Orange Bowl 2009

            The Orange Bowl Regatta came to an exciting close on December 30, finishing up the youth regattas of 2009. We saw every condition from flat water, no wind, and 85 degrees to high waves, 15 knots, and too-cold-for-Florida weather. As always, the regatta was very well run, the race committees were excellent, and the competitors had a lot of fun. Click the class names below for results.

            Optimist RWB

Tommy Garber, an Opti sailor new to the fleet, summed up the regatta for the younger sailors saying , “It helps to not be over.” Even the second place finisher, Peruvian Javier Arribas, had two OCS scores in the final results. The other two top places were occupied by local brothers Christopher and Duncan Williford, Christopher beating Duncan by 11 points. Christopher also won Red Fleet while Gabriel Elstrodt of Brazil won Blue and Wiley Rogers of Houston won White.

            Club 420

Despite an OCS in the last race, Graham Landy and Colin Murphy held on to their position for the final day to win the C420 class. The team was closely followed by brothers Chris and Daniel Segerblom in second. Tyler Rice and Billy Gibbons, who finished third overall, found that an effective strategy for them involved singing Taylor Swift songs. Loudly. Interesting idea, and it seemed to work for them.

            International 420

Morgan Kiss and Katia DaSilvia won the I420 class with only 40 points in 12 races. They and the team of Deirdre Lambert and Tracy Doherty were two of the three all-girl teams to finish in a top five place. Raul Rios and Rogelio Fernandez finished between the two to get second place. Marcus Edegran, a recent buyer of an I420, credited the success of the last minute addition of the I420 class to many young sailors who, like him, bought the boats in order to compete internationally and participate in the Youth Worlds Qualifiers taking place in a few weeks. Due to the number of participants this year, the I420 class may become a permanent addition to the regatta.

            Laser Full

John Wallace won the Laser Full class with less than 20 points accumulated through the 12 races. Andrew Fox just barely beat out Ricardo Montemayor in a tie breaker for second place. These three competitors created a 20 point gap between themselves and the rest of the fleet, most likely because none of them held any race worse than a fifth place.

            Laser Radial

Max Lopez, an experienced Radial sailor, described his competitors’ success as coming from “having abs of steel and hiking like nobody’s business”. Clearly the windy conditions of this regatta made a lasting impression on him. Mateo Vargas, who must have followed Max’s advice,  finished first despite his high scoring last race beating Stefano Mazzaferro by only five points. Mitchell Kiss rounded out the top three with 68 points.

            Laser 4.7

Just Van Aanholt barely took first place in the 4.7 class by one point from Max Stein who lost it in a protest in the eleventh race. Juanky Perdomo finished in third despite two OCS scores which he dropped.

For further information and sponsers see the Coral Reef Yacht Club website.