First decent breeze

Horton and Nichol move into the lead at the Wells Fargo Star Worlds in San Francisco

A breezier day brought plenty of action to San Francisco Bay on day three of the Wells Fargo Private Bank Star World Championships. A delayed start while the breeze kicked in was worth the wait to see a solid 11-12 knots at the gun. After two general recalls, the Z flag was raised and at the third start, eight teams were called over early. Protests were subsequently filed and are under review by the jury. The westerly breeze was steady during racing at 14-15 knots.

Andy Horton and Brad Nichol (USA), took first, ahead of Marc Pickel and Ingo Borkowski (GER), in second. Mark Reynolds and Hal Haenel (USA), took third, followed by Hamish Pepper and Carl Williams (NZ), in fourth. Xavier Rohart and Pascal Rambeau (FRA), took fifth. Horton and Nichol have now moved into the lead overall, three points ahead of New Zealand's Rohan Lord and Miles Addy.

Lying 20th overall Mark Reynolds commented: “We did a lot better today. We’re pretty happy with our speed. We just didn’t sail very smart on the first few days but today was steady in comparison. It’s not easy in this fleet. You need a combination of good starts and going the right way. There are no big gains or losses to be made, it’s more subtle.”

Of their racing today he added: “We had a good start, tacking very quickly to the right. It was a little better to go right, but not much. We lost the Germans on the second beat who then went more south on the second run, while Horton went back to the right as the wind shifted. We missed both shifts on the second beat, but were able to stay in the top three. Those guys are a little faster than me downwind.”

At the end of racing Nicolas Rosas (ARG), was on the dock at the St Francis Yacht Club furiously pumping water from the boat he and Juan Kouyouumdjian are racing. Hit on their port aft quarter off the start by Bill Buchan and Erik Bentzen (USA), the Argentinians took on a huge amount of water as the race progressed, upsetting their result.

“We were losing places at the end as we had too much water on board on the last beat," commented Juan K. "Still, today was a lot easier than other days. The current was playing more in the first beat and first run than later in the race but we’re finally beginning to understand it here.”

Among the OCS today were the Irish team of Prof O'Connell and Ed Peel, Polish Olympic medallist Mateusz Kusznierewicz and Dominik Zycki, and Skandia Team GBR's Iain Percy and Steve Mitchell, now 41st overall: “We were caught over the line which surprised us as we’ve done a hundred of these starts," commented Percy. "We went around the first mark, which was very busy, in third and were sailing well. It’s been the first race where we’ve had solid breeze. We needed some good top third positions after the tricky conditions of the past few days.”

Former World Champions Freddie Loof and Anders Ekstrom from Sweden have also been off-form and are currently 11th after three races. “We’ve been taking the wrong side," said Ekstrom. "We’re not sailing the way we should be. We liked the breeze today and the regatta’s not over yet. We just need 3 more good results and do a good job. It’s really a tough fleet if you look at who is here.

Sailing with John Dane III and lying 13th overall the curly cropped Austin Sperry commented: “We’ve been feeling good. Our boat speed hasn’t been the problem. Everyone’s so good, they’re all across the line 10-15 seconds apart, it’s easy to have a 20th place.”

Italy's Luca Modena and Michel Marchesini, had a better day finishing 6th and now are 18th overall: “We had a medium to good start and tried for sailing in clear air," said Modena. "We approached the right side of the course, just in front of us were the Irish and they were over early so we were clear up the first beat, we had a good downwind and got away from the rest of the fleet to be in the top 10. We decided to play to win to on the second beat so trimmed for more wind which was our mistake as the wind dropped and we lost space from the leader but were able to solidify our 6th place position. It was more difficult to trim upwind than down. I congratulate my crew for suffering me today, it was a good race.”

While many of the top names are in the top ten including Robert Scheidt (4th), Xavier Rohart (5th) and Mark Mendleblatt (8th), many aren't. Aside from Percy and Loof, Torben Grael is currently 14th, Mark Reynolds is 20th, German hot shot Marc Pickel is 23rd, European Champion Diego Negri is 25th while Mateusz Kusznierewicz is 32nd.

Full results: