The Cayard Chronicles - Happy With 5th Place; Freddy Loof Wins
2004 Star World Championship
Gaeta, Italy April 28-May 2

We got the final race in just 30 minutes before the end of the time limit. It was a light air race-6-8 knots from 240. The course for today was three windward legs and two leeward legs.

We had a good start again and quickly found ourselves with six boats at the front of the fleet. We maneuvered our way around them and led at the first mark. Down the first run, we made a mistake in letting the two boats nearest us gybe first. The pressure filled a bit form their side and there was some current as well that swept us down to the mark. So we rounded that first leeward mark third.

The course was pretty much a one-way race track to the right and it was hard to pass. Very near the finish we had gotten ourselves into second only to lose it again to the Danes to our right.

Anyway it was a strong way to finish the series, second from yesterday and third for today . . . yesterday in 18 knots and today in 8 knots. It moved us into a tie for fourth overall which we lost to Mark Neelman (NED) because he had two first places.

Freddy Loof and Anders Eckstrom won the World Championship. That was two times in four years for Freddy. As Loof had an eighth as his worst race and Percy (GBR) had a 22nd, Freddy sailed the two of them down the standings by covering Percy and driving the two of them back. The last race became their discard. That moved Marazzi (SUI) into second and Percy third.

We were pretty happy with our fifth after breaking the mast on the first day. We had very good speed upwind in all conditions. But we also made some mistakes this week and we were not sailing as well as we did in the trials. In both of the last two races I made small but crucial errors that took us out of first place which we held at the first windward marks. That was frustrating to see but maybe it is hard to maintain the focus and intensity that we had in the trials.

I feel that I may never have sailed as well as I
did in the trials. I will need to devise a plan to get back in that mode for Athens. The Europeans are definitely the class of the class right now but we are not that far off the pace. We will keep training hard trying to narrow that gap.

We packed the boat up and got a ride from some friends to Rome. The boat is going back to the builder, Danilo Folli in Madello de Lario (Lake Como) for a refit. Phil will pick it up on May 20, with a new mast or two, and head to Holland for the SPA regatta.

Going to sleep now and getting up at 0530 to fly to SFO.

Paul Cayard

visit http://www.starworld2004.com/ for full results.