All changed in the weather on the final day at Bacardi Winter Series #2 from January 28-30, with sun and a chilly north northwesterly 7-12 knot breeze. Teams were out on the race track really early to tune up in what was a stable and more even breeze across the course compared to Saturday. But, the breeze dropped away forcing the J/70s to head ashore after just one race, with the series discard intensifying the leader board shuffle for glory. Racing got underway on schedule for the J/70s with a clean start, but not a good mid-line placement for the series leader going into the day—Richard Witzel on Rowdy. Closest rival Dingbat opted for the committee boat end of the line and it paid, as they took the lead on the second upwind, secured the race win and leapfrogged into first overall, with Rowdy dropping to leaderboard second after a seventh-place finish. The Race Committee attempted a second race, but called it off as the wind pretty much died completely. Two-time Olympian Thomas Barrows (USA) who made a first-time appearance on the winning team Dingbat said, “It was super shifty conditions all over the place, trending right throughout the day with big left shifts, and it was pretty stressful racing. It was really fun to be with a new enthusiastic team and obviously we improved as the event went on.” It was an incredible passage of play from Charles Thompson’s (GBR) all-star team on Brutus who came together as a crew for the first time for their debut appearance in Miami. Their second-place finish upgraded them from ninth overall going into the day to third overall by the end, boosted by discarding their 15th place from race 1. “You can’t have a team that has done as well as we have, coming third for our first regatta without some great support,” grinned Thompson. “So thank you to Kenny Harvey for preparing the boat so well. I think we did ourselves proud. We were a bit worried after the first race coming 15th that we didn’t have what it took, but Sam Carter, Ben Saxton and Twiggy helped us improve over the next two days.” Sam Carter (GBR) continued, saying, “It has been fantastic racing. Both Twiggy and Ben have done a fantastic job in calling tactics, and we just focused on a lot of gear changing, trying to keep the boat quick all the time and the guys kept us good in what we needed to do tactically. So we just improved as the days went on and it has been a good start.”
J/70 – Final Top 5 results after 6 races
- Bobby Julien / Thomas Barrows / Alec Anderson / Chris Watters (USA 639) – 19 pts
- Richard Witzel / Tomas Dietrich / Carlos Robles / Jud Smith (USA 1562) – 22 pts
- Charles Thompson / Sam Carter / Ben Saxton / Chris Grube (GBR 1123) – 26 pts
- Michael Illbruck / John Kostecki / Patrick Wilson / Will Felder (USA 1524) – 27 pts
- David Jannetti / Travis Odenbach / Andy Horton / Kris Warner (USA 1513) – 33 pts
For complete results, visit https://yachtscoring.com/event_results_cumulative.cfm?eID=14632.