Big breeze and black flags

Hamish Pepper discuses the competition halfway through the Star World Championships

Above: Pepper and Williams in big breeze yesterday.

“It was windy as hell out there,” explained USA’s Mark Mendelblatt upon returning to shore after yesterday’s 30 knot race at the Star World Championships in Miami. Hamish Pepper, after scoring a second place, was somewhat more subdued “Well, today was extremely difficult. It was very fresh and there were big squalls coming through as well as a number of shifts,” the New Zealand, 2006 Star World Champion explained to TheDailySail. “But we managed to hold on pretty well and finish up second, so we were pretty happy with that.”

Inspite of the difficult conditions on Tuesday – day four of the championship – Pepper says for the most part the weather and the sailing have been great in Miami. “Generally it has been really nice. There have been some really great conditions here. So far it has been warm and nice with light to medium breezes, great conditions really.”

Despite a second place in yesterday’s tough conditions Pepper is trying not to read too much into the results at this stage. “To be honest I have not yet looked at the score-sheet so I don’t know what is going on,” he admits. “At the end of the day with a black flag we can’t look at the results until we get a drop and as soon as we get one we will be able to play the game really.”

Pepper and his crew Carl Williams picked up their black flag on Saturday, the second day of the championships, along with 24 others in the fleet. With almost a quarter of the competitors receiving a black flag in that race, one might think something particularly special might have happened at the start. However, Pepper reveals there was nothing special about it. “Everyone was pretty eager and sheeted on really early and went for it. We actually saw we were very close to our transit on the start line so we pulled out and bore away. We still managed to be called so we must have been over earlier I guess,” he explains.

Pepper does think some mistakes were made on that start, though. “It was pretty strange - I was a bit surprised at the race committee. I thought they should have general recalled it and put the black flag boats on a board, they could then get off the course and made it a fair start for those boats that had started correctly or had not been caught,” he comments. “We would still have been called over but with 25 boats gone in one start being let go then generally those 25 boats are going to be at the front of the fleet for the beat and they are going to be tacking on people that started correctly, which is a bit hard for them.”

In addition to the race on Saturday there have been a number of other boats either black flagged or called OCS. As most appreciate the Star fleet is extremely competitive and a quick glance down the results sheet shows a wealth of talent. Of course with this being the Olympic year the competition is possibly as tough as it is ever likely to be. “Any world championship is extremely hot, but with this being the year of the Olympics and with countries still trying to qualify everyone is as prepared as possible for this Worlds and the competition is red hot,” explains Pepper, perhaps revealing why starts are being so aggressively fought at this venue. “It really is the case that you can’t give an inch or else you will lose a mile. But that is Star sailing really.”

With many teams still vying to qualify their nation for an Olympic spot it seemed likely to us that there might be a few names in the top few that are a surprise. “Well I have not looked at the results yet. We are not looking until a drop comes in at which point we should shoot up the leader board,” Pepper says. “I know Mateusz [Kusznierewicz] is having a great regatta, Robert [Scheidt] is going quick and showing his form again. It is going to be a close regatta at the finish but I think everyone is where they should be.”

As to the Olympics themselves Pepper is starting to ramp up his campaign, but there are a number of other commitments he has on his plate. “We have Qingdao in mind and we will probably up the game a bit before then,” he comments. “We have spent some time here in Miami and then after this we go to Valencia with BMW Oracle. We are fortunate enough to be able to do both and we will just work the best we can with what we have got,” he concludes.