ISAF Sailing World Cup Miami - US Sailing team on Day 2

by Will Ricketson on 29 Jan 2015 On day 2 of ISAF Sailing World Cup Miami, Presented by Sunbrella, the rainstorms of yesterday vanished but the excellent wind conditions remained in place on Biscayne Bay. A more conventional day of racing saw US Sailing Team Sperry athletes finish the day in the top 10 in 5 Olympic classes and 2 Paralympic classes.

In the Laser Radial, American sailors continue to populate much of the top 10, with Paige Railey (5th overall), Haddon Hughes (7th) and Erika Reineke (10th) showing speed and tactical adaptability in the physically challenging conditions. 'I pretty much stayed the same today in terms of position, but I’m happy with how it’s going,' said Railey. 'It was very shifty out there today, and you needed to pay attention to what was happening on the other side of the course to stay out of trouble.'

World ranked #2 Finn sailor Caleb Paine (San Diego, Calif.) started off the event with a bit of misfortune, suffering a broken boom on the first day of racing. Paine bounced back on Tuesday with two keeper scores to jump up to seventh overall. 'That boom was probably a bit too old, and the breakdown was tough,' said Paine. 'Today was much better though. I felt good, and got two decent scores. Equipment failures are difficult to anticipate, but starting slow is a pattern I need to work on. It happened at [the 2014 ISAF Sailing World Championships] last Fall, and even though I recovered to seventh at that event I’ve been working with my coaches [Olympic silver medalist] Brian Ledbetter and [multiple medal-winning coach] Luther Carpenter on how to address it. We will keep grinding.'

In the women’s 470 fleet, the US Sailing Team Sperry’s Annie Haeger and Briana Provancha rose to eighth overall after a consistent day of top-10 finishes. 'Miami is delivering great breeze, that’s for sure,' noted Provancha. 'We are sailing the boat quite well but it’s not showing as much in the results just yet. We are excited to keep testing our speed against the best in the world this week!

In the men’s 49er class, Brad Funk (Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.) and Trevor Burd (Marblehead, Mass.) went from 19th overall to 10th on day 2, noting that their added emphasis on heavy-air training was paying off. 'We definitely identified it as a weakness after the Worlds, so we’ve been taking advantage of whatever windy days we can get,' said Burd. 'We’ve always been confident in our speed in breeze, so we are focusing on being clean with the boat handling to get where we need to be. We were also happy to make it out of [notably stormy] yesterday with no flips and no damage as well.'

In the Paralympic Sonar class, the venerable team of disabled world champion Rick Doerr (Clifton, N.J.) and crew Hugh Freund (South Freeport, Maine) and Brad Kendell (Tampa, Fla.) sit in fourth overall after two days of solid finishes. 'A few more top three scores tomorrow will hopefully put us in some leader jerseys,' said Freund.

Notable US Results, Overall: Day 1

Full Results (The ISAF scoring page is currently experiencing intermittent technical difficulties): http://bit.ly/1CtjaBY
Sonar (10 boats)

Rick Doerr, Brad Kendell and Hugh Freund, fourth overall

Laser Radial Women

Paige Railey, fifth overall
Haddon Hughes, seventh overall
Erika Reineke, 10th overall

2.4mR (17 boats)

Daniel Evans, fifth overall
Charlie Rosenfield, seventh overall
John Ruf, eighth overall

Finn Heavyweight Men (40 boats):

Caleb Paine, seventh overall

470 Women (30 boats):

Annie Haeger and Briana Provancha, eighth overall

RS:X Women:

Marion Lepert, 10th overall

49er Men (54 boats)

Brad Funk and Trevor Burd, 10th overall

Laser Men (103 boats):

Charlie Buckingham, 18th overall

470 Men (42 boats):

Stuart McNay and David Hughes, 18th overall