Feast or famine at Triple Crown Stage 2

Survival was the name of the game as the Oakcliff Triple Crown Series got underway in Oyster Bay, NY. Scheduled for September 30 and October 1, the second stage of the 3-stage event, pouring rain and a 15-knot Northerly gusting 18 left the competitors fatigued and shivering at the end of the day 1. Conversely, there was no racing on day 2 due to lack of wind.

Riley Gibbs/ Louisa Chafee (USA) in the Nacra and Amanda Clark/ Ian MacDiarmid (USA) in the 470 showed unmatched dominance with nothing but bullets on their score lines.

Ali ten Hove/ Mariah Millen (CAN) performed nearly as well in the 49er FX with all wins and one third place to grab their second Triple Crown win. Fellow Canadians, William Jones/ Evan DePaul, had a harder fight to win the 49er class, ending up just two points ahead of Ian Barrows/ Mitchell Kiss and three ahead of Nevin Snow/ Mac Agnese who put in extra effort to travel overnight and compete fresh off their stop at the World Match Race Tour Chicago.

Low visibility and puffy winds made day one a challenge. “If you can be in the pressure, you’re planing and that’s going to get you ahead,” said Ian MacDiarmid, who crewed for two-time Olympic 470 sailor Amanda Clark. She added, “Our game plan was to get out left so we set up a little lower than the fleet. We have pretty good speed, though not so sure about our height so it’s nice to be able to get forward fast so we can tack across.”

Keeping the boat under control was key. “Clean maneuvers and staying upright [was our winning strategy],” said Mariah Millen. “Yeah it was really patchy out there,” added her skipper, Ali ten Hove. “It was all about anticipating the pressure, and staying upright because a lot of teams weren’t.”

William Jones and Evan DePaul took a swim in Race 4 when their spinnaker halyard got snagged during a douse and dragged them over; but with all of their other races resulting in podium finishes, they had the leeway to drop that race.

Oakcliff’s staff worked tirelessly over the past few weeks retrofitting Nacra 17’s into foiling. Louisa Chaffee and Riley Gibbs arrived early and helped set up their chartered boat.

“We were feeling pretty confident going in,” said Riley who tied for third in the Red Bull Foiling Generation last year and just returned from Europe where he and Louisa competed in the inaugural foiling Nacra 17 Worlds. Riley and Louisa are both members of the US Sailing Team roster and hope to represent the US in the 2020 Olympic Games.

Perseverance and performance were rewarded with just over $80,000 of prize grants being distributed across the fleet consisting of five Olympic-classes: 470 Men’s and Women’s, 49er, 49er FX, and the foiling Nacra 17, which was raced for the first time in North America this weekend.

Event details – Results – Facebook

Background: Teams are competing for a portion of half a million dollars of prize grants in the inaugural Oakcliff Triple Crown Series. Invited sailors in the 49er, 49erFX, Mens 470, Womens 470 and Nacra 17 are racing for $100,000 prize grant pool in each class. The three event series has stages on July 21-23, September 29-October 1, and October 6-8 held at Oakcliff Sailing in Oyster Bay, NY. Details.

Source: Oakcliff Sailing