Fuente info Scuttlebutt
Szabo / Peters Win Race 2 of Star World Championship
Varberg, Sweden: An American team led around every mark of the second race of the 2009 Star World Championship. Mark Mendelblatt and Mark Strube (USA) suffered a little more heartbreak today as they watched their 100 + yard lead vanish during a second run on which the fleet experienced a bit of rotation, shiftiness and the crossing of a current line. While Mendelblatt/Strube went high on the run, George Szabo and Rick Peters (USA), Flavio Marazzi and Enrico De Maria (SUI) and Robert Scheidt and Bruno Prada (BRA) went low and found the passing lane. The three kept their jets on and played the right side up the final beat in 4-5 knots of lumpy swells and rainy gray conditions.
Scheidt/Prada approached the finish line from the starboard layline and tried to time shooting the line with the precision of Michael Phelps gliding into the wall, but Szabo/Peters were able to slowly chug across the finish line on port and pull off the win.
Today's race got under way under a black flag following a long postponement on shore, an abandoned race due to a big shift immediately after the start, a general recall. Gray, wet, gloomy, chilly and limited visibility sum up the afternoon. Irish crew, Anthony Shanks, was emphatic and not sarcastic when he said, "you needed aids to navigation out there." The Swedish and Danish shorelines disappeared with the mist and the rain and many got disoriented with all of the shifts.
Racing continues on Tuesday with the third race of the 2009 Star World Championship in Varberg, Sweden. -- Lynn Fitzpatrick
Top ten after 2 races:
1. Marazzi/DeMaria (SUI) - 3, 3 - 6 points
2. Loof/Tillander (SWE) - 2, 5 - 7
3. Mendelblatt/Strube (USA) - 8, 4 - 12
4. Kusznierewicz/Zycki (POL)- 1, 13 - 13
5. Pepper/Monk (NZL) - 11, 9 -20
6. O'Leary/ Goodbody - 15, 10 - 25
7. Schlonski/Kleen (GER) - 9, 17 - 26
8. Scheidt/Prada (BRA) 26, 2 - 28
9. Celon/Natucci (ITA) - 7, 21 - 28
10. Campbell/Liljedahl (USA) - 14, 14 -28
www.giveandgo.se/vss
