With the top 3 spot already decided, the close battle was for fourth with Nahuel and Mateus Iasaac only 3 points apart.
Race committee sent us to the water at 1:00pm, the winds were light, around 6 to 10 knots, so they sent us to shore close to the race start to wait for the wind. It looked like it was not going to fill in, but then it came and came strong, with gusts getting close to the 28 knots near the mountains.
3 minutes before the start, I jumped in the water to make my boom longer and one of my boom back end cleat came of and sank straight away.
I sailed to shore and had to go pick up another cleat from another boom at the club, so I did not race, but had a good time watching the guys racing.
The start was amazing with so much wind, a few guys got slammed, while the top guys kept their board in the water and were flying.
Paulo and Gonzalo had a very close race, they rounded the upwind mark almost together and kept close to each other all the time. On the last downwind, Gonzalo was leading, and jibed at the bottom mark very overpowered with paulo jibing around him on the edge of control as well. Both came totally overpowered on the reach to the finish, Paulo on 12 and Gonzalo on 11, at one point it looked like they were going to crash into each other, as Paulo came from bellow and Gonzalo was bearing to try and cover. In the end Paulo won by no more than 1 board length ahead of Gonzalo in second.
Third place came Nahuel, followed by Mateus Issac who managed to hold on to his 12.0.
On the second and last race for the event (15 races in total), the wind got a bit lighter, but still some nice 20 knots gust were around the course but also some 12 knots holes.
3 or 4 sailors started on port while the rest of the fleet went starboard. Gonzalo rounded in first followed by Paulo and myself, close behind was Mathias Pinheiro and Marcos Murgio who has also been having some good races.
On the downwind no change and as we went to the last upwind, Paulo got closer to Gonzalo with a good shift and back on his 10.0. Gonzalo manage to control the lead and open on the downwind to take his 12 bullet of the event, Paulo had to double jibe on the downwind and lost a bit of ground but manage to finish in second, followed by myself 10 meter behind and Mathias Pinheiro in Fourth and Murgio in fifth.
Nahuel manage to hold of Mateus and take the 4th position overall followed by Mateus Isaac in 5th, Mathias Pinheiro in 6th and Marcos Murgio in 7th. Full results should be posted soon.
It was a great South Americans and Mendoza once again proved to be a fantastic spot where the wind has never failed yet on a formula competition.
Tonight there will be the awards in Mendoza town followed by a big party.
Special thanks to all the organizers, friendly people and sailors of Mendoza, who always make a great effort to welcome us from out of town and last but no least, the race comity, who did a fantastic job everyday.
—
Wilhelm Schurmann
bra999@gmail.com
