Miami OCR Dispatch #3 -- Medal race
ISAF created the medal race to bring spectator friendly drama to sailboat racing. At the ISAF World Championship in Miami, it got what it wanted. Only those with access to a motor boat, however, were able to see the excellent sailing skills of the top ten Finn sailors of the regatta. Gary Bodie, the event co-chair, told me that they’d once tried to organize a spectator boat for $10 a ticket, but no one signed up. It’s their loss.
In this iteration of the Rolex Miami Olympic Classes Regatta Stage Two of the ISAF Olympic Dinghy World Championship (RMOCRSTISAFODWC, 2009), Chris Cook of Canada sought to over-come his medal race bugaboo and hold off Brit Ed Wright.
As it turned out, Cook had one of his best medal races but finished just behind Wright, and with the double-points awarded in the medal race, saw the yellow jersey, which he’d worn for the whole regatta, slip off his back.
Cook had to sail through some boats ahead of him to be able to challenge Wright on the final downwind run after Wright took the lead at the top of the course.
Wright then had enough of the course to himself to focus on speed and less on positioning. In the two initial legs of the course, match racing your closest competitor and then positioning yourself to round the weather mark and make gains on those ahead in points, is a monied strategy.
P.J. Postma of Holland caught a few waves just 50 metres from the finish to pass Rafa Trujillo, who found himself having to jibe after stalling on the back of a wave. Just within their periphery, American Andy Casey’s downwind technique was firing on all cylinders, and he managed to slip across the line ahead of Trujillo, 2007 Finn World Champion.
The full kinetics allowed flag was up right before the warning, which presaged a great 30-minute, four leg, drag race. The yellow and red triangle signals the conditions that Finn sailors relish and their upwind athleticism and downwind kinetics elevate to a level unknown in other one-design dinghies.
Combine a 300-pound dinghy, 15 kts. of breeze and accompanying Biscayne Bay chop and, 116 square feet of sail area, and male adrenaline—and the sight is ready for television. For the sailors who’d been practicing in the Coaches Regatta the kinetic-style sanctioned by racing rule 42, the medal race was a culmination the winter training in Miami.
The medal race also allowed Floridian homeboy Zach Railey, to move into 3rd for the regatta. After earning in China the USA’s first silver medal in Finn in 16 years, the sports management major has been helping his coach, Kenneth Andreasen, revamp the USA Olympic program, which is adopting a physical-training and money rewards for performance model to prepare for London 2012. Zach is also helping the USAFA with a Development Program, which has purchased a trainer and put 3-time All-American Bryan Lake into it. Zach’s sailing clinics are helping the new generation of Opti and Laser sailors catch the Olympic spirit.
Copyright 2009—Charles Heimler
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