High winds cancel day at Bacardi Cup

Miami, FL (March 10, 2021) – The weather conditions on race day 3 at the 94th Bacardi Cup were over 20 knots of breeze and gusts up to well over 30 knots, forcing the Race Committee to cancel racing.

“After two days of good racing in this weather, we have decided that it is probably a good idea to conserve everything,” noted Carl Schellbach Principal Race Officer. “Nothing is going to change from yesterday through today, so we decided that we would conserve our equipment and our bodies and come back tomorrow.

“With twenty-five boats we have about a third the size of last year’s fleet and we can run shorter races and more of them, give quality racing and we look forward to doing that the remainder of this week as the winds calm down and we can get into more tactical racing as opposed to the survival that we have had over the past couple of days.”

Conditions are forecast to ease tomorrow with an easterly breeze averaging around 16-18 knots. Joining the Star Class on the track for their first day of racing will be the J/70 and Melges 24 fleets.

Going into tomorrow’s race day 4 for the Star Class, defending Champions Mateusz Kusznierewicz/Bruno Prada (POL) lead, with Eric Doyle/Payson Infelise (USA) 2 points behind in second and George Szabo/Guy Avellon (USA) another 2 points back in third.

Racing is scheduled to get underway tomorrow at 1000 hours for the J/70, 1115 hours for the Melges 24, and 1125 hours for the Star Class. The J/70 and Melges 24 Classes will contest a nine race series of three races per day.

Day Three Results (Top 10 of 23; 2 races)
1. Mateusz Kusznierewicz / Bruno Prada , POL – 1 -1 ; 2
2. Eric Doyle / Payson Infelise , USA – 2 -2 ; 4
3. George Szabo / Guy Avellon , USA – 3 -3 ; 6
4. Augie Diaz / Marcus Koy , USA – 4 -5 ; 9
5. Jim Buckingham / Phil Toth , USA – 5 -8 ; 13
6. Hubert Merkelbach / Kilian Weise , GER – 6 -10 ; 16
7. Shane Zwingelberg / Keith Gardner , USA – 10 -7 ; 17
8. John Ferguson Dane III / Greg Smith , USA – 8 -9 ; 17
9. Joshua Powell / Mark Strube , USA – 7 -11 ; 18
10. Scott Barnard / Craig Moss , USA – 11 -11/RDG ; 22

Event information – Race details – Results – Facebook

The Star Class challenge for the 94th Bacardi Cup begins March 8 with a 6-race series of one traditional endurance race per day through March 13. Racing for the J/70 and Melges 24 gets underway March 11-13 with three races scheduled per day for a total of nine races.

Source: Bacardi Cup