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Regatta Reports
Veteran MacCausland adds Gold Star to his impressive collection
By Star Worlds 2013
Sep 8, 2013, 13:33

Photo by Mark Albertazzi.


After a long, very challenging final race, John MacCausland and Phil Trinter have been named the new International Star Class World Champions! Phil has won before (1993 at Kiel, Germany, sailing with Joe Londrigan), but John has been amassing 19 Blue Stars (District) and 7 Silver Stars (Continental) while waiting his turn to win the Gold.

You just won the Star Worlds, tell me about today’s race: “Today’s race was difficult, it was emotional, it was up and down emotion-wise because of different things. Rohart rounds the first mark well ahead, and we're back. We're losing. We go around the second mark. Rohart and us go right and we get in a big hole. Now Rohart's back and we're back. No we're winning, and we just had to let mother nature take care of it for us. And fortunately some of our good friends were able to stay ahead of Rohart and it was all good. It was a rollercoaster of emotions, but I was very thrilled with the whole thing. It’s really a satisfying accomplishment, a lifetime accomplishment."

Did you ever think it was possible to win the Star Worlds? "I always believed this was possible. I knew given the right situation with the right people I could make it happen. I always had confidence in myself. It might not have looked like it from the outside, but I was always very confident. And the whole program with Phil came together late last year. We did Nassau, the Spring Championship where we were 3rd this year, and I was very confident we could make it happen.

We had a good plan, a good plan on the water. We had a good idea what we wanted to do, and to be honest, we were pretty darn fast through the water. And so our boat speed enabled us to do some things. We liked the right side of the course, we set ourselves up after some of the starts to be there and it benefitted us greatly."

What kind of boat are you sailing? "Our boat was made by Mader, in Germany. I have worked with Mader since 1986 bringing boats into this country. I got this boat in the middle of July, so it’s a brand new boat, the newest boat in the fleet here. It’s a boat that I had a lot of input with, and did it the way I wanted to. I had a boat like this prior to this, but I wanted some changes and I’m very satisfied with how it turned out."

This is the pinnacle of your career. What was your previous most memorable Star event?
"My best Star sailing memory prior to this was the Western Hemisphere Championship in Nassau, Bahamas in 1998 with Phil Trinter, my crew here. We beat Mark Reynolds after he was very successful, and that was very satisfying.

"And I'm also so happy to be eligible to be invited to Nassau for the ever Star Sailors League finals invitational event. SSL are doing a superb job, the class needs new energy and I think they’ll provide that new energy. It's a good thing. Last night at the presentation was phenomenal. It was a lot of great ideas, great thoughts, it was really good."

John is 52 years old and hails from Cherry Hill, New Jersey. He sails out of the Cooper River YC in Collingswood. John has sailed Stars since he was a youngster winning his first Blue Star at age 14. He sails all over the World and has chased this prestigious trophy for years. John is the owner of Morehouse MacCausland Sailing a boat dealership, sail loft and boat repair facility in New Jersey.


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