Off to a bad start

Results from day one of the Star class' Bacardi Cup in Miami

Shifty and patchy light winds of under four knots caused two general recalls of the 97-boat Star Class fleet and delayed the start of the 2004 Bacardi Cup by almost three hours today.

US Olympic hopeful Paul Cayard and crew Phil Trinter of San Francisco ended the day in first place after edging out former German Olympian Marc Pickel and crew Ingo Borkowski who led for most of the race. Cayard, widely is recognised as one of international sailing's elite but who has never won a Bacardi Cup.

"We were a little lucky today, said Cayard. "The fleet was battling behind us. It gets progressively harder to sail in heavy traffic, and [Pickel] an I had an advantage being ahead in the leeward part of the course. At the end, the wind just filled up from our side and we made the most of it.

Third place was taken by Canadian Olympic medallist and four-time Bacardi Cup champion Ross Macdonald who ran consistently in the top 10 throughout the race. "I would have been happy with a top 12 finish so this is great," said Macdonald. "One of the weird quirks about sailing is that there is no definitive start time, just whenever the wind blows."

The German teams had a strong finish today with Michael Koch/Markus Koy in 11th place and Alexander Hagen/Wolfram Jochen in 13th.

Andy Lovell with crew Magnus Liljedahl, a four-time Bacardi Cup champion, were in the top five for most of the race but fell back to a 10th place finish after rounding the third mark. The USA teams of Rick Merriman/Bill Bennett and John Dane III/Henry Sprague finished in the top 10 as well.

Defending Bacardi Cup champion Peter Bromby of Bermuda and former Bacardi Cup champions Mark Reynolds, a seven-time winner, and Vince Brun , a six time winner, finished in the top 20.

Today was a good day for the 2002 Star European champion Frederik Loof and Italian Flavio Marazzi with crew Enrico De Maria both of whom ran in the top 10 and finished in 9th place.

However it was a terrible start for Britain's Iain Percy and Steve Mitchell who were disqualified for a black flag infringement along with 12 others. “One more mistake and the event is over for us, so we will just have to try and stay out of trouble." Percy said. Fortunately they may have one discard to play with if the fleet manages to sail of the six scheduled races.

Results

Pos	Boat	Skipper	Crew	Nat	Tot
1	8159	Paul Cayard	Phil Trinter	USA	1
2	8140	Marc Pickel	Ingo Borkowski	GER	2
3	8168	Ross Macdonald	Mike Wolfs	CAN	3
4	8141	Frederik Loof	Anders Ekstrom	SWE	4
5	8082	Rick Merriman	Bill Bennett	USA	5
6	7832	John Dane III	Henry Sprague	USA	6
7	8145	Afonso Domingos	Bernardo Santos	POR	7
8	8123	Hans Spitzauer	Andreas Hanakamp	AUS	8
9	8085	Flavio Marazzi	Enrico De Maria	SWI	9
10	8061	Andy Lovell	Magnus Liljedahl	USA	10
11	8150	Michael Koch	Markus Koy	GER	11
12	8129	Mark Reynolds	Steve Erickson	USA	12
13	7959	Alexander Hagen	Wolfram Jochen	GER	13
14	8184	John Maccausland	Brad Nichol	USA	14
15	8157	Colin Beashel	David Giles	AUST	15
16	8158	Maxwell Treacy	Anthony Shanks	IRE	16
17	8132	Vince Brun	Mike Dorgan	USA	17
18	7988	Peter Bromby	Lee White	BER	18
19	8162	Andy Macdonald	Austin Sperry	USA	19
20	7601	Michael Hicks	Patrick Hicks	GBR	20
21	8107	Xavier Rohart	Pascal Rambeau	FRA	21
22	8163	Eric Doyle	Brian Sharp	USA	22
23	8101	Nicklas Holm	Claus Olesen	DEN	23
24	8059	Peter Vessella	Brian Fatih	USA	24
25	8045	Augie Diaz	Hal Haenel	USA	25
26	8077	Howie Shiebler	Will Stout	USA	26
27	8176	Steven Kelly	William Holowesko	BAH	27
28	7592	Karl Anderson	Ezra Culver	USA	28
29	8094	Jali Makila	Erkki Heinonen	FIN	29
30	8084	Bob Teitge	Richard Burgess	USA	30
31	7228	Joe Zambella	Jeremy Davidson	USA	31
32	8073	Marko Dahlberg	Villie Kurki	FIN	32
33	7732	Gary Macdonald	Bill Batton	USA	33
34	7993	J Joseph Bainton	Chris Roger	USA	34
35	7	Aaron Serinis	John Avis	USA	35
36	7793	Brian Cramer	Eric Monroe	CAN	36
37	7450	Stefan Lehnert	Peter Menning	USA	37
38	7042	Steve Brown	Mike Marzahl	USA	38
39	7471	John J Bainton	William Christenson	USA	39
40	7640	Arthur Anosov	Dave Caesar	UKR	40
41	8043	Jock Kohlhas	Jon Rogers	USA	41
42	8128	G Brooks Sperry	Chris Eid	USA	42.5
42	8189	Bill Fields	Jeep Heckmann	USA	42.5
44	8190	Riccardo Simoneschi	Marko Marenco	ITA	44
45	8136	Arglye Campbell	Dimitry Yakovenk	USA	45
46	7956	Tony Herrmann	Todd Raynor	GER	46
47	8017	Todd Gay	Jon Klenk	USA	47
48	7629	Ken Woods	Howard Davis	USA	48
49	8130	Henning Voight	Dirk Struve	USA	49
50	7645	Daniel Wyss	Beat Stegmeier	SWI	50