ISAF Sailing World Cup Miami - Americans sweep in Nacra 17 debut

by Dana Paxton on 3 Feb 2013 On the last day of competition at the ISAF Sailing World Cup Miami, USA won 13 medals: five gold, three silver and three bronze. Gold went to Sarah Newberry (Miami, Fla.) and John Casey (Longwood, Fla.) in the Nacra 17; Stuart McNay (Providence, R.I.) and Dave Hughes (Miami, Fla.) in Men’s 470; Caleb Paine (San Diego, Calif.); Fred Strammer (Nokomis, Fla.) and Zach Brown (San Diego, Calif.); and Paige Railey (Clearwater, Fla.). This regatta was a selection event for US Sailing Team Sperry Top-Sider and US Sailing Development Team in all classes except Nacra 17 and SKUD-18.

Making its debut in World Cup competition is the mixed multihull. Americans swept the top three positions with Newberry and Casey taking top honors. Second and third, respectively were Sarah Streater (Flagler Beach, Fla.) and Matthew Whitehead (Panama City, Fla.), and Taylor Reiss and Sarah Lihan (New York, N.Y.).

'It’s definitely good to know that what we’ve been doing so far is working,' said Newberry. 'We know we have a lot of work to do and what this has shown us is what we need to work on the most. We have re-oriented our process goals.'

Going into the medal race, the duo had a significant point advantage on the fleet, but as Newberry explained it wasn’t that simple. 'It was almost anti-climatic at the end,' she said. 'We were close to the pin, and thinking it was single trapping conditions. We thought that if it was hard right we had been seeing left shifts. We started closest to the pin and thought the left shift would come in, but there was a wall of right pressure, like a train and we couldn’t get into it, we were last by a lot. It was such a tough medal race, one minute we thought we were dead last and had to crawl back. In the end John told me we won, but I had to take a minute to take it in.'

Fred Strammer and Zach Brown has an exciting medal race series. The regatta used an experimental format called 'Big Sixy' referencing that the top six teams had advanced to this round, on a theatre-style course that saw a long and narrow area.



Brown explained stadium style racing. 'It was really intense,' he said. 'The shifts were 10 seconds and 40 degrees shifts, and it was pretty wild out on the trapeze trying to keep the boat moving.

'We broke down our goals when we started sailing a year ago and we are pretty psyched with how it’s going.'

Anna Tunnicliffe (Miami, Fla.) and Molly Vandemoer (Stanford, Calif.) maintained their second overall in the new Olympic skiff class, with Kristen Lane and Molly Carapiet (both Tiburon, Calif.) in third.

Gold went to Stuart McNay and David Hughes, who went into the final day with a nice lead on the fleet. 'Mathematically speaking there could be two boats between us and the Austrians, but if there were three, they would beat us,' said McNay. 'The bottom line is we were trying to keep it close, but we figured our best strategy was to have a good race ourselves. So we got a good start toward the boat end and the Austrian start wasn’t as good. We were in second. Some tacking ensued and drove the action back into the fleet and we had to fight for our regatta win. We were able to exit at the first downwind at the correct gate and finish the race in second place, which we’re really happy about. '



In the 78-boat Laser class, Charlie Buckingham (Newport Beach, Calif.) went into the medal series with a shot at gold. However, things didn’t go quite according to plan. 'Three double-points races meant a lot of points on the table,' said Buckingham. 'There was a lot to be gained or lost, and the plan was to sail on my own and then see where the points were from there. We were going to go off of what happened and it just happened I was over and go ninth. That put me behind right off the boat.

'I had a good second race, placing fourth. I was having a good last race, everything was going to plan to get silver, but I had a shocker last upwind leg and go too separated with the pack. They got a shift I didn’t and I got passed by four boats and dropped to third overall. It was a bummer going into the day winning, but at the end of the day I still go a medal.'



Members of the 2013 US Sailing Team Sperry Top-Sider will be announced at a future date.

Final results Americans this week:

2.4 mR (17 boats):

5th Daniel Evans (Miami, Fla.)
6th Charlie Rosenfield (Woodstock, Conn.)

