this one goes to eleven

Ed Wright proved that he’s the best Finn sailor in the world in ‘Frisco this past week, winning the Finn Gold Cup by a whopping 31 points over second place Rafael Trujillo. The large point win however was misleading as the two actually had a close battle for most of the regatta. Giles Scott and Zach Railey followed very close to grab third and fourth. And if you awe wondering about the title of this piece, well clicking here and here should pretty much explain it. Thanks again to Robert Deaves for the photos and doing such good work reporting on this event.

Phil Toth gives his report from the non pointy end of the fleet. His comments about athletes in this class are spot on.

Today started with a delay due to fog, when that finally cleared the wind had already built to 18-21 kts by the time the first gun went off. Giles Scott, Rafael Trujillo and Edward Wright were the top three in race one. By race two the Ebb had fully started to flow and, as if conditions are not tough enough already, the wind piped up to 27+kts. With the wind going against the current there were some GIANT waves and puffs coming down the course.

Quite a few times sailors could be seen out straight leg hiking only to have a wave crash over their bow and clear the top of their head, doing a full body slam to the hiking helmsman, effectively stopping the boat. Your mind sees it coming and wants to react to avoid this nasty wave but the body has nothing to respond with. After being battered and bruised like this for the past 5 days, physically you can’t do anything because there is nothing left in the tank. If ever anyone says that sailing is not a real athletic sport get them to race a Finn on the Olympic Berkeley Circle. The guys wearing heart rate monitors are finding that they are burning 2500-2800 calories per race…and we do two races per day. Anyone looking at the pointy end of this fleet will admit that Ed Wright, Rafael Trujillo, and Giles Scott are true athletes.