| Day
4: U.S. Olympic Star Class Trials - Cayard Drops
Mast, Then Wins Both Races
Tuesday's
wind: NE, 18-22 knots.
No racing Wednesday (lay day).
By
Rich Roberts
For YachtRacing.com
Photo boat captain Daryl Saunders.
MIAMI,
Fla.---Not quite halfway through the U.S. Olympic
Trials for the Star class it appears that the only
two guys who can stop Paul Cayard and crew Phil
Trinter from winning the sole prize trip to Athens
are . . . Cayard and Trinter.
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Paul
Cayard and crew Phil Trinter greet Bill Parks,
a U.S. bronze medallist in the Star class
of the Olympics at Naples in 1960. Parks later
watched Cayard and Trinter win both races
Tuesday. Photo © Rich Roberts / YachtRacing.com
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And
they nearly did so Tuesday, before winning both
races to extend their lead to 14 points over Vince
Brun/Mike Dorgan and 15 over George Szabo/Mark Strube
after 7 or 16 scheduled races.
"We
basically broke our mast on the way out to the course,"
Cayard said.
Oh,
is that all?
They
had just exited the harbor into windy Biscayne Bay
when the backstay slipped out of its cleat and their
Olympic campaign almost came tumbling down. If it
had happened later---say, late in the first race,
with no time to change before the second race---the
event would be looking at new leaders over the midway
break for a lay day Wednesday.
Instead,
they got a quick tow back in and replaced the mast
in only 17 minutes.
"What's
good is we kept our composure and were settled down
at the starting line," Cayard said.
Composure
was an asset on a day when the wind was blowing
so hard---a steady 20 knots-plus, touching 29 at
one point---that the race committee held the boats
ashore for an hour and a half until 11:30 a.m. when
it seemed to be settling at 20.
From
there, after the mast hiccup, Cayard and Trinter
scored their second and third wins by nine seconds
over Brun/Dorgan and 20 seconds over Szabo/Strube.
Their log of finishes in the 22-boat fleet now reads
2-(6)-1-2-3-1-1.
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Fighting
upwind in 20 knots of breeze, (from left) George
Szabo/Mark Strube, Howie Shiebler/Will Stout
and Paul Cayard/Phil Trinter. Photo © Rich
Roberts / YachtRacing.com
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The
latter teams moved up a notch as Eric Doyle and
crew Brian Sharp, who won the first two races Saturday,
dropped to fourth overall with their worst two finishes,
10th and 12th. More significant was their involvement
with Mark Reynolds in an incident at the start of
the second race that set back the four-time Olympian
and triple medallist just as he appeared to be finding
his stride.
Reynolds,
with crew Steve Erickson, made his move from seventh
place overall by chasing Reynolds Cayard across
the finish line for second place in the first race.
But in the pre-start maneuvering for the second
race Reynolds found himself squeezed off between
Doyle and the committee boat.
When
they touched, the foul was on the windward boat---Reynolds---requiring
a 720-degree penalty turn (two complete circles)
as the fleet sailed away. Reynolds/Erickson did
well to come back to 15th place but actually moved
up a notch to sixth in the standings.
"He
was just 'barging' and hit us," Doyle said.
Reynolds
and Erickson didn't deny guilt but thought Doyle
pressed his rules advantage a bit too far when he
could have accelerated away with the gun.
"Basically,"
Reynolds said, "he put us in a position where
the only way you can get out [without fouling] is
to tack [the other way]"---which would have
been almost as costly as a penalty turn.
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Downwind
legs in close quarters were wild Tuesday. Bunched
up are (from left) John MacCausland/Brad Nichol
(8184), Andrew MacDonald/Austin Sperry (8184),
John Dean/Henry Sprague (7832), Karl Anderson/Ezra
Culver (8177) and John Virtue/Scott Pack (7862).
Photo © Rich Roberts / YachtRacing.com
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With
the strongest breeze so far, the race committee
set a longer windward-leeward course and sailed
it twice around.
Cayard
had two strong starts. In the first race he picked
his favorite spot at the pin end and led Reynolds
on the second upwind leg as they met from opposite
sides of the course at the windward mark. They both
passed early leaders Andy Lovell/Magnus Liljedahl,
then Cayard covered Reynolds all the way home.
In
the second race Cayard started near the middle of
the line and led at every mark without being seriously
challenged.
With
a lay day Wednesday, the RC hopes to return with
three races Thursday to get the event back on schedule
for the last four days into Sunday.
Leaders
(22 boats, 7 of 16 races, one discard):
1.
Paul Cayard/Phil Trinter, San Francisco, 2-(6)-1-2-3-1-1,
10. points. 2. Vince Brun/Mike Dorgan, San Diego,
(23/OCS)-9-2-1-4-5-3, 24. 3. George Szabo/Mark Strube,
San Diego, 4-5-(14)-9-14-2, 25. 4. Eric Doyle/Brian
Sharp, San Diego, 1-1-9-8-5-10-(12), 34. 5. John
MacCausland/Brad Nichol, Cherry Hill, N.J., 6-8-3-6-10-(15)-5,
38. 6. Mark Reynolds/Steve Erickson, San Diego,
5-2-10-7-13-2-(15), 39. 7. Howie Shiebler/Will Stout,
San Francisco, 3-3-6-(23/OCS)-12-9-6, 39. 8. Rick
Merriman/Bill Bennett, San Diego, 7-4-(17)-13-2-7-9,
42. 9. Andrew MacDonald/Austin Sperry, Laguna Beach,
Calif., 11-7-5-4-6-(13)-10, 43. 10. Andy Lovell/Magnus
Liljedahl, New Orleans, (23/OCS)-23/DNS-4-3-11-3-7,
51.
Complete
standings: www.ussailing.org/olympics/olympictrials/2004
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