Marazzi/De Maria lead US Sailing’s Rolex Miami OCR

by Lynn Fitzpatrick on 29 Jan 2008 With 70 boats registered, the Star class is split into two fleets for US Sailing’s Rolex Miami OCR (Rolex MOCR). Both fleets are stacked deeply with talent. Hamish Pepper and Carl Williams (NZL) caught the first right shift of the day and led the 35-boat blue fleet around the entire first race of the Rolex MOCR. Biscayne Bay dealt the 2006 World Champion and his crew a shifty northerly seven to eight knot breeze, a cloudless sky and flat water.

Flavio Marazzi and Enrico de Maria (SUI) had a firm lock on second throughout the race. Used to San Diego’s light and shifty winds, Mark Reynolds and Steve Erikson and George Szabo and Rick Peters were third and fifth, respectively. Freddy Loof and Anders Ekstrom (SWE) were sandwiched between the San Diegans. A string of Europeans including Eivind Melleby and Petter Moreland Pedersen (NOR), Diego Negri and Luigi Viale (ITA) followed.

Marazzi/de Maria popped out in the lead in the second race and finished the day with a rock solid 2/1. Melleby/Pedersen defended their second place position against Pepper/Williams, who settled for third place in the second race. The first day was especially encouraging for Marazzi/deMaria and Melleby/Pedersen because Switzerland and Norway have not yet qualified for the qualified for the Olympics. Pepper, on the other hand, has his hands full with a support crew that has doubled in size over last year. Hamish and Anabel have a four-month old son who loves the attention of his parents and his grandmother. Old friend and crew, David Giles is in town to take care of the rock stars out on the water.

The yellow Star fleet started racing later in the day in the same shifty conditions. Many of the top boats in both fleets found themselves heading out to either layline during the top quarter of the beat and hoping for a favorable shift. Those who got the shift breathed a sigh of relief and those who didn’t, had to scramble to work their way through the fleet during the remainder of the race. Rick Merriman and Brian Sharp (USA) hit the starboard layline first on the first beat of the yellow fleet’s first race and had quite a head start on the run. Rohan Lord and Miles Addy (NZL) fended off Peter Bromby and Lee White (BER) to take second and Mateusz Kusznierewicz and Dominik Zycki (POL) were fourth.

Xavier Rohart and Philippe Rambeau (FRA) had the most convincing victory of the day in their final race. They rounded the first weather mark two boat lengths ahead of Carl and Jim Buchan, but looked as if the hooked a ride on the TGV and extended their lead to over one minute and fifteen seconds he next time around the top mark. They were hooked up to the French Federation’s new RIB by the time Hans Spitzhauer and Christian Nehammer (AUT) and Peter Bromby and Lee White (BER) crossed the finish line in second and third. It was difficult to make big gains and easy to suffer big losses in today’s conditions. The Buchans ended up eleventh in the final race.

Consistency at the top of the blue fleet put Marazzi/de Maria and Pepper/Williams at the top of the combined preliminary score sheet for the day. Merriman/Sharp and Bromby/Williams, the top North Americans, are in third and fourth.