Pepper and Williams in 4th at Star Worlds

by Jodie Bakewell-White

Hamish Pepper and Carl Williams are lying 4th overall at the 2008 Star World Championship with just one race remaining. After finishing 15th in race five just sailed in Miami, the pair has leapt from 18th overall up to 4th aided by the introduction of the discard.

It was another trying day for competitors and officials alike with a number of consecutive postponements in an attempt to start race five due to a shifting breeze at the scheduled midday start time. In a building breeze the one race of the day finally kicked off at around 1:30pm on Biscayne Bay.

Pepper and Williams are within reach of a podium place sitting just three points adrift of Robert Sheidt and Bruno Prada lying 3rd. However, points on the leader board are tight behind Pepper and Williams with a further three crews not too far behind.

The overall leaders going into the final day are Mateusz Kusznierewicz and Dominik Zycki who have a comfortable eight point buffer over second place. They were 4th in race five and now have a total of nine points; a good race tomorrow could seal the world title for the pair from Poland.

The final race in this Star Class Championship will include the entire 104 boat fleet rather than be sailed as a top ten only medal race introduced for this year’s Olympic Games and adopted by many of the other Olympic classes. The Stars however, have stayed with class tradition where the final race of the regatta is just the same as the five before it.

The final deciding race of the regatta is set for midday Thursday in Miami (Friday 4am New Zealand time).

2008 Star World Championship
PROVISIONAL Overall Standings after Race Five

1st POL Kusznierewicz, Mateusz/Zycki, Dominik – 9 points (1, 1, [44], 3, 4)
2nd ITA Negri, Diego/Viale, Luigi - 17 points (3, 3, [25], 9, 2)
3rd BRA Scheidt, Robert/Prada, Bruno - 29 points ([37], 12, 2, 1, 14)
4th NZL Pepper, Hamish/Williams, Carl – 32 points (12, [105/BFD], 3, 2, 15)
5th GER Pickel, Marc/Borkowski, Ingo – 34 points (5, [105/BFD], 6, 18, 5)
6th USA Mendelblatt, Mark/Strube, Mark – 36 points (2, 6, [32], 17, 11)
7th SUI Marazzi, Flavio/De Maria, Enrico – 38 points (6, 14, [47], 10, 8)
8th FRA Rohart, Xavier/Rambeau, Pascal – 46 points ([26], 21, 1, 4, 20)
9th SWE Loof, Fredrik/Ekstrom, Anders – 49 points (27, 8, 9, 5, [49])
10th AUS Murray, Iain/Palfrey, Andrew – 51 points (11, 11, 5, 24, [31])

2008 Star World Championships