Skandia head for Star Worlds

Steve Mitchell brings us up to date with his and Percy's campaign

The Star class has returned to Buenos Aires in the Argentinean summer for the first World Championship of 2005 in the Olympic Classes. The last time the Stars came here was in 1988 when a young Paul Cayard took away the trophy, and this World Championship follows on from a successful South American Championship held here in January and won by Lars Grael.

The line-up is, as always very strong, even in a post Olympic year, with a 65 boat entry list. The current world number one and world champion Loof/Ekstrom (SWE) have returned to defend their trophy. Teams looking to take their title include Athens Gold medalists Grael/Ferreria (BRA), 2003 world champions Rohart/Rambeau (FRA), 2000 Gold medalist Mark Reynolds, who has teamed up with former world champion crew Phil Trinter (USA) and a few new faces including Laser legend and Athens gold medalist Robert Scheidt (BRA) who has teamed up with Bruno Prada, who sailed for Brazil in the Finn in Athens. There are ourselves, the 2002 World Champions.

Conditions are expected to be hot, 30+degC, and this should drive SE sea breezes of 12-18 knots, in short perfect Star weather. The venue is on the south side of the River Plate, which at this point is about 80 miles wide, and 100 miles from the sea, so the water is fresh, although a slightly brown colour, similar to the Thames in London! The River is also pretty shallow providing a SPA regatta type chop.

The schedule of races starts today, Friday 11th with a practice race, and continues with one race per day starting at 3pm (when the sea breeze has established) finishing on Friday 18th with a lay day on Wednesday.

Athens seems a long time ago to us now, a distant memory, and after a long break we have been itching to get back in the boat. Iain has been away with the Italian America's Cup team, +39, sailing over the winter in Sicily, while I have been getting the boat ready for this event and managing the campaign, spending some time match racing, and taking some much needed rest.

Our campaign was given a massive boost with the commitment of Skandia, our sponsors from 2002 until Athens, who have renewed their partnership with us for another four years until Beijing in 2008. This is great news for any Olympic campaign, but to have such a strong commitment four years out makes planning and funding our campaign much easier. They have been by our side since we won the Worlds in 2002 and have never lost faith in us. To have a sponsor who is as committed and supportive as Skandia is a fantastic help to our campaign, and we hope we can give them the return they deserve.



The main change for us has been a full re-branding of the boat (see above) and it looks great in its new livery of turquoise and navy, certainly different from the boat park full of white stars; let’s hope it starts a new trend back to coloured boats. The boat is the same one that we used in Athens, built by Lillia in Italy, with some new sails from North UK, so is fully sorted and tuned, which should enable us to come back in close to where we left off.

We have had a few sails out on the River Plate, and speed has been good, we have won a couple of practice races, and it certainly feels good being back in the boat together.We will keep you updated each day with how we are going and what news there is from the event.

