Benvenutti wins Viper 640 Worlds

The Allstate Sugar Bowl Viper 640 World Championship experienced the extremes on March 26-31 in New Orleans, LA.

From beginning with no wind and no racing, with too much wind on the final day that canceled races after the first one, it was all on for the 33 teams on of Lake Pontchartrain.

But Jackson Benvenutti (USA) sailed to high finishes through all the conditions, winning half of the races to edge out second place Brad Boston (CAN) with crew Lee Shuckerow and Eric Vigrass by four points.

With the event hosted by Southern Yacht Club, local Benvenutti with his crew Christopher Alexander and Andrew Eagan never lost first place throughout the regatta, although they were tied with Boston after the second day of racing.

“This has been a really big team effort for about a year,” said Benvenutti. “We did a bunch of events leading up to this. We kept getting better and better, making sure we were going forward and moving the needle all the time.”

Boston added, “Jackson and Andrew and Chris just sailed great. Big congratulations to them. Everybody wants to win, but we’re happy.”

Mark Zagol finished fourth overall and won the Corinthian award for the top amateur. Zagol’s crew was Drew Buttner and Timothy Desmond.

Finishing 13th overall and winning the top female award was Cam Farrah (USA) who sailed with Andrew Brennan and her dad, Cliff Farrah.

The championship attracted teams from Canada, Jamaica, India, and 14 U.S. states from California to Maine.

Race details – Results – Facebook

Final Results (Top 10 of 33; 10 races, 1 discard)
1. Psycho Tiller, USA296, Jackson Benvenutti – 1 – 2 – 2 – 6 – [9] – 1 – 1 – 8 – 1 – 1 ; 23
2. JACKPOT, CAN326, Lee Shuckerow – 4 – 3 – 1 – [11] – 1 – 5 – 5 – 1 – 3 – 4 ; 27
3. Boomslang, USA247, Geoffrey Fargo – 5 – [9] – 4 – 9 – 4 – 3 – 2 – 3 – 6 – 2 ; 38
4. NESS, USA158, Mark Zagol – 3 – 5 – 5 – 3 – [7] – 4 – 6 – 5 – 7 – 3 ; 41
5. Robot Flamingo, USA298, Jimmy Praley – [34/UFD] – 1 – 8 – 10 – 3 – 2 – 3 – 7 – 2 – 15 ; 51
6. Merica, USA255, Karl and Paul Kleinschrodt – 11 – 10 – 3 – 13 – [20] – 6 – 4 – 2 – 4 – 6 ; 59
7. Crazyhorse Mongoose, USA232, Zak Fanberg – 12 – 6 – 7 – 2 – [18] – 7 – 7 – 4 – 5 – 12 ; 62
8. Southern Challenge, USA312, Ricky Welch – 2 – 7 – 9 – 1 – 6 – 12 – 8 – 12 – 9 – [24] ; 66
9. Loco, USA287, Ed Feo – 6 – 8 – 6 – 4 – 11 – 9 – [24] – 6 – 11 – 5 ; 66
10. Team Z, USA237, Marek Zaleski – 8 – 4 – 10 – [14] – 10 – 8 – 13 – 11 – 14 – 11 ; 89