Finns at the leeward mark. Image copyright Rolex/Daniel Forster.
by Robert Deaves
It was another flawless performance from Skandia Team GBR's Giles Scott on day two of the Rolex Miami OCR, the second leg of the 2011 ISAF Sailing World Cup, as he extended his lead at the top of the Finn fleet with two more race wins. He now has a perfect scoreline of four wins from four races. Ben Ainslie (GBR) moves up to second while Zach Railey (USA) drops to third overall.
Though Tuesday had started out with promises of increasing wind throughout the day, by the late afternoon it had settled down to 10-12 knots. Race three started under a black flag with Giles Scott continuing his winning ways from day one with a third race victory in a row, this time from Andrew Mills (GBR) and Brendan Casey (AUS). Casey had led Mills through the downwind gate, but by the finish they had traded positions.
The fourth race started soon after with Scott taking his fourth win of the week so far. Team mates Ben Ainslie (GBR) and Andrew Mills (GBR) crossed in second and third.
Speaking about his consistency so far, Scott said, “There have been quite slow steady shifts so managing them has been quite key as well as being fast in a straight line. I found that getting a good start has given me a half boat length jump on the fleet to enable me to tack off when I want.”
“Today we were expecting a lot more breeze then we ended up with. We had 10-14 knots with a slight right trend early on. By the end of the second race conditions were very similar to that of yesterday. For tomorrow, I'll be doing nothing different to what I do on any race day – I'll just try to do the same again.”
Apart from Scott, Mills had the second best score of the day with a 2-3 to move up one place to fifth. Mills said, “It was a similar day to yesterday in terms of wind strength. Both races probably paid on the right slightly on first beats although pretty normal shifts of about 10 degrees. Downwind has been pretty hard work with new unlimited pumping rules and there are big gains to be made if you can get the right technique.”
On his team mate he said, “Giles is not doing anything out of the normal. He is getting good starts and is quick then it's a bit of a downwind race really.”
A 4-6 for Zach Railey, drops him from second overnight to third place. But he was upbeat about his performance. “The fleet is pretty tight with the top boats all pushing each other really hard. I am really happy and feel like some of the changes we have made from Australia worked very well.” Meanwhile, Casey's 3-7 keeps him in fourth place with only four points now separating second to fifth.
Fleet racing continues until Friday with the medal race for the top 10 on Saturday 29 January.
Results after four races:
1 GBR 41 Giles Scott 4
2 GBR 3 Ben Ainslie 14
3 USA 4 Zach Railey 15
4 AUS 1 Brendan Casey 17
5 GBR 85 Andrew Mills 18
6 SLO 5 Gasper Vincec 23
7 SLO 573 Vasilij Zbogar 26
8 USA 619 Caleb Paine 36
9 SWE 736 Johan Tillander 41
10 CAN 902 Brendan Wilton 52
Finn class
RMOCR
