Sperry & Macdonald competing at the Rolex Miami OCR

Thursday, January 28, 2010

More than 600 athletes representing 45 nations have hit their regatta halfway mark after today’s racing at US SAILING’s 2010 Rolex Miami OCR, the second of seven stops of the International Sailing Federation, ISAF) Sailing World Cup 2009-2010.

Today was a picturesque light-air day on Biscayne Bay, but many sailors worked the conditions to their advantage. The unstoppable SKUD-18 team of Scott Whitman, Brick, N.J.) and Julie Dorsett, West Chester, Pa./Boca Raton, Fla.), who hope to have a repeat gold medal performance of last year’s Rolex Miami OCR, added two more bullets to their collection today in the talented seven-boat fleet.

Norway’s Aleksander Wang-Hansen and crew Per Eugen Kristiansen and Marie Solberg led the nine-boat Sonar fleet after five races, with a 1-3 today. “We’ve been trying to sail conservatively and consistently, and it has paid off so far,” said Wang-Hansen. “It’s been very shifty, and we’ve been trying to tack on the shifts and stay on the right side of the fleet. We had fantastic down wind legs, and I think that helped a lot.”

A complete roster can be viewed at the event web site, rmocr.ussailing.org, where real-time regatta results, photos and updates are posted daily. Video highlights, produced by T2Productions, will air Wednesday through Saturday and can be viewed on the event web site. Fans can also visit the Facebook fan page and Twitter page.