Perfect Miami conditions bring American Olympic sailor Charlie Buckingham with Austin Sperry to the lead

It was a typical Biscayne Bay kind of day; sunshine and breeze going from 6-7 knots in the morning up to 10-12 in the afternoon. Three races were sailed as scheduled, thanks to a great job by the Race Committee with PRO Carl Schellbach, and the 36 teams, with their ’30 and under’ skippers who really enjoyed the second day of the inaugural Star Junior World Championship hosted by the Coral Reef Yacht Club.

With today’s three races completed the Championship is back on schedule with the provisional leaders, after four races, American Charlie Buckingham – who moved to the Star after finishing fourth in the Laser at the recent World Cup Series event – and Star US Olympian, Austin Sperry. The American team posted a bullet in today’s last race, while the other two race wins went to Star Sailors League Finals 2018 winner Pedro Trouche (BRA) crewing for American Tomas Hornos, sitting in second place overall, and to 2017 Star World Champion crew Joshua Revkin (USA), at the helm, with Arthur Anosov as crew. Third overall are Americans Luke Lawrence with Alexey Selvanov, winners of yesterday’s only race.

“The breeze was better today – said Charlie Buckingham (USA) – our speed was good both up and downwind and we managed to be consistent. I’d love to race the Star more often, I tried to do that when I am not training or racing the Laser, any regatta that I can do, I do it. Now we’re focused on being consistent and fast again tomorrow for the last two races.”

“It’s nice to be the provisional leaders – said Austin Sperry (USA), not here as just a crew but one of the organizers behind the event, being Secretary of the District – but the best is coming back ashore and seeing the Aussie guy Jake Lilley with a big smile saying he’s going to get himself a Star and he’s going to stay here and sail at the Mid-Winters this weekend. To me that’s the win!”

The day kicked off with a clean start at 11:20 with the wind blowing from East at about 7 knots. Hornos and Trouche were leading at the first windward mark through to the finish. A bit trickier was the start of race 3 – the second for today – it took three general recalls before the Race Committee was able to see the fleet advance on the first of four legs. Revkin and Antonov were able to get a good start and control their lead over the Mexican skipper Juan Ignacio Perez and his crew Mark Strube until the end. At the start of race four, the wind had picked up to 12 knots and the seas a bit choppy and American Olympic Laser sailor Charlie Buckingham with experienced crew Austin Sperry were able to be quite fast both upwind and downwind getting the victory over Australian newbie to the Star Jake Lilley and Lewis Brake, fifth overall.

“We caught a shift right after the start – said Tomas Hornos (USA), winner of race 2 – our speed was really good, we just played out in front and we covered the fleet after that making it look easy, but it wasn’t easy. We are really happy, we needed that!”

“It took me a little while to get back into things, but it feels good – said Joshua Revkin (USA), winner of race 3, normally crewing for Eivind Melleby (NOR) – our speed is up to pace, I had a bad start in the second race and it took a lot of effort to get back into it, but the third race we got off the line and cruised to a pretty easy first place. We had a great time, it’s the perfect conditions you can have in Miami and hopefully tomorrow there’s more of the same.”

And the conditions tomorrow look to be the same as today with the first start will be at 10,25am, two races scheduled with no warning sequence starting after 2pm.

The first Star Junior World Champions will be crowned tomorrow after racing with the prizegiving ceremony held at the beautiful Coral Reef Yacht Club.