Beautiful sunshine and light breeze welcomed this morning the 36 teams attending the inaugural Star Junior World Championship at Coral Reef Yacht Club in Miami, USA. The Committee was eager to get on the racecourse as the weather forecast said the breeze would be dropping in the early afternoon. One race was concluded on Biscayne Bay with the wind blowing around 6-8 knots from West at the start at 12,10 pm and then dropping to 4-5 knots towards the end of the race one hour and 15 minutes later.
The fleet began the Junior World Championship with a general recall and a few flags went up on the racecourse for unauthorized pumping over the four leg race. The fleet was distributed evenly over the course, with a little more wind on the right hand side of it, towards Key Biscayne. It was American Star sailor Luke Lawrence, with crew Alexey Selivanov, who took an early lead at the first windward mark and kept gaining on the way down to the gate and through to the finish. Behind them, the Italian Laser Radial Youth World Champion, Guido Gallinaro with German Star World Champion crew Firthjof Kleen fought for second against Irish brothers Robert and Peter O’Leary – in the unusual setting with Robert at the helm. Read more.
