Report by Fernanda Sesto

On the 6th of January the South American Championship began at the Club Nautico Olivos in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Twenty six boats from 6 countries participated: Argentina, Brasil, USA, Canada, Chile and Italy.

The races began at 14:00 pm and 2 races of about 2 hours each were completed. The wind was 6 knots from the NE going to the ESE in the afternoon.

Lars Grael and Marco Lagoa won the first race, followed by Robert Scheidt and Bruno Prada. In the second race the Argentines Julio Labandeira and Valentin Thompson were first with second again being Robert Scheidt and Bruno Prada.

On January 7th, 2005, all the races were cancelled because of strong wind and thunderstorms. At 13:30 the race committee had 5 knots from the NE, so they prepared to start the race at 14:00 pm. The race started with these conditions, but was cancelled after 2 minutes because the wind changed more than 30 degrees and went down to less than 3 knots. The weather forecast was not very good as strong winds with heavy rain was expected, so the race officer, Juan Reinoso, cancelled racing for the day.

January 8: As races were cancelled on Jan. 7, the starting time for Saturday, Jan. 8th, changed to 11:00 am. Fortunately the weather conditions were very good with wind from the SE of 9 to 10 knots.

The Brazilians Lars Grael and Marco Lagoa won the first race followed by the Argentines Chometowski and Celedoni. During this race the wind had been shifting from the ESE to the SSE, and vacillating between 6-10 knots. These were not easy conditions for sailing and it took two hours for the first boat to complete the four legs of this race.

At 14:00 pm, just before the start of the second race, the wind direction changed from the SE to the E, so the race committee had to reset the course. Half an hour later the fourth race of the South American Championship started, with 6 knots of wind from the East. The wind was very shifty, going from E to N and then to the NE causing the positions of the boats to change in all the legs. The 5 leg race took more than two hours to complete with finally the Argentines MacGowan – Calegari crossing the finishing line first followed by the Italians Tamburini- Ricci.

After having some drinks Fabian MacGowan told us, "It was a very shifty race, I am very happy to win because it was not easy". We also spoke with Lars Grael about the races who thought that the wind shifts made the races more difficult.

On Jan 9 Lars Grael – Marco Lagoa had a first and a second in the two races sailed on the last day to win the championship over Robert Scheidt/Bruno Prada. Scheidt/Prada won the tie breaker with Julio Labandeira/Valentin Thompson as both teams had 15 points after one discard.

It was another difficult day of racing beginning at 11:30 with the first race starting with 10 knots from the South. During the race the wind went up and down between 4 and 10 knots. It took more than 2 hours for Robert Scheidt and Bruno Prada to win the race, followed by Grael – Lagoa.