Richard Clarke and Tyler Bjorn at Rolex Miami OCR with Magic Marine

by Lynn Fitzpatrick on 27 Jan 2011 January 25, 2011 (Miami, FL) – Richard Clarke and Tyler Bjorn (CAN) are considering renaming their Clarke/Bjorn Sailing Team to Misters Consistency during the 2011 Rolex Miami Olympic Classes Regatta, the only ISAF World Cup event in North America. The red-hot Canadians posted straight 6’s during the first three races of the Grade 1 regatta. They were eighth in the fourth race. It is always difficult to stay at the top of a Star fleet, but with a fleet of 59 top gun teams from around the world fighting it out on Biscayne Bay staying in the top ten in every race and getting the same score is très rare!

Clarke/Bjorn Sailing Team’s dogged consistency has them moving up the leader board with each race. With the completion of four races of the ten scheduled races plus a double point medal race on Saturday, January 29th, the team is in fourth place.

'We felt a little sticky yesterday in the short chop. It was difficult, yet we know that we are improving with every race. We were always one of the first teams to reach the first mark, but we would lose boats on the downwind legs. Tyler has been doing a great job working the boat really hard throughout all of the races. We changed our weight placement in the boat today and we think that helped,' said Clarke.

The Clarke/Bjorn Sailing Team is riding a high from their recent victory in the IRC-1 Division at Key West 2011 aboard Vela Velocé, Richard Oland’s Southern Cross 52. As with Clarke/Bjorn’s PStar, Vela Velocé proudly flies Canada’s red maple leaf and is consistently at the top of the leader board at US-IRC events. Clarke and Bjorn have spent much of the New Year in Florida at various Star, offshore and big boat events and they have collected prizes everywhere they have been.

Magic Marine is the latest sponsor to join the Clarke/Bjorn Sailing Team. Magic Marine, known for its development of top-level products for all conditions and types of sailing, launched its Coastal Collection in 2009 to include all sport boats, keelboats, and maxis. The global brand singled out the Clarke/Bjorn Sailing Team as its ambassadors in reintroducing its brand throughout North America. Said Carrie Howe, an Olympian and the company’s Marketing Manager, 'Richard Clarke and Tyler Bjorn are outstanding competitors and have demonstrated their performance in a broad range of sailing disciplines. They are good people with a great attitude and they are very professional. We are proud to be associated with them.'

Bjorn, who has been wearing his neoprene hooded team jacket to and from the race course during these unseasonably cold and cloudy days in Miami said, 'That jacket is the bomb. I’ve never been so cozy out on the water. Honestly, teaming up with Magic Marine is yet another piece of the puzzle that keeps fitting together so well. We are very happy to be associated with Magic Marine and look forward to a long relationship with them.'

Wind Athletes Canada and the Canadian Yachting Association sponsor the Clarke/Bjorn Sailing Team. Magic Marine joins Yale Cordage and Kaenon Polarized as the team’s gear sponsors.

Preliminary Scores - Star -2011 Rolex Miami Olympic Classes Regatta following 4 races

1. Scheidt, Robert/Prada, Bruno (BRA) 1, 2, 9 -12.00
2. Rohart, Xavier/Ponsot, Pierre Alexis (FRA) 7, 7, 1 -15.00
3. Loof, Fredrik/Salminen, Max (SWE) - 5 ,3,7 -15.00
4. Clarke, Richard/Bjorn, Tyler (CAN) – 6, 6 ,6 -18.00
5. Mendelblatt, Mark /Fatih, Brian (USA) - 4 ,4,18 - 26.00

See http://www.ussailing.org/Rolex/2011/star/star.html for complete results.