Entries

Pos	Helm	Crew	Nat	Fleet
1	Guillermo J. Calegari	Patricio Homps	Argentina	Buenos Aires
2	Eduardo Rawson	Nicolás Chernobilski	Argentina	Buenos Aires
3	Alejandro Cherro	Ariel Simonet	Argentina	Olivos
4	Martín Costa	Federico Mera	Argentina	Buenos Aires
5	Julio Labandeira	Valentín Thompson	Argentina	Olivos
6	Guillermo Calegari	Nicolás Rosas	Argentina	Buenos Aires
7	Alejandro Chometowski	Hernán Celedoni	Argentina	Buenos Aires
8	Pablo Gianelli	Jorge Caviglia	Argentina	Olivos
9	Eduardo Farre	Santiago Sharpin	Argentina	Olivos
10	Eduardo Soraide		Argentina	Olivos
11	Fabian Mac Gowan	Federico Calegari	Argentina	Olivos
12	Jorge Perez	Enrique de la Torre	Argentina	Olivos
13	Alejandro Suescun	Hector Moneta	Argentina	Olivos
14	Luis Bustelo	Jualian Gazari Barroso	Argentina	Olivos
15	Juan Kouyoumdjian	Juan Pablo Engelhard	Spain	Laredo
16	Alberto Zanetti	Mariano Lucca	Argentina	Olivos
17	Juan José Percossi	Juan Pablo Percossi	Argentina	Buenos Aires
18	Iain Murray	Andrew Palfrey	Australia	Lake Macquarie
19	Michael Jones	Simon Reffold	Australia	Lake Macquarie
20	Gastao Brun	Ubiratan Oliveira	Brasil	Rio de Janeiro
21	John King	Daniel Santiago	Brasil	Copacabana
22	Andre Mirsky	Marco Aurelio Sá Ribeiro	Brasil
23	Marcelo Fuchs	Fabio Kraiczyk	Brasil	Sao Paulo
24	Lars Grael	Marco Lagoa	Brasil	Paranoá
25	Peter Ficker	Marcelo Jordao	Brasil	Santos
26	Alessandro Pascolato	Ronald Seifert	Brasil	Guarapiranga
27	Robert Scheidt	Bruno Prada	Brasil	Guarapiranga
28	Torben Grael	Marcelo Ferreira	Brasil	Guanabara Bay
29	Mike Milner	Matthew Johnston	Canada	Lake Ontario
30	Brian Cramer	Iain Greensmith	Canada	Lake Ontario
31	Vicente Gimeno	Jorge Zuazola	Chile	Isolated
32	Roberto Bermudez	Dominico Manrique	Spain	Puerto de Santander
33	Guillermo Altadill	David Vera	Spain	Laredo
34	Xavier Rohart	Pascal Rambeau	France	Nice
35	Presti Philippe	Saliou Jean-Phillipe	France	Savoie
36	Iain Percy	Steve Mitchell	UK	Solent
37	Hermann Weiler	Steffen Rutz	Germany	Neuschwanstein
38	Hubert Rauch	Sergey Horetski	Germany	Andechser
39	Mahesh Ramchandran	Nitin Mongia	India	Isolated
40	Maurice O´Connell	Ed Peel	Irleland	Isolated
41	Max Treacy	Anthony Shanks	Irleland	Isolated
42	Mario Salani		Italy	Viareggio
43	Francesco Bruni	Guido Antar Vigna	Italy	Palermo
44	Lucio Boggi	Andrea Taragella	Italy	Viareggio
45	Luca Modena	Sergio Lambertenghi	Italy	North Garda
46	Corrado Cristaldini		Italy	Lario
47	Antonio Tamburini	Renzo Ricci	Italy	Salerno
48	Tomoya Hotta	Takashi Hotta	Japan	Isolated
49	Roy Heiner	Alex Breuseker	Holland	Holland
50	Antonio Tanger Correira	José Dias	Portugal	Lisbon
51	Afonso Domingos	Bernardo Santos	Portugal	Cascais
52	Vitaly Tarakanov	Aleksey Bushuev	Russia	Isolated
53	Peter Erzberger	Hans-Jurg Saner	Suisa	Thuner - Bielersee
54	Ingvar Krook	Per Elberg	Sweden	Aros
55	Fredrik Loof	Anders Ekstrom	Switzerland	Birka
56	Carlos Rivero	Hector Longarela	USA	Boston Harbor
57	Bill Allen	Brad Lichter	USA	Wilmette Harbor
58	George Szabo	Brian Fatih	USA	San Diego Bay
59	Claude Bonanni	Richard Burgess	USA	Tampa Bay
60	Mark Reynolds	Phil Trinter	USA	San Diego Bay
61	Eric Doyle	Brian Sharp	USA	Newport Harbor
62	Larry Whipple	Mark Strube	USA	Puget Sound

Iain Percy/Steve Mitchell sponsors

Thanks to all of our current sponsors who are continuing to support us to 2008.

Skandia – www.skandia.co.uk
Volvo Cars – www.volvocars.co.uk/sailing
Musto – Performance clothing – www.musto.co.uk
Payne Hicks Beach -Law – www.paynehicksbeach.co.uk
Marlow Ropes – www.marlowropes.com
Kaenon - Polarized Eyewear – www.kaenon.com
Harken – Yacht Fittings –www.harken.com
Pigbags – Custom harnesses, covers and bags – www.pigbags.com
North Sails One Design UK – www.northsailsod.co.uk
Emworx – Website design – www.emworx.com
Sparkes Yacht Harbour – www.sparkes.co.uk
David Heritage Racing Yachts – david.heritage@btconnect.com
Nick Harrison & Family
And of course the support of UK Sport through the Lottery Funding System – www.uksport.gov.uk