ASB Finn finishes 5th in Rolex Miami OCR

by Dan Slater on 28 Jan 2007 Dan Slater reports on the final day of the Finn Class at the Rolex Miami OCR, where he sailed the Medal Race after being in sixth place overall:

They couldn’t have put our medal race any further away for the launching site today, it took me one hour to get to the course.

We sailed on a small course close to the farthest away shore line, which was just under the Biscayne bridge. This made for some tricky racing in the 10 knot breeze.

I started down on the pin end wanting the first shift from the left hand side of the course which all worked out well. Halfway up the beat I could see the whole fleet through the window in my sail. The breeze then died and clocked 35 degrees to the right enabling the whole fleet to tack and cross me. I rounded the first mark in 9th from only 10 boats, by the bottom mark I was 8th and the only positive was that the Dutch guy was in 10th, and I needed to get 2 boats between us to beat him overall. Up the next beat I went from 8th to 4th and back to 6th in the shifty conditions, but then nothing really changed down the run to the finish.

Overall I finished 5th which was a good result and I had some real positives with some improved downwinds and some really good performances in the light air.

Next week we have another regatta, the Finn Mid Winter Championships 30 miles north of Miami, in Ft Lauderdale Feb 1-4.

Dan