Southern Star reports from Cascais

by Hamish Pepper on 10 Jul 2007
Hamish Pepper reports on the Southern Star campaign from the 2007 World Championships in Cascais:

Hi all

Just a quick email to let you know that Carl and I finished 4th in the ISAF Star World Championships, Cascais, Portugal. Although we didn’t defend our World title from last year the major goal was to qualify a star spot for New Zealand in the 2008 Olympics.

The Star class will only have 15 entries so to get 1 of the 11 up for grabs this year and not have the pressure of the final 4 spots in 2008. This is a major plus and first step towards achieving a medal in China.

Unfortunately there was no medal race today due to 30+ knots of wind so our over night standings stayed the same. We certainly made it tough on ourselves to defend the title with our lack of build up. This was due to firstly Carl’s commitments with BMW Oracle, then with me not foreseeing their early exit from the Americas cup and having planned other sailing for myself. So all in all we only managed about 8 days in the boat prior to our first race. Not ideal but at least I had my No.1 crew back!!!

Robert Scheidt and Bruno Prada from Brazil won the World title with some excellent sailing. Xavier Rohart and Pascal Rambeau were close behind in 2nd with Ian Percy and Andrew Simpson in 3rd. All Olympic medalist and world champions of the past years.

From here we drive back to Valencia and load our boats into a container and send them to Miami in preparation for the end of this year and next years world championships. In August we head to Qingdao for our first look at the Olympic venue and the pre Olympics.

Thank you all that have helped in many ways to results to date.

regards

Hamish Pepper