Early regatta leaders move up leader boards

Monday's opening day of US Sailing's Rolex Miami OCR included all 13 Olympic and Paralympic classes completing multiple races. This is Evi Van Acker, Laser Radial.

Olympian Michael Leigh from Canada won the first of two races in Blue fleet, part of the 104-boat Lasser class, the largest here. He then finished sixth in race two to wind up fifth overall when teh scores were merged.

In the Yellow fleet, Clay Johnson from New Jersey, finished 201 to secure his spot at the top of the leader board. Regatta favorite Paul Goodison from Great Britain, an Olympic Gold medalist, and current leader in world rankings, finished 1-2 to take the second place position.

“The phases were quite long [for shifts to come back] and the pressure was up and down,” Leigh explained about the conditions, adding that he is nursing a bad back. “I haven’t raced since the Worlds in September, so I’m here to get back in phase. I’m not targeting any one person to beat; there are 10 good guys in each fleet who could win, so that’s a few too many
to watch.”


For fleet racing in the Olympic classes, the regatta consists of a five-day opening series and a double-point medal race. Above are Australians Mathew Belcher and Malcolm Page. The top 10 finishers in the opening series of each class will advance to the medal race. For match racing, which makes its debut in the 2012 Olympic Games, the regatta consists of an opening series, a knockout series, and a sail-off for boats not advancing to the knockout series. Competitors in the Paralympic classes will have five days of fleet racing and no medal race. Medals will be awarded to the top three boats in each Olympic and Paralympic class on Saturday.


Above on boat 8255 are Robert Scheidt and Bruno Prada, Star, Brazil on boat 8267 are Mark Mendelblatt and Brian Fatih, Star, USA.

You may have seen the sailors around the village during the day and later at night. They have truly enjoyed shopping, dining and unwinding here. You see them on bicycles, with backpacks and simply walking in groups.

One young sailor with his father was asking for a place to buy a watch, we sent him to H&H Jewels. We have seen them at all the restaurants and they are at the gym and actually, everywhere. So it's nice to see the economy is benefiting with the athletes in town.


This is the 470 Fleet downwind under gray skies.