The weather front that was expected to sweep through Biscayne Bay after racing on Saturday, March 12 arrived early with the strong wind forcing racing to be cancelled for all classes at 0900 hours on the final day of the Bacardi Cup Invitational Regatta. Superb winds for the preceding days delivered neck and neck races for Classes, including the J/70. Six races over two days demands huge focus and determined teamwork, so no surprise to see five different winners across the 39-boat J/70 fleet. Only the ultimate winner, Paul Ward (GBR) on Eat Sleep J Repeat, managed to win twice, and after discarding their 17th place in race 4 counted an all top-three scorecard. Second overall to the USA’s Daniel Goldberg’s Bazinga and third to Great Britain’s Charles Thompson’s Brutus III with a tiebreak for third and fourth. “We love this event, it is always great fun,” said Ward, who also won in 2020. “It is fantastic to win it again. We have a new team, and it is really good to be out here and going well. We have some really good sailors on the boat, and we just managed to get going really fast. Charlie was getting us going in the right direction, and Matt and Elliot were keeping the boat going fast.” On their strategy to success, Ward commented, “We all know what the things are you have to do well; it is just about executing. We got off the starts quite well, and then you have a bunch of options about what you need to do. We only made one mistake in terms of which way we went. Our upwind set-up felt really good; downwind speed felt good. It is perfect; this is a really well-run event. Everyone looks after us really well and just makes sure we have a good time. We will definitely be back next year.” Marcos Soares of Brazil and his crew on Capincanela won the Corinthian category, finishing 14th overall.
Final Top 5 Results:
- Paul Ward/Charlie Cumbley/Elliot Willis/Matt Howard (GBR 1127) – 10 pts
- Daniel Goldberg/Lucas Calabrese/Tomas Hornos/Kristen Berry (USA 84) – 17 pts
- Charles Thompson/Craig Burlton/Ben Saxton/Chris Grube (GBR 1123) – 21 pts
- Ignacio Perez/Santiago Perez/Juan Ignacio Perez/Moritz Spitzauer (MEX 1323) – 32 pts
- Robert Hughes/River Paquin/Stefano Ciampalini/Paul Goodison (USA 353) – 32 pts
For complete results, visit https://yachtscoring.com/event_results_cumulative.cfm?eid=14633.