The Skandia Star team of Iain Percy and Steve Mitchell have returned to the winter home of Star sailing, Miami Florida to do some training and racing at the Miami Olympic Classes Regatta. There have been Stars training here since November last year from many countries, taking advantage of the great conditions and climate.

“After our European Championship victory in Sweden in the summer, this will be our first major regatta this year. We are also joined by members of Skandia Team GBR in the other Olympic classes, as the team looks to maintain its top spot in world sailing.

“We spent a week training in 10-20 knots, looking at some new sails and getting our manoeuvres polished, and this weekend took part in the Biscayne Trophy, a warm up event for the Stars before the Miami OCR, which starts on Monday and finishes on Friday.

“Most of the big names are here, with the only team missing from the top 10 in the rankings being Torben Grael/Marcelo Ferreira (BRA) who are on Volvo Race duty. 75 boats made it to the start line this weekend, and on Saturday two races were held, winds were 10-16 knots and choppy, we had good speed and had close battles with Olympic Silver medalists MacDonald/Wolfs (CAN) in both races, scoring a 2nd and 3rd to their 1st and 2nd , to be 2 points behind overnight. Loof/Ekstrom (SWE) won race 2, and the consistent Germans Pickel/Borkowski held third overall.

“Sunday bought more wind, an easterly 16-22 knots, with a short chop kicked up in the shallow water. The one race of the day saw us trail Horton/Nichol (USA) around the first mark, but the reaching course suited us and we overtook them and put 50 yards between us by the leeward mark. MacDonald/Wolfs were in the chasing pack along with Loof/Ekstrom and eight times Laser World Champion Robert Scheidt/Bruno Prada (BRA). We held first, with Scheidt second and MacDonald third, and that was how we finished, tying on points with the Canadians, but with us winning overall on tie break.

“We have nine races next week and a new double scoring ‘Medal Race’ on Friday which is a new format to be introduced at the 2008 Olympics. Forecast is for 8-14 knots most of the week, and competition will be intense. We’ll keep you up to date as we go.”

Results

1 GBR, PERCY and MITCHELL 6 PTS

2 CAN, MACDONALD and WOLFS 6 PTS

3 GER, PICKEL and BORKOWSKI 14PTS

4 SWE, LOOF and EKSTROM 18PTS

5 USA, DANE and SPERRY 18PTS

6 BRA, SCHEIDT and PRADA 25PTS