49er (16 boats):

1st Fred Strammer (Nokomis, Fla.) and Zach Brown (San Diego, Calif.)
2nd Ryan Pesch (Vineyard Haven, Mass.) and Trevor Burd (Marblehead, Mass.)
6th Brad Funk (Plantation, Fla.) and Erik Aakhus (Corona del Mar, Calif.)
15th Campbell Woods (Stamford, Conn.) and Eric Magnuson (Stamford, Conn.)

49er FX (Eight boats):

2nd Anna Tunnicliffe (Miami, Fla.) and Molly Vandemoer (Stanford, Calif.)
3rd Kristen Lane and Molly Carapiet (both Tiburon, Calif.)
6th Allie Blecher (Santa Monica, Calif.) and Helena Scutt (Kirkland, Wash.)

470 Men (10 boats):

1st Stuart McNay (Providence, R.I.) and Dave Hughes (Miami, Fla.)
5th Jordan Factor (Tuscon, Az.) and Matthew Wefer (Glen Head, N.Y.)
6th Wade Waddell (Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.) and Henry Fernberger (New York, N.Y.)

470 Women (Nine boats):

5th Anne Haeger (East Troy, Mich.) and Briana Provancha (Fort Lauderdale, Fla.)
9th Nikki Medley (Fort Lauderdale, Fla.) and Lara Dallman-Weiss (Ham Lake, Minn.)

Finn:

1st Caleb Paine (San Diego, Calif.)
9th Gordon Lamphere (Lake Forest, Ill.)
10th Erik Lidecis (Huntington Beach, Calif.)
12th Luke Lawrence (Palm City, Fla.)
13th Rob Crane (Darien, Conn.)
16th John Dane (New Orleans, La.)
17th Josh Rivkin
18th Henry Sprague (Long Beach, Calif.)
19th Michael Mark (Mobile, Ala.)

Laser (70 boats):

3rd Charlie Buckingham (Newport Beach, Calif.)
19th Clay Johnson (Toms River, N.J.)
23rd Derick Vranizan (Shoreline, Wash.)
26th Greg Martinez (Houston, Texas)
32nd Luke Muller (Port Pierce, Fla.)
33rd Chris Barnard (Newport Beach, Calif.)
35th Erik Bowers (Excelsior, Minn.)
44th Erik Weis
45th Ian Ikeda (Duxbury, Mass.)
48th Sean Kelly (San Francisco, Calif.)
49th Stephen Long (Santa Barbara, Calif.)

Laser Radial (29 boats):

1st Paige Railey (Clearwater, Fla.)
6th Erika Reineke (Fort Lauderdale, Fla.)
8th Claire Dennis (Saratoga, Calif.)
18th Christine Neville (Oakland, Calif.)
19th Catherine Shanahan (St. Petersburg, Fla.)
20th Hanne Weaver (Gig Harbor, Wash.)
29th Christina Perrson (Weston, Fla.)

Nacra 17:

1st Sarah Newberry (Miami, Fla.) and John Casey (Longwood, Fla.);
2nd Sarah Streater (Flagler Beach, Fla.) and Matthew Whitehead (Panama City, Fla.)
3rd Taylor Reiss and Sarah Lihan (New York, N.Y.)
4th Sandra Tartaglino (Long Beach, Calif.) and Jonathan Farrar (Boston, Mass.)

Men’s RS:X (20 boats):

16th Carson Crain (Houston , Texas)
19th Raul Lopez (Miami, Fla.)
20th Christopher Waldo (Gainesville, Fla.)

Women’s RS:X:

9th Marion Lepert (Belmont, Fla.)
10th Kathleen Tocke (Miami, Fla.)
13th Margot Samson (Bellair, Fla.)
14th Solvig Sayre (Vineyard Haven, Mass.)

Sonar:

2nd Americans Andy Fisher (Greenwich, Conn.), Mike Hersey (Hyannis, Mass.) and Ryan Levinson
3rd Rick Doerr (Clifton, N.J.), Brad Kendell (St. Petersburg, Fla.) and Hugh Freund (Boston, Mass.)