Tough, rough and exhilarating conditions showed up in Biscayne Bay on the last day at the Bacardi Invitational Regatta for the thrill of the 524 sailors gathered in Miami for this world-renowned event. An average 15 knots breeze, with gusts of over 20 knots, tested teams and served up a spectacular last day of racing for sailors and the spectator flotilla following the racing. Two final races took place for the J/70 fleet, where Eat Sleep J Repeat (Paul Ward / Ruairidh Scott / Ben Saxton / Mario Trindade) maintained their leading position with one win and a seventh. Surge (Ryan McKillen / John Wallace / Sam Loughborough / Mark Mendelblatt) ended their regatta in second overall. Midlife Crisis placed third (Bruce Golison / Steve Hunt / Jeff Reynolds / Erik Shampain) after delivering the best race performance of the day, back-to-back second place finishes. The other race win went to the team on Catapult (Joel Ronning / Patrick Wilson / Christopher Stoke / Paul Brotherton) who claimed fourth overall. “It is great fun for us to come race up here,” commented Paul Ward, helm of Eat Sleep J Repeat who are the reigning J/70 World Champions. “And winning is the icing on the cake, or it’s the 10-year-old Bacardi Rum on top of everything else! The hardest thing for us was to keep the boat going faster upwind with this kind of chop and the big gusts coming from the north. We don’t sail them much back home, and we are not good with them. It was also tough to play catch up with our American friends.” The spectacular finale prize-giving at Shake a Leg Miami followed by the renowned Bacardi after-party brought the 2020 Bacardi Invitational Regatta to a close. For complete event details, visit https://bacardiinvitational.com/.