Star Class Honoring the Past, Leading the Future
It took four start attempts for Race Two to get off at the 2024 Star World Championship in San Diego, California – a frustrating beginning to a day that the fleet will remember as a very difficult one. During the two laps of the windward/leeward course, they had to keep their cool while the weather played tricks on them.
The wind off the coast of Silver Strand, just south of San Diego, was fickle and shifty. A good 10-12 knot breeze welcomed the fleet on the racecourse at around 1230, but right after the third start sequence, an hour and two general recalls later, it died within 2 minutes, leaving half of the fleet floating on the left side of the line. That same side was then the favored one in the fourth, and actual, start of Race Two. That is where local skipper Will Stout with crew Danny Cayard took off from. A good first beat playing the shifts and they were comfortably leading at the top mark, followed by local legend Eric Doyle with Payson Infelise. By the gate, their margin had at least doubled, and so on until the finish, which they crossed several minutes before Doyle and Infelise.
“We got off on the left side of the line and just had a little bit more pressure than everybody else, then we took it to the right side and then it was just about tacking left and right to stay in the pressure,” started Will Stout.
“The pressure was up and down and left and right all day today, and we really tried to keep our heads out of the boat, talking constantly with each other. It seemed to continuedly pay for us, and we were looking at our competitors, there's no slouches out there, so we tried and use what they were doing to our advantage, and we were able to put one together today,” added Danny Cayard.
Stout and Cayard are second overall thanks to two very good days, while Doyle and Infelise are the provisional leaders of the 2024 Star World Championship, even though, like everyone cares to underline, the road is still long and the trophy far away.
“There were very trying conditions, especially for the Race Committee today, they did a fantastic job. The wind was shifting around, it was quite up and down at a lot of different wind directions from the either the pin end or the weather end,” commented Doyle. “It was very challenging, we had several recalls and a race abandoned because the wind died in our face, so basically it went from zero to 12 knots at times. You had to hook the puffs together, play the left, but watch out for big right shifts and work hard downwind. Kudos to Will and Danny, they had a big race and won, but after two days we're happy of our performance, we're chipping away and things are going well.”
For a handful of very happy teams, like Augie Diaz (USA) and Bruno Prada (BRA) who went from 16th place to 4th place, there were many struggling on the racecourse. Huge distances separated them and everyone was looking for that puff that just wasn’t coming, like Olympian Jon Dane III and Peter Sangmeister (USA), who finished in 9th yesterday and 35th today. Or, even worse, Continental Champion Tomas Hornos (USA) and Mauricio Bueno (BRA), who finished 10th in Race One and 56th in Race Two.
Nonetheless, no angry faces were spotted at the after-sail refreshments at the San Diego Yacht Club, the Championship is not even halfway through and after four races the throw out comes in. After a long day, competitors were welcomed to a dockside social, followed by a Gin tasting at the Club and a North Sails panel.
