Today's Sailing News 

 Olympic Sailing: Mistrals in Sydney

Sailing the same waters as the upcoming Olympic regatta two fleets of Mistral board sailors completed the Mistral Ocean Championship.  Both fleets were won by New Zealand sailors.

In the women's fleet New Zealand's Barbara Kendall defeated America's Lanee Butler with a strong final day.  Kendall won 2 of the final 3 races.  Still, going into the final race butler led by a point.  However, Kendall was the race 10 with Butler 3rd, putting Kendall 2 points ahead at regatta end.

The men's fleet was won by Aaron Mcintosh over home country sailor Lars Kleppisch by 4 points. Neither sailor finished the regatta strong with each sailing one of their discards on the last day.

71st WMYA Regatta

This multi class regatta was sailed on Muskegon Lake Wednesday through Saturday.  Conditions ranged from heavy air on Wednesday to light air on Saturday.  

Closest class was the MC's.  This class was decided in the last race when Brian Mcmurry finished 9th.  In 10th was Chris Eggert who ended up 2nd.

Observing the regatta while taking photos, I noted the MC way of starting.  Never have I seen a class of boats where every single boat sits on the line sail at a luff waiting for the gun.  Phenomenal skill and uniformity in starting method.  

Saturday's final races were attended by a Lake Freighter.  I jokingly said that they could do NASCAR style oval track races around the freighter.

Discuss Today's Sailing News in the Sailing Daily Forum

Sign Up For ATWOS
Receive  Sailing news weekly with  Around the World of Sailing 
Enter E-mail address:

 Today's Sailing News 

The 210 class completed its' national championship regatta over the weekend.  Gull Lake Yacht Club was the host club.

Boats from Milwaukee's South Shore Yacht club filled the top 2 places.  In 1st was Firewood owned by Blackwood.  Firewood won 4 of the 7 races and finished with 12 points.  Screamin' Tuna was 2nd with 16.5 points.  Third was '4' from Massachusetts with 20 points.

Top home lake boat was Jim Babel in 5th place.  Muskegon's Tony Gretzky ended the regatta 9th, with a top finish of 3rd in race 3.

Currently being sailed in England's Solent is the Rolex Commodore's Cup 2000.  This is a team based offshore regatta much like the Kenwood Cup.  There are several main differences.  One, helmsman and the majority of the crew must be amateurs.  Second, the rating rule is the new IRM rule rather than IMS.  The IRM is a new rule developed in Britain.

Sailing as part of the Commonwealth's 3 boat team is a One Design 35, Respect.  Obviously meant as a one design it will be interesting to see how the One Design 35 fares.

To date, 3 races have been sailed.  Respect was 2nd on elapsed and corrected time in the first 2 races.  Ahead of them was an IRM 10.7 meter, designed to the IRM rule.

In the 3rd race, Respect was again 2nd on elapsed time, but fell to 7th on handicap.

Respect's competition included: Mumm 30's, and Ker 30's.