US open Corpus Christi
This year, the traditional US Open at Corpus Christi Texas, that was held from the 11th to the 13th of May, was a little bit different from what everyone is used to. The strong winds that usually fill the bay, was replaced by very light winds on the first day and hardly any wind on the last two days.
Sailors from all over the US came for the event, including the strong San Francisco and Miami fleet. From outside the US, Gonzalo from Argentina and me (Wilhelm) from Brazil came straight from the Portimao grand Prix and met up with another sailor, Mathias Pinheiro that flew in from Brazil. AUS 7, Phil Mcgain, made the trip from Maui and all together we where around 30 competitors.
Since the forecast didn’t look good, Doug Hung who was doing the race comity, kept us on standby and ready to go at any minute. Around 3pm, the wind filled in around 7-8 knots and the postponement flag was lowered. There was a bit of a misunderstanding with most sailors on this, as on the race instructions, it was said that not less than 5 minutes after lowering the AP, the warning signal would come up. As the winds where light, we asked for a little more time, and the race committee said it would give us 10 minutes, but most of us didn’t realize that, that was for the start of the race, in other words, all remained the same. The result was, 6 people making it to the start in time.
Gonzalo and I started about 30 seconds behind going to port, with Gonzalo about 15 meters ahead of me. The course was super short (around 4-5 minutes) and a mini one lapper was set because of the light fluky winds. Gonzalo tacked in front of me and I went a bit more and tacked as well, on the other side of the course, Seth Besse was leading with Mathias Pinheiro and Steve Bodner following. Gonzalo rounded the mark in first with Seth, followed by Mathias, me and Bodner. On the small dowind, Gonzalo and I had a better advantage with the 11.8 sails, as most of the sailors, used to the strong winds in corpus, brought 11.0 as biggest, with this Gonzalo took the win, followed by Seth, myself and Mathias.
We started a second race, but as I rounded the bottom mark in first, the wind just stopped completely due to a rain squall and the race was abandoned. After a long wait, the wind came back up again and we went again. I started at the boat with Gonzalo close behind, when I tacked, Gonza did the same and it was a fight to the top mark. We rounded 1 meter apart from one another and on the downwind he jibed early and I kept going. When we met again, to round the bottom mark and head to the finish, he was 5 meters ahead of me and took the win on another short race with Phil Mcgain close in third.
For the 3rd race, the winds where extremely light, with holes down to 4 knots in some spots and shifting directions quite a lot. At the start, I manage to get away with Mike Z ML and Seth, while the rest of the fleet just couldn’t get of the start, I kept looking back, thinking that the race would be canceled for sure, but it didn’t, so I kept going. When I tacked, the wind shifted a lot and Seth who tacked earlier almost sailed back to the start. With 2 laps for this race, Gonzalo came back from starting way behind to take the win by a few meters ahead of me followed by Mike Z ML in 3 rd.
The following 2 days, the winds just didn’t come up, and we ended up not being able to do the speed nor the slalom.
The final results after 3 races an no discard where:
1.Gonzalo Costa ARG 3
2.Wilhelm Schurmann BRA 999
3.Seth Besse USA 64
4.Mike Z ML
5.Phil Mcgain AUS 7
6.Steve Bodner USA 4
7. Percy US VYV
Steve Bodner USA 4 has a good report and here is the link if you want to check it out:
http://www.stevebodner.blogspot.com/
For pictures go to:
http://www.cbrphoto.com/ww07/windsurf/index.html
Special thanks to the new organizer who had 2 short month to get everything ready after they took over.
Regards,
Wilhelm Schurmann BRA999
