that you cannot actually say you are enjoying that time, but today it has been a whole different story,” note Clarke. “Those of today has been some of the most amusing races of the last times. We are not a crew that performs drastically better in hard rather than light wind conditions, but the big waves of today, together with the stable breeze helped creating a wonderful mood onboard: we are exhilarated by today’s events!”

Second in the ranking is American Bora Gulari’s Air Force 1 (1-2-2) with Jonathan McKee calling tactics: “We couldn’t have asked for a better start: these are what I call the perfect Miami conditions, with good weather and enough wind to sail fast downwind, but not too much,” stated McKee.

Tonu Toniste (EST) and his team on Lenny top the Corinthian fleet with a 16-17-16 which puts them in 16th overall. Toniste admitted it was tough beginning for a team that finished 6th overall a year ago, attributing their slow start to not having sailed together for a few months.

Conditions tomorrow are expected to be similar to those of today, with the Race Committee planning to run three races, starting from 10:30am EST.

Fourteen races are scheduled from November 29 to December 3.

Corinthian Division (Top 5 of 37; 3 races)
1. Lenny, Tõnu Tõniste , EST – 16 -17 -16 ; 49
2. Team Kesbeke/SIKA/Gill, Ronald Veraar , NED – 24 -14 -12 ; 50
3. Taki 4, Marco Zammarchi , ITA – 18 -16 -21 ; 55
4. ACCRU, G. Nixon / K. Nixon , AUS – 17 -23 -20 ; 60
5. Decorum, Megan Ratliff , USA – 14 -8 -53 ; 75

Overall Results (Top 5 of 74; 3 races)
1. Embarr, Conor Clarke , IRL – 2 -1 -1 ; 4
2. Air Force 1, Bora Gulari , USA – 1 -2 -2 ; 5
3. Maidollis 3, Gian Luca Perego , ITA – 3 -5 -3 ; 11
4. ARGO, Jason Carroll , USA – 5 -3 -4 ; 12
5. Lucky Dog / Gill Race Team, Travis Weisleder , USA – 6 -9 -5 ; 20

Event details – Scoreboard – Tracker – Facebook

 
Source: M24 class, Scuttlebutt