Big Wind, Big Waves at Melges 24 Worlds

Miami, FL (November 30, 2016) – The second day of the 2016 Melges 24 World Championship saw the continuation of demanding weather, with winds gusting to 20 knots and ocean swells providing a worthy test that some passed, and others struggled in. There were casualties today.

The daily best went to Full Throttle (6-1-1), former Melges 24 World Champion Brian Porter (USA) moving up to fifth place of the overall ranking. With six races now completed, and a discard now in play, the leadership still belongs to Irish led Conor Clarke’s Embarr.

Embarr had an amazing performance in the first race of the day: despite being called OCS at the start and being subsequent penalized, Clarke’s team managed to bring on a stunning recovery over the fleet, closing a race that would have been considered lost by most in a very good position.

In a second moment, moreover, the Irish entry had a redress for the OCS that was declared wrongly called, hence scoring three points in the first race of today instead of fifteen (3-4-[5]), bringing up their lead to 8 points.

The fight was hard also in the Corinthian division, where daily best was Italian Marco Zammarchi’s Taki 4 (18-16-6/2-2-1), that found in the big waves and breeze its favorite conditions for sailing.

One of the favorites of the Corinthian group, the Estonian entry Lenny (26-15-[OCS]/6-1-[OCS]), former Melges 24 Corinthian World Championship, had to leave the top of the ranking of the division to Decorum, after an OCS received in the sixth race of the series, slipping down to the twenty-first place in the overall ranking.

“It was for sure a good day for us in the water,” declared Megan Ratliff from Decorum “We’ve been able to find good speed, especially downwind with our pink kite! The fact that we’ve been in Miami for a while, trying to get to know the weather and the environment, probably is helping us to sail well”.

Starting from tomorrow, the Race Committee intends to run two races per day, completing in this way a series of twelve races. Weather conditions, though, will have to be favorable enough to allow so: in fact, wind is forecasted to decrease sensibly, making the crews race in conditions that may be drastically opposed to those that they have been used to seeing in these days.

Racing is scheduled from November 29 to December 3.

Corinthian Division (Top 5 of 37; 6 races, 1 discard)
1. Decorum, Megan Ratliff , USA – 1 -1 -[22] -1 -6 -2 ; 11
2. Taki 4, Marco Zammarchi , ITA – [4] -3 -4 -2 -2 -1 ; 12
3. Lenny, Tõnu Tõniste , EST – 2 -4 -2 -[6] -1 -5 ; 14
4. ACCRU, G. Nixon / K. Nixon , AUS – 3 -5 -3 -[12] -4 -3 ; 18
5. Team Kesbeke/SIKA/Gill, Ronald Veraar , NED – 6 -2 -1 -[38] -3 -18 ; 30

Overall Results (Top 5 of 74; 6 races 1 discard)
1. Embarr, Conor Clarke , IRL – 2 -1 -1 -3 -4 -[5] ; 11
2. Maidollis 3, Gian Luca Perego , ITA – 3 -5 -3 -[9] -6 -2 ; 19
3. New England Ropes, Tim Healy , USA – 7 -6 -[14] -4 -2 -4 ; 23
4. West Marine Rigging, Bora Gulari , USA – 1 -2 -2 -16 -5 -[26] ; 26
5. Full Throttle, Brian Porter , USA – 9 -15 -[18] -6 -1 -1 ; 32

Event details – Scoreboard – Tracker – Photos

Source: M24 class, Scuttlebutt