| Day
7: U.S. Olympic Star Class Trials - Cayard Cruises
In The Wings, Should Clinch Sunday
Saturday's
wind: E, 19-22 knots. Sunday's forecast (by Chris
Bedford): E, 10-17 knots.
By
Rich Roberts
For YachtRacing.com
Photo
boat captain Daryl Saunders.
MIAMI,
Fla.---Paul Cayard and crew Phil Trinter remained
quietly in the wings Saturday as three other teams
took center stage with victories in the U.S. Olympic
Trials for the Star class.
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Paul
Cayard and Phil Trinter prepare their Star
as an elite Opti class sails out from Coral
Reef YC for their own racing Saturday. Photo
© Rich Roberts / YachtRacing.com
|
Cayard
and Trinter's time will come Sunday. With finishes
of fourth, third and fifth Saturday, all they need
to do is finish 14th or better in one of the three
remaining scheduled races, then the curtain will
come down on an overpowering performance.
If
they do it in the first race---and nobody believes
they won't---they'll skip the last two as their
allotted throwouts. Their worst results are a sixth
the first day and the fifth Saturday. There's a
good chance the other 21 competitors will join them
in the race to the hoist after a tough week and
a half on windy Biscayne Bay.
The
winners Sunday in continuing brisk breezes of 19-22
knots were Eric Doyle/Brian Sharp, Andy Lovell/Magnus
Liljedahl and, taking a bow worthy of legends, Mark
Reynolds and crew Steve Erickson.
George
Szabo and crew Mark Strube fell out of second place
with their second bad day of the series (8-9-8)
after a string of seven races no worse than third.
Their worst moment was at the first windward mark
of the first race when they got caught in current
and a disturbed air and couldn't fetch the mark,
losing several boats as they circled back.
Reynolds,
Szabo's boss at San Diego's Quantum Sails loft,
had his best day with a first and a third to go
with an 11th Saturday, typical of an up-and-down
regatta. Reynolds and Erickson returned to the dock
resigned that they wouldn't be winning any more
gold medals at Athens in August.
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Mark
Reynolds and Steve Erickson (left) set up next
to Paul Cayard/Phil Trinter for a winning run
downwind to the finish. Photo © Rich Roberts
/ YachtRacing.com
|
Erickson,
42, won his with Bill Buchan at Long Beach in 1984.
Reynolds, 48, won golds with Hal Haenel and Liljedahl
and a silver with Haenel as his country's representative
in the last four Olympics.
"I'm
happy with what I've had," Reynolds said. "I
never would have predicted I would have gone four
times."
Erickson
praised the apparent winner. "Paul sailed really
solid, but just sailing [near] him you can see he
was sailing conservatively. That's maturity. There's
a time to take it easy and not let your ego get
wrapped up in it."
Surely,
whenever the winners looked back, Cayard was not
far behind, biding his time.
Saturday's
strongest performance was by Lovell and Liljedahl,
who were Cayard/Trinter's tuning partners the last
two months. They not only scored a 5-1-2 string
of finishes but took a whopper bonus of 23 points
when the second discard kicked in after 12 races
to vault from seventh to second place.
What
might have been if they had been told they were
over the line early in Race 1 on the first day,
instead of continuing on to break their mast and
thus miss Race 2, as well, can't be known. That
was the unfortunate policy of the event. But nobody
except Cayard/Trinter sailed better after that.
"We
came back," said Lovell, whose older brother
John is going to his third consecutive Olympics
with crew Charlie Ogletree in the Tornado catamaran
class. "We were dead last after the first day
but we kept going."
Liljedahl
said, "It felt like we came into the series
as underdogs. The first day was a disaster, but
I know from sailing with Mark [Reynolds] that it's
never over. Everything you do, never give up."
Good
examples of that attitude Saturday were the Schofield
brothers, Doug and Bob, from Boston. Their mast
broke in the first race but they got a quick tow
in to change to their backup as the second race
was under way and returned in time to sail the third,
finishing 17th.
The
point, Doug Schofield said, "We wanted to have
one good race, not a DNF [did not finish] and two
DNSs [did not starts]."
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Mark
Reynolds/Steve Erickson lead pack of rivals
Andy Lovell/Magnus Liljedahl, George Szabo/Mark
Strube (7995) and Paul Cayard/Phil Trinter (8159).
Photo © Rich Roberts / YachtRacing.com
|
Training
with Cayard also lifted their game, Liljedahl said.
"He
has by far the most professional program here. It's
quite awesome to see."
Doyle/Sharp
have matched Cayard/Trinter with four wins in the
13 races so far, but they stumbled into an early
start in the last race Sunday. Like Lovell/Liljedahl,
though, they didn't learn of their transgression
until returning to shore, although fearing the worst.
"I
had a really good line sight on the shore,"
Doyle said, "and I thought we were in good
shape. Then I saw the flag go up and then the second
gun."
Otherwise,
Doyle said, it was a good day. Reynolds led at every
mark in the first race but Doyle flew past on the
run to the finish.
"We
made all the gains that counted downwind,"
Doyle said, "which was nice because we'd been
struggling downwind all week."
But
even Doyle, Lovell and then Reynolds raced to victories,
a glance over their shoulders would reveal that
Cayard was never far behind.
"It's
not over yet," Cayard said, "but it would
be pretty nice to go to the Olympics."
NOTE:
YachtRacing.com expresses its deep appreciation
to competitor John Dane of New Orleans and his chase
boat captain, Daryl Saunders, for accommodation
throughout the Trials to follow and photograph the
racing, without which the extent of our coverage
would not have been possible.
Leaders
(22 boats, 13 of 16 races, two discards):
1.
Paul Cayard/Phil Trinter, San Francisco, 2-(6)-1-2-3-1-1-4-2-1-4-3-(5),
24 points.
2.
Andy Lovell/Magnus Liljedahl, New Orleans, (23/OCS)-(23/DNS)-4-3-11-3-7-3-5-2-5-1-2,
46.
3.
George Szabo/Mark Strube, San Diego, 4-5-(14)-(9)-1-4-2-1-3-3-8-9-8,
48.
4.
Eric Doyle/Brian Sharp, San Diego, 1-1-9-8-5-10-(12)-11-1-8-1-6-(23/OCS),
61.
5.
Mark Reynolds/Steve Erickson, San Diego, 5-2-10-7-13-2-(15)-9-7-4-3-11-1,
61.
6.
Vince Brun/Mike Dorgan, San Diego, (23/OCS)-9-2-1-4-5-3-10-11-6-11-7-3,
61.
7.
John MacCausland/Brad Nichol, Cherry Hill, N.J,
6-8-3-6-10-(15)-5-8-4-9-(15)-8-7, 74.
8.
Andrew MacDonald/Austin Sperry, Laguna Beach, Calif.,
11-7-5-4-6-(13)-10-7-12-5-10-5-4, 74.
9.
Rick Merriman/Bill Bennett, San Diego, 7-4-(17)-13-2-7-9-5-8-7-6-(15)-9,
77.
10.
Howie Shiebler/Will Stout, San Francisco, 3-3-6-(23/OCS)-12-9-6-(23/DNF)-14-15-2-2-12,
84.
Complete
standings: www.ussailing.org/olympics/olympictrials/2004
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