Everything is ready on lake Erie, at Edgewater Yacht Club, in Cleveland Ohio for the first whistle of the Star Western Hemisphere Championship, worth 740 SSL points.
The competition is officially opened since yesterday, Tuesday the 13th but it’s today that the first race will take place – even though it’ll only be a practice race. From tomorrow there will be 2 races a day for the 31 team entered.
Among them Star World champion George Szabo from San Diego, sailing with Dave Martin, Jim Revkin, Jack Jennings from Chicago – lately sailing with crew World Champion Fritjof Kleen, here with Phil Trinter – and yet another World Champion Eric Doyle from Newport Harbour, on the boat with Payson Infelise.
It will be a tough battle, also regarding the SSL Finals. George Szabo is on the second spot of the ranking with 9896 points, and is pretty sure to be among the finalists, but Doyle desperately needs points to make the top12, being 15th with ‘only’ 3214 points. These 750 added to a bigger pot he might gather at the Worlds in Denmark in a couple of weeks and he could join the best of the best sailors in Nassau, Bahamas next December.
Keep up with the results on our Facebook page, and best of luck to everyone!
SSL Press Officer since 2015