In late January, more than 600 of the world’s best sailors will descend on south Florida for a full week of tight competition in a gorgeous venue. Nope, I’m not talking about Key West Race Week. I mean the ISAF Sailing World Cup Miami event, where Olympic hopefuls from around the world will test their skills on always-challenging Biscayne Bay January 25-31.
The regatta is the second of six events — and only one in the United States — in the 2014-15 ISAF Sailing World Cup, which kicked off with an event in Melbourne, Australia, in December. The remaining World Cup events for the 2014-15 season will be held in Hyeres, France; Weymouth and Portland, Great Britain; a site in Asia yet to be determined; and another venue yet to be sited for a culminating final.
The weeklong regatta will include competition in all of the Olympic and Paralympic sailing classes: 2.4mR (singlehanded Paralympic class), 470 (men’s and women’s doublehanded fleets), 49er (men’s doublehanded skiff), 49erFX (women’s doublehanded skiff), Finn (men’s heavyweight singlehanded dinghy), Laser (men’s singlehanded), Laser Radial (women’s singlehanded), Nacra 17 (mixed doublehanded catamaran), RS:X (men’s and women’s windsurfer fleets), SKUD 18 (Paralympic doublehanded skiff, at least one crew must be female), and Sonar (Paralympic triplehanded keelboat).
The massive event is hosted by sailing facilities around Biscayne Bay, as boats launch from the Miami Rowing Club, Shake-a-Leg Miami, Coconut Grove Sailing Club, and the U.S. Sailing Center Miami. Other events are hosted at Coral Reef YC. Registration is open until January 25 (January 5 for early entry fee); although there are caps on the size of each fleet and many — but not all — caps have already been reached.
In addition to sailing out of multiple venues, fleets will sail on several different race courses, so RS:X sailors may have a very different experience from, say, Sonar sailors, as wind conditions can vary across Biscayne Bay.
All sailors will have an intense experience, as all fleets are scheduled to sail at least 10 races in their opening series. Races are standard windward/leeward or trapezoid courses, with a few exceptions. Some of the larger fleets may break that opening series down into a qualifying series to determine gold and silver fleets, and then a final series. And all fleets will sail a final medal race, following Olympic format designed to bring maximum drama to the last race of the regatta.
The Miami regatta, formerly known as the “Miami Olympic Classes Regatta” or the “Miami OCR,” is a tremendous experience for gaining experience, tactical and strategic savvy, and boatspeed while on the water, and for talking through scenarios and boat settings with fellow competitors off the water. And of course for the fun factor of catching up and making new friends from around the world (at my first OCR, I was in the make-your-own-ice cream-sundae line behind Robert Scheidt!).
A few teams from the Chesapeake area will head down for the event. The team of Thomas Barrows and Annapolis’s own Joe Morris sail the high-performance 49er, which requires nimble footing and cat-like reflexes. Barrows and Morris met while in college at Yale, where they each skippered in intercollegiate sailing. They first teamed up in the 49er in late 2012, and have been on an upward trajectory ever since. They sailed to a solid mid-fleet finish at the September 2014 ISAF Sailing World Championships in Santander, Spain, and seek to build on that success. Other Chesapeake-area sailors slated to compete include Joseph David (Laser, from Norfolk) and Farrah Hall (RS:X, Annapolis).
But in the big scheme of things, that’s not many sailors from our area. It’s not that long a drive for such a major regatta; I’ve known people to make the drive home from Miami to the Annapolis area in about 18 hours. The payoff for that investment in time is huge.
True, not many of the boats sailed at the Miami World Cup regatta have big fleets here on the Bay. But these are the fleets I hope many of our young sailors aspire to; that they want to sail these boats as a first step toward an Olympic campaign. There are so very many highly talented junior sailors around the Bay — wouldn’t it be great to see even more of them stepping up to try for small one-design boats’ highest honor? Are people hesitant to participate in a regatta if they don’t think they’ll do well? That’s silly … at the Miami regatta, only one boat in each fleet wins, but every team learns a lot. What can we all do to foster their participation?
by Kim Couranz
