Day 1 Report: Heavy Lifting in Light Air
It started out a perfect day on Biscayne Bay, with sunshine and 12 knots of breeze, but those conditions gave way to struggling light winds by late afternoon, when several of the ten Olympic and three Paralympic classes at the Rolex Miami OCR regatta were trying to finish opening day races. The six-day event is the second of seven ISAF Sailing World Cup regattas and the only one of those to be sailed in North America. In its 23rd edition, it is hosting 529 sailors from 41 countries sailing on 354 boats.

One team who doesn't have to worry about snagging an Olympic berth is Miami's own Mark Mendelblatt and Brian Fatih, who finished a solid 3-4 today in the Star class to take second overall on tied points with Sweden's leader Fredrik Loof/Max Salminen. They were named to the USA's 2012 Olympic Sailing Team after they recently finished third in their World Championship. "This is not a major regatta for us in the same regard, but we definitely want to train and improve our standing in the World Cup,' said Fatih, adding that this will be his first time to the Olympics after four times trying and Mendelblatt's second (in Laser class).

For Loof/Salminen, today they practiced "no risk" sailing. "We were not hitting the corners or anything, just one thing at a time," said Loof, who added that he even wisely held back, but only "a bit," for the second start, which was black-flagged (meaning any boats over the line prematurely would be disqualified). "Our two goals were to have good starts and hold the lane for a while to control our own destiny on the first shift."

Day Three report:
"It's looking pretty exciting," said Brazil's Star sailor Robert Scheidt, who with crew Bruno Prada has perhaps one of the most impressive sailing records here. (Together, they are two-time Olympic medalists and just off their second straight title win at the Star World Championships). "Some of the guys who have already got a spot in the Olympics are here and they are really sailing well." No one has been proving that theory better than Sweden's Fredrik Loof/Max Salminen who yesterday trailed Scheidt/Prada by two points and today tied on points with the Brazilians after finishing 6- 2 to their 3-7. With both teams posting 26 points, Norway's Eivind Melleby/ Petter Moerland Pedersen are nipping at their heels with only 29 points.

"Today we didn't have a great day," added Scheidt. "The first race was good because we were coming from behind, but the second race we wanted to start at the boat and got jammed there, so we had to start behind the pack and play catch-up the whole race. We managed to hold our lead, but there are still two races to go until the medal race. "

As will happen at the Olympics, only the top-ten boats after tomorrow's racing will be allowed to progress to Saturday's single medal race, which will determine gold, silver and bronze medals.

Day Four:
In Star class, the neck-and-neck race between Brazil’s Robert Scheidt/Bruno Prada and Sweden’s Fredrik Loof/Max Salminen was further complicated by Norway’s Eivind Melleby/ Petter Moerland Pedersen when that team won the first of two races today. With the Brazilians taking fourth and the Swedes taking third, the performance tied Melleby/Pedersen with Scheidt/Prada going into the second race, while Loof/Salminen had a one-point edge on their closest competitors. The nod went to Scheidt/Prada in the end, however, when the Brazilians, who are the current World champions, won the second race, putting Loof/Salminen two points behind them in fourth (with 33 points) and Melleby/Pedersen in third (38 points).

Melleby had said earlier in the week that the top ten here are so good that getting to the medal race would be tough. “We have here nine of the top 15 teams from Perth (where the most recent World Championships were held), so the fleet is quite strong.” With five of those now off the final-race roster, Melleby’s goal tomorrow will be to power through for a podium position.

Medal Race:
In the lightest breezes yet over six days of sailing on Biscayne Bay, Robert Scheidt and Bruno Prada, won the gold after finishing third in today’s medal race. "When you go into the medal race, many guys can win," said Scheidt. "You cannot focus only on one guy, so our strategy was to try to make a clean start, especially with speed, because the wind was very light; that was more important than getting to the favored end."

Sneaking into the top-three overall, where they had not been all week, was France’s Xavier Rohart/Pierre Alexis Ponso, who finished second today. The performance secured them the silver medal with just the edge they needed over the bronze medalists Eivind Melleby/ Petter Moerland Pedersen (NOR), who finished sixth today and also had been in third at racing’s end yesterday. Losing what seemed to be a sure podium position going into today was Fredrik Loof/Max Salminen’s (SWE), who finished eighth in the medal race and fell to fourth overall from second yesterday, only one point out of medal reach.

"The wind made a big shift to the left on the first beat," said Scheidt, "but we weren’t there. We were trying to cover the Swedish, and then we were able to tack on them two times and bounce them to the right. Then the left paid big, and we managed to round sixth at the top mark. From then on our race was a little more comfortable, but we were still afraid of the French who were doing really well. We climbed to fourth, and they were in third; in the end, we nailed a third and the French got